The town of Selca, island of Brač in Croatia

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Presentation

General information

Selca is a small town, approximately 900 inhabitants, located on the island of Brač in Croatia.

Selca is also a commune of approximately 2000 inhabitants being part of the county of Split-Dalmatia.

Etymology

At the time Venetian, Selca named Selza della Italian Brazza.

Situation

Selca seen since the sea. Click to enlarge the image.

Selca is the Eastern commune of the island of Brač in Dalmatia power station, in the south of Croatia.

The town of Selca is located a little inside the island, to approximately 1 km of the coast, and at an altitude of 114 Mr.

Visits

The urban center ordered good of Selca appears today very different from the medieval beginnings of the village, when it was only one very dispersed community of houses and tiny hamlets of shepherds. Such hamlets exist always today, like Smrčevik, Osritke, Nakal, Nagorinac, Nadsela and Zagvozd; to visit them, it is necessary, since Selca, to take the road of Gornji Humac to the panel “Zaseoci”. These detached houses and self-sufficing give the most faithful impression of the same beginnings of the settlement of the island. Selca has a pretty small place of the market, a ground of balls and a park where the first monument of the dedicated world is in Leon Tolstoï, just set up a year after the death of the writer (a work of 1913 of the Czech sculptor Jaroslav Barda). The district around the parish church is also decorated statues, of which a bust of the politician and impassioned defender of Croatian independence, Stjepan Radić (1871-1928), carried out by the famous sculptor Anton Augustinčić; a bust of the pope John Paul II (by K. Kovacic, 1995), and well of others.

The Church of Christ-King (Crkva Krista Kralja)
Selca is dominated by the monumental church of the Christ-King located over the place of the Market. The parish church of Christ King (Župna Crkva Krista Kralja) is most recent of the island of Brač: it was built of 1921 to 1955 in a style néo-novel, with the site where formerly the church of Our-Lady-of-the-Visitation was. The original project of the church is the work of the Austrian architect of Linz, Adolf Schlaufa, in 1919. The first stone was posed in 1921; after a long interruption, construction included in the years 1940 and lasted until 1955. The tower of the bell-tower, 45 height meters is highest of all the diocese including the islands of Brać, Hvar and Vis. The interior of the church is of a quiet simplicity, with stone walls left without coating, of the decorative capitals and a ceiling out of wooden. The interior presents - installed in the presbytery - a sculpture of Christ King and Sacred Heart of Jesus, high, 2.5 meters works of the famous sculptor Ivan Meštrović. In 1956, the sculptor had donated with the church of the plaster model; for lack of funds, the statue was run in the bronze of shell recovered in the vicinity of Selca. The statue is taken again out of stone on the frontage of the church. The church is devoted to the saint apostles Cyrille and Method.
The Church Our-Lady-of-Carmel (Crkva Gospe od Karmena)
At the bottom of the place is also another church, pleasant and simple, that of Our-Lady-of-Carmel, built with 18th and 19th centuries.
The St. Lawrence Church
The St. Lawrence church is located above hamlet of Nadsela, on the road of Gornji Humac in Selca. It is a small church préromane with single nave with a barrel chapel and a roof with pinion covered with stone slabs. Around the church a cemetery with one of the tomb stones dating from the late Middle Ages is.
The Town hall
The building of the Town hall is the old house of the Slovak writer Martin Kukučín; a commemorative plaque recalls that it wrote its novel there “a House on the hill”.

History, literature, arts, traditions, legends, religions, myths, symbols…

History
Selca was mentioned for the first time in 1184 like a colony of shepherds and then like a center of the stonecutters on the island of Brać.

Characters
From 1893 to 1908, the Slovak doctor Dr. Matej Bencúr practiced his occupation with Selca where he wrote his novel “Dom v stráni” (the house on the hill) under his name of author, Martin Kukučín.