Park
Park Josipa Jurja Strossmayera Đarđin
Leafy garden between old Venetian bastions, watched over by a giant bronze bishop with a golden toe.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Đardin, the park outside Split's Golden Gate, opens with eight meters of bronze bishop Grgur Ninski vanishing from the Peristyle for thirteen years. It follows sculptor Ivan Meštrović's 1929 statue honoring the tenth-century bishop who won the right to hold Mass in Croatian, and the November 1941 night Italian occupying forces dismantled it and hauled it to a harbor warehouse. Rumor around town at the time said the bronze had been melted down for shell casings, and the empty plinth stood alone on the Peristyle for years.
This audio guide was created using AI.