The Maritime Collection That Bears Witness To The Maritime History Of Zadar

The villa is better known to the people of Zadar as Villa Dirce. A festive celebration will be organized in early April for the occasion.

- It was founded in 1958 when the collection of exhibits started, and this was due to the initiative of the director of the Institute of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts of the time, Vjekoslav Maštrović. In 1966, his plan was for this to be a maritime museum, but, unfortunately, it was never realized even though the maritime collection was then open to the public and in the following years most of the exhibits were collected. There are presently about 400 objects, and they are of different purposes. Not all are permanent exhibits. However, those items that we consider to be the most valuable and most interesting to the public are exhibited - Marijana Dlačić, senior curator and head of the Maritime Collection, gave us this small cross-section through history.

The maritime collection is exhibited on the ground floor of the villa that was built in 1912. The Institute of Academy of Sciences and Arts was founded there after the Second World War, in 1954, and today it is the Institute of Historical Sciences of the Croatian Academy of Science and Arts in Zadar.

As for the exhibits themselves, they are presented chronologically and thematically

- On the ground floor and in the courtyard in front of the entrance to the Maritime Collection, one can see a ship's cannon from the 16th century, as well as anchors. When entering in the permanent exhibition, it starts with anchors, the oldest ones from ancient Rome. An ancient Croatian anchor from the 10th century is also on display, and then the display continues chronologically towards new periods. Perhaps the most interesting exhibits for visitors are the ship models. Depending on preferences, for some, the most interesting are the sailing ships we have from the 13th century, and later from the 19th century. Some find the modern motor boats from the 20th century interesting, and we have one steamboat model. In addition to these models, we also have pictures and photos of ships and a display of various ship equipment and navigational instruments. That might be more interesting to the locals for many of them are related to seafaring and their family tradition is related to navigation so that they remember how it once used to be and the equipment that was once used. The older locals who come to visit the collection remember the tragedy of the tanker "Petar Zoranić", which won its place in this collection - the manager of the collection told us. The collection also contains exhibits that are an important testimony of the economic and industrial past of Zadar.

- In one display case there are examples of ship ropes made by the Otočanka factory, and in one there are examples of ship equipment made by the Bagat factory, which was best known as a sewing machine factory which had been founded with the aim of producing ship equipment for the Jugoslav National Army. There are also documents and photographs and other exhibits connected to seafaring – our interlocutor told us.

When we talk about the exhibited documents, we should also mention one from the time of Napoleon, that is, the French administration, when Zadar was declared a free port.

The story of how the exhibits that have become the permanent collection were collected is also interesting.

- They were collected in various ways, one was donation, then through inter-museum exchange and purchase. Donations came from individuals and families from Zadar, but also from the surrounding area, then from commercial companies such as Tankerska plovidba, and Uljanik in Pula donated a model of the ship they built. What I would particularly like to highlight is this inter-museum cooperation, not only with museums here in Zadar, such as the Archaeological Museum, but also with other maritime museums. They are the maritime museums in Split, Dubrovnik, Rijeka, the museum in Orebić, Kotor and in Piran. This was during the time of Yugoslavia, when an attempt was made to achieve this cooperation, and in addition to thus acquiring objects, at that time the Institute also published important books, i.e. professional-scientific publications on maritime history. This means that besides collecting objects, there was a good cooperation – Dlačić emphasized.

She pointed out an exhibit in particular:

- The permanent exhibition also displays a vessel, an old boat which was made hollowed out in  a tree trunk and described as the first exhibit in our inventory book. It was acquired as an exchange for a sandolin. Otherwise, it is the simplest form of vessel that has existed in this form since prehistoric times and, of course, it was mainly for coastal navigation and along the shallows. In recent times, it was used for entertaining children, and then the owner gave us the vessel so we gave them a sandolin for the children not to be deprived of their entertainment.

The Maritime Collection is a place that is visited by students form the schools in Zadar, and it is open to all visitors from Monday to Friday from 9 am to 1 pm. 

Taking into consideration the maritime history of our city, and its greater surroundings, the plan is to open a Museum of Maritime Culture that would be dedicated to the maritime bygones of Zadar as well as those of North Dalmatia.