Kamerlengo Castle

Kamerlengo Castle occupies the western tip of Trogir's old town, right on the water where the island town meets the channel separating it from Čiovo. It is the most complete piece of fortification left in a place that has otherwise lost nearly all its walls, and it is the reason the Trogir waterfront looks the way it does in every photograph ever taken of it.

Built by Venice After the Conquest of 1420

Venice took Trogir in 1420 after a siege lasting almost two months. The town's defences had been badly damaged and the population was openly hostile to its new rulers, so the Republic concluded it needed a fortress inside the city rather than merely walls around it. Construction ran from 1420 to 1437. Lorenzo Picino advised on the design and the stonemason Marin Radoj was responsible for the building work, which absorbed an older structure already standing on the site: the Veriga Tower, or Tower of Chains, put up towards the end of the 14th century, which became the castle's keep.

The result is an irregular trapezoid with a tower at each corner, built of local limestone, its principal tower rising some 30 metres. It was formed partly by closing off the southwestern corner of the town using walls and towers that already existed, and it was deliberately held apart from the streets behind it by an outer crenellated wall and a wet moat. Inside lived the Venetian mercenary garrison and the official who paid them.

Where the Name Comes From

The name is simply that official's job title. A camerlengo was a chamberlain, an administrator responsible for finances — in this case the accounts of the Venetian garrison stationed in Trogir. The fortress was not routinely called Kamerlengo until the middle of the 16th century; before that it was known plainly as the castle of Trogir. A chapel dedicated to St Mark once stood in the courtyard, decorated with Gothic reliefs including a lion bearing the coat of arms of the Contarini family, a nod to Doge Domenico Contarini and to Venice's earlier conquest of Zadar.

A short walk away stands the round St Mark's Tower, built in 1470 in Renaissance style, with two floors and walls three metres thick. It went up shortly after the castle, was linked to it by the town walls, and was designed specifically to absorb Ottoman artillery — a reminder of how exposed this coast felt in the second half of the 15th century.

Decline, Survival and Summer Concerts

After the fall of the Venetian Republic the fortress lost its purpose and was put to whatever use was convenient: a warehouse, at one point a store for building material during construction of the port, military barracks, and an olive oil refinery. Most of Trogir's city walls were pulled down in the mid-19th century and the moat was filled in, leaving Kamerlengo standing more or less alone at the harbour entrance. The building deteriorated badly towards the end of the 19th century and was substantially restored after the Second World War.

Trogir's historic core, with the castle among its landmarks, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1997 as an exceptionally well-preserved medieval town laid out on Hellenistic and Roman foundations. The castle is open to visitors, and its walls can be climbed for a view over the old town, the harbour and Čiovo. Through the summer the empty courtyard becomes an open-air stage for concerts, plays and festivals, which is by some distance the best way to experience it. Since it sits directly on the water at the edge of the old town, many visitors combine a day of sightseeing with a private gulet charter from Trogir.