The Society of Friends of Cultural Heritage in Split (Društvo prijatelja kulturne baštine Split) shared an interesting image of Split on their Facebook today which was recorded on this date 142 years ago.
On April 20, 1875, Split was visited by the Austrian Emperor and the Hungarian-Croatian King Franz Joseph I (1830-1916) as part of his trip to Dalmatia, which lasted from April 10 to May 12, 1875.
“On April 20th, the sailors sailed from Šibenik to Trogir, and from there they extended chariots to Split. There they erected a great arch. The next day, along with other numerous duties, the Emperor visited the ruins of the ancient Salona in today’s Solin. On April 23rd, he organized visits to Brač, Supetar, and Postira, and then continued to Omiš and Makarska. They returned to Split late in the evening.”
(Stanko PIPLOVIĆ, Ph.D., “Visit of Emperor Franz Joseph I to Dalmatia in 1875”)
This image was recorded on the Emperor’s arrival to Split, taken from the Bastion Cornaro with a view of Manuška poljana, and was the work of photography studio “Andrović-Goldstein” from Zadar (Nikola Andrović, 1824-1895, Josip Marko Goldstein 1843-1930)
“From the recordings in April and May 1875 of the Emperor Franz Joseph I and his visit to Dalmatia and the province, Andrović and Goldstein became known as the authors of the first photo-reportage in the history of Croatian photography, published in 1876 in the album entitled ‘Album svjetlopisni s’ opisovanjem putovanja nj. vel. cesara kralja Frane Josipa I. kroz Dalmaciu godine 1875.”
The album is 38 cm high and 28 cm wide. It contains 24 album photos that are approximately 27 × 19.5 cm in size, with four negative images that are 14 × 10 cm in size. The accompanying text is printed in three versions: Croatian, Italian, and German. The publisher is marked as “Svjetlopis Andrović-Goldstein – In Zadar”.
In June 1876, the authors donated one copy to Emperor Franz Joseph and his son Rudolph the Emperor, and the Emperor’s office rewarded them with 20 golden coins.
See more information on their Facebook page here.
