Sightseeings Nin
Baptismal Font of Prince Višeslav
A baptismal font of Prince Višeslav who was, according to some historians, the first Croatian prince who ruled about 800 year, origins from Nin. The baptismal font is an important part of the church furniture. It testifies about the time of baptizing of Croats. It is a six-sides stone vessel into which believing people were dived by baptizing. The copy of the font is in the Archaeological Collection in Nin and the original is in the Museum of Croatian Archaeological Monuments in Split.
At the edge of the six-sided font there is the inscription:
"This spring takes the weak to make them enlightened. Here they wash themselves from their crimes which they took from their first parent, to become Christians, holy confessing eternal trinity."
Church St. Cross- the Smallest Cathedral in the World
The church St. Cross from the 9th century ,called «the smallest cathedral in the world» dominates over the area with its position and beauty mong the most important preserved monuments of the oldcroatian church architecture, of an unique architectural style. It is put into the representative monuments of the earlymiddleages architecture.
It is a building of interesting central type with a groundplan in the form of a cross with a lot of irregularity in the groundplan. All the branches are surmounted by a cupola wich has an dominant accent on that building- it is in irregular, oval and elongated form and it is being narrowed on the top. The outside wall is decorated by a row of blind niches. A very significant detail on the church is a stone lintel above the door which is decorated by an interlacing-ribbon pattern. At the lower side there is the carved name of the district-governor Godečaj. Near the church some earlymiddleages graves were found with relatively little findings which could be dated from the 8th till the 15th century. On the terrain were found the destroyed parts of antique architecture in dry-wall technics and also parts of the material culture of Croats from the 8th century. The church of St. Cross is a building of central type with blind niches.Its groudplan is an one- branch Greek cross. This building was created and had a meaning to serve like o'clock or a calender.
Bishop Grgur from Nin and Glagolista
One of the most significant bishops from Nin is certainly bishop Grgur from Nin, the chancellor of the Croatian Court. In the 10th century he was the main fighter for oldslavic language and for using of glagolitsa in liturgy.
The bronze sculpture of bishop Grgur awaits you proudly in the center of the old city of Nin «making» your wishes true if you touch his tomb. The sculpture is a work of famous Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović who gave sculptures of bishop Grgur to the city of Varaždin, and to Split ( wich version in Split is more monumental und not fully like original). Meštrović said by giving the sculpture: “Grgur from Nin, he on the northern Croatia and he on the southern Croatia in Split- should be the proof for our succesful fight for churchslavic language and Croatian Glagolitsa”. The sculpture in Varaždin was erected on the 20th of September 1931 and the sculpture of an identical shape was erected in Nin on the 10 th September 1969 on the occasion of 900 anniversary of issuing a chart by Croatian king Patar Krešimir IV, in which he spread the kingdom on the sea and on the mainland and with which he called our sea Mare nostrum.
NATIONAL SCRIPT - GLAGOLITSA
The Croatian people can boast with the fact that it has its special national script. Each people, by baptizing and joining the Christian community got immediately translated on its language the holy books. When they got baptized and gave the written promise to the Roman Pope that they will be in peace with the neighbour peoples, the Croats had to get the holy liturgics books, their national priests and their national bishop from Nin. The Glagolitsa is the script on which the oldest literary and historical works of Croats were written. This monument is a proof of Croats primordial culture and resistant strength.
ST. NICOLAUS CHURCH
St. Nicolaus church is located on a hill-earthen grave in the field for crowning Prahulje near Nin and represents the most romantic monument of the history of Nin. "According to the people tradition seven kings were crowned in Nin and on the occasion of crowning the crowned ruler would arrive riding with the suite to the church of St. Nicolaus. There he introduced himself to the people and made a sign with a sword to the four sides of the world. The church is the only preserved example of the Romanesque architecture with the central ground-plan and the cross-ribbed vault.