Early Christian Basilicas On Brač, probably after the middle of the 6th century, when the twenty-year-long ByzantineGothic war ended (as late as 548, Totila’s general took Muccurum, across the way from Brač), a series of basilicas was to spring up in the bays of Supetar, Sutivan, Postira, in Lovrečina, Pučišća, Povlja and Bol, alongside the convent on Mirja above Postira. They are particularly characteristic for their well preserved baptisteries, the existence of which can be surmised even where they have not yet been excavated (Sutivan, Supetar, Pučišća).
Brač
Of the original structure of the basilica in Povlja, the baptistery is still in existence; this the only Early Christian baptistery in Croatia, has been preserved up to the level of the acroterion on the roof. Outside it has a square and inside an octagonal plan. In the cruciform font there was once, in the Middle Ages, the grave of St John of Povlja, whose body was taken as a kind of trophy and kept in the church of San Giovanni Elemosinario on the Rialto (where they also exhibited the relic of the arm of St John of Trogir, removed in 1171 from the ravaged cathedral in Trogir). Legend said that it walked across the sea and with some unintelligible formula (“shukadar, bukadar...”) drove the plague away from Brač. The same tradition says that it is really to do with St John the Charitable, Alexandrian patriarch of the early 7th century, who, according to the Brač chroniclers, spent several years in Povlja doing penance.
der of the territories of Supetar and Hum is the Early Croatian Chapel of St Luke (ca 1100), with a depiction of an early medieval ship scratched into the rendering. In 1827 the village became the administrative centre of the island. In the 19th century a fine stone waterfront was created, with a continuous tract of Revival-style facades, which was defaced by the destruction of the building of the court, after a fire of 1990. There are a number of important residential units in the municipal centre.
Mirca A rural centre steeped in gardens and orchards, inspiring the poem of Tin Ujević Discovering Mirca (1929). The name (coming from murus, wall) shows that there might once have been an Antique settlement. The Parish Church of Our Lady of the Visitation of 1579 was extended at the end of the 19th century. 31