Posted on 09.11.2012, 07.07.2014
Located in the southern Dalmatian coast, Dubrovnik, named official Ragusa until 1918, and known as Pearl of the Adriatic or even Thesaurum mundi, "is a remarkably well-preserved example of a late-medieval walled city, with a regular street layout", reason for which it was designated by UNESCO a World Heritage Site in 1979 (with an extension in 1994), under the name Old City of Dubrovnik. Until recently, it was believed that the city was founded about 614 AD by a group of refugees from Epidaurum (today's Cavtat), who fled of the Slavs and Avars and established a settlement to an island, and named it Laus (lausa means rock in latin), which will become Ragusa or Rausa. Opposite that location, at the foot of Srđ Mountain, the Slavs developed their own settlement, under the name of Dubrovnik (from dubrava, which means oak woods). In the 12th century the channel that separated these two settlements was filled (in present is Placa or Stradun, the main street of the city) and they were united. But recent archaeological discoveries have pushed the city's history before the Common Era, there being evidence that Dubrovnik was established by Greek sailors.
Being first under the protection of the Byzantine Empire, Ragusa came, after the infamous Fourth Crusade, under the sovereignty of Venice (1205-1358), then by the Treaty of Zadar (1358) became part of the Hungarian-Croatian Kingdom, and since 1458 paid a tribute to the Ottoman Empire, but was effectively a free state between 1358 and 1808, named Respublica Ragusina (Ragusan Republic). Its motto, Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro (Latin for "Liberty is not well sold for all the gold"), says everything about its principles, as also the fact that the republic abolished the slave trade early in the 15th century, and its official language was Latin until 1472, and thereafter the Ragusan dialect of the Romance Dalmatian language.
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