Zadar Sphinx Grants Love Wishes

Zadar will always manage to surprise and delight you with its monuments, history and stories of the somewhat forgotten parts of its rich past. One of these stories is the story of the Zadar Sphinx. If you decide to visit Brodarica from Zadar old town, take the traditional rowing boat (rowed by the famous Zadar Barkajol) across to the other side of the city port – to Điga, right in front of the Luxardo house, the former Maraska Factory building. Strolling northwest for about ten minutes by the sea, you will reach one of the most beautiful parts of the city. The old villas from the Belle Époque period are still amazingly beautiful and many of them with wonderful gardens. In front of one such villa, located in the Bay of Maestral (Dražanica), you can see the Sphinx of Zadar! The villa’s name is Villa Attilia and it was built in 1901 by a local artist, painter and art historian Giovanni Smirich (1842-1929). He studied in Sienna, Florence and Venice like most of the prominent citizens and nobility in 19^th-century Zadar. Giovanni Smirich was a great painter and he worked hard on restoring Zadar’s most important monuments, such as the Church of St Donat, the Church of St Grisogonus and the Church of St Anastasia, as well as being one of the founders of the Archaeological Museum in Zadar. Unfortunately, most of his paintings perished in the flames of World War II bombings of Zadar. He met his future wife Attilia Spineda de Cataneis in Venice, and later they moved to Zadar where she gave birth to 5 of their children. The garden surrounding the villa was decorated with a historicism fervour, typical of the late 19^th and beginning of the 20^th century. After the death of his wife in 1918, Giovanni Smirich had the garden decorated with a stone cave and several other interesting decorative elements, and being interested in mythology, he ordered the building of the Sphinx as a memorial to his beloved wife. Although it is built in concrete, the Zadar Sphinx is not an ordinary Sphinx: it has fingers instead of paws and it looks as if it was protecting a small goldfish pond between them. The pond is long gone due to devastation, and the same happened to the relief of the eagle on its chest. The nationalization of the Villa Attilia after World War II led to further devastation of the garden, but what also contributed were the legends of a treasure buried bellow the Sphinx itself. Among other mysteries, the hieroglyphic inscription on the Sphinx is also something that no one has deciphered just yet. There are not too many sphinxes in this part of Europe left, and this one is the biggest of all. It is also a very special Sphinx, since it was built in memory of a beloved woman: it is said that it grants love wishes. Nevertheless, this is not the only reference to Egypt in Zadar. If you look carefully you can find a small pyramid in the part of the city called Voštarnica.