Franciscan Monastery and the 1317 Old Pharmacy

Why is it significant?

Just inside the city walls rises the monumental Franciscan Monastery of the Friars Minor, founded in 1317 when the friars relocated their complex inside the fortifications for security against regional conflicts.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Just inside the city walls rises the monumental Franciscan Monastery of the Friars Minor, founded in 1317 when the friars relocated their complex inside the fortifications for security against regional conflicts. The jewel of the monastery is its breathtaking Romanesque-Gothic cloister, sculpted around 1360 by master Mihoje Brajkov of Bar. Its paired slender columns are crowned with fantastical capitals depicting mythical beasts, dragons, centaurs, human faces, and stylized foliage, showcasing medieval stone carving at its highest pinnacle.

Continuously operating since 1317, the monastery's Old Pharmacy is the third-oldest functioning apothecary in the world and the oldest in Europe still dispensing remedies to the public today. Franciscan friars distilled soothing ointments, lavender essences, and medicinal balms from wild herbs gathered on Mount Srđ, using recipes recorded in venerable pharmacopoeias. Original ceramic albarello jars, copper alembics, and precision scales remain beautifully preserved on display.

The monastery library houses an extraordinary cultural treasure: over seventy thousand rare volumes, twelve hundred illuminated medieval manuscripts, and hundreds of precious incunabula. Miraculously surviving the catastrophic earthquake and fire of 1667, the friars safeguarded irreplaceable archives of the Republic of Ragusa that exist nowhere else on earth, preserving priceless knowledge across the centuries. In the center of the peaceful cloister garden stands an ancient stone wellhead, beneath which rests a vaulted cistern that provided cool drinking water to friars and citizens during prolonged summer droughts and naval blockades.

Shaded by blooming orange and citrus trees, the peaceful cloister garden offers an oasis of serene contemplation that contrasts with the lively bustle of Stradun just outside. Soft sunlight filters through the carved stone arcades, casting intricate geometric shadows across ancient gravestones. This sacred sanctuary embodies the sublime fusion of Christian charity, healing science, and artistic genius across seven uninterrupted centuries of spiritual life.

Turn north and climb the stone stairs into the charming terraced quarter of Prijeko.