Old Zagreb
It is difficult to decide which period in the city's history to consider "Old Zagreb," as popular by Gjuro Szabo, an admirer of the Zagreb antiquities and a promoter of their conservation. Zagreb's origins are ancient and enveloped in the mists of legend in the absence manuscripts or sufficient archaeological finds from those times. It's much easier, therefore, to look at Zagreb's history. In that case, Old Zagreb was two settlements situated on two neighboring hills: Gradec (also known as Gornji Grad) and Kaptol, with the houses lying in the valley between them along the former Medveščak creek (today's Tkalčićeva Street) and those at the beginning of Vlaška Street III beneath the bishopric (later archbishopric).
Although most buildings in this area do not originate from the Middle Ages but from the 18th century, they nevertheless display the continuity of medieval urban settlements. The existence of Kaptol the settlement on the east slope was confirmed in 1094, when King Ladislaus founded the Zagreb bishopric. The bishop, his residence and the Cathedral had their seat in the southeast part of the Kaptol hill. VIaska Ves situated in the close vicinity of the Cathedral and under the bishop's jurisdiction was first mentioned in 1198. Kaptol Street ran from the south to the north across the Kaptol terrace with canons' residences arranged in rows alongside. As the Latin word for a group or body of canons is "capitulum" (kaptol), it is clear how Kaptol got its name. The canons also ruled this settlement.
The Cathedral was consecrated in 1217, but later in 1242 it was badly damaged by the Mongol raids. After 1263 it was restored and rebuilt. As a settlement, Kaptol was an unsymmetrical rectangle entered at its south end in Bakačeva Street, and exited at its north end near the present day Kaptol School. In the Middle Ages Kaptol had no fortifications; it was merely enclosed with wooden fences or palisades, which were repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. The defensive walls and towers around Kaptol were built between 1469 and 1473. The Prislin Tower near the Kaptol School is one of the best-preserved from those times. In 1493 the Turks reached Sisak trying to capture it but were defeated there. Therefore fearing the Turkish invasion, the Bishop of Zagreb had the fortifications built around the Cathedral and his residence. The defensive towers and walls built between 1512 and 1520 have been preserved until the present day, except those that directly faced the front of the Cathedral in Kaptol Square. This section of the wall was pulled down in 1907. In the 13th century, two Gothic churches were built in Kaptol, St. Francis with the Franciscan monastery and St. Maria's, which underwent considerable reconstruction works in the 17th and the 18th centuries. In Opatovina, small dwelling houses of former Kaptol inhabitants can still be seen, but at Dolac a number of little and narrow streets were pulled down in 1926 when the market place started to be built. In 1334 the canons of Zagreb established a colony of Kaptol serfs in the vicinity of their residences, north of Kaptol; that was the beginning of a new settlement called Nova Ves (the present day Nova Ves Street).
The other part of the Old Zagreb nucleus, Gradec on the Gornji Grad hill, was given a royal charter by King Bela IV in 1242. The royal charter, also called the Golden Bull, was a very important document by which Gradec was declared and proclaimed "a free royal city on Gradec, the hill of Zagreb". This act made Gradec a feudal holding responsible directly to the king. The citizens were given rights of different kinds; among other things they were entitled to elect their own "City Judge" (the mayor) and to manage their own affairs. The citizens engaged themselves in building defensive walls and towers around their settlement, fearing a new Tatar invasion. They fulfilled their obligation between 1242 and 1261. It could be rightly assumed that by building its fortification walls in the middle of the 13th century, Gradec acquired its outward appearance that can be clearly seen in today's Gornji Grad.
Defensive walls enclosed the settlement in the shape of a triangle, its top located near the tower called Popov Toranj and its base at the south end (the Strossmayer Promenade), which could be explained by the shape of the hill. In some places, rectangular and semicircular towers fortified the defensive walls. There were four main gates leading to the city: the Mesnička Gate in the west, the new, later Opatička Gate in the north, Dverce in the south and the Stone Gate in the east. The Stone Gate is the only one preserved until the present day.
Undoubtedly, the focal point of the Gornji Grad is the St. Mark's Square, with St. Mark's Church, the parish church of Old Zagreb, located in the middle of the square. When guilds developed in Gradec in the 15th, and later in the 17th century, being the societies of craftsmen, their members including masters, journeymen, and apprentices, gathered regularly in St. Mark's Church. Outside, on the northwest wall of the church lies the oldest coat of arms of Zagreb with the year 1499 engraved in it (the original is kept in the Zagreb City Museum).
At the corner of St. Mark's Square and the present day Ćirilometodska Street was the city hall, the seat of the city administration in medieval times. The building has gone through a number of alteration and reconstruction phases, and today this Old City Hall still keeps its doors open for the meetings of the Zagreb City Council. On the opposite side of the Square at the corner of Basaričekova Street lies St. Mark's parish office. The house has been standing there since the 16th century, although it underwent reconstruction in the 18th century and had an extension added in the 19th century. At the west end of St. Mark's Square, the mansion called Banski dvori, the former residence of the Ban (civil governor) of Croatia, was built at the beginning of the 19th century and yet, it can be classed among the Zagreb antiquities. The government of Croatia meets in the Baroque mansion beside it. Since 1734, the Croatian Parliament has taken up the east side of St. Mark's Square.
Very little is known today of the outward appearance of medieval Vlaška Street. The name of the settlement was Vlaška Ves, of Vicus Latinorum in Latin. In the old part of the present-day VIaška Street, below the archbishop's residence and gardens, lies a row of houses built at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, and thus the line of their facades shows the course of the old road.
Medieval documents mention watermills and public baths along the Medveščak Stream, in the valley between Gradec and Kaptol. Road construction in that area began in the 18th and the first half of the 19th century. The east bank of the stream was under the jurisdiction of Kaptol, and the west bank under Gradec.
Read more about this topic: History Of Zagreb