Tvrdalj Summer Residence in Stari Grad

The fortified summer residence of Tvrdalj belonging to the famous Croatian Renaissance poet, Petar Hektorović, with its fishpond inhabited by grey mullet and  with a dovecote above it, is the most famous building in Stari Grad on the island of Hvar. The poet was actively building it throughout his lifetime, almost obsessively, guided by an idea of the microcosm – a small, closed world in which divine creatures fish, birds, plants and humans could find a place to coexist. Tvrdalj is also a stone book since more than twenty inscriptions in Latin, Italian and Croatian are carved into the stone.