A Venetian legacy: a town enclosed by walls

The old nucleus of Novigrad was once entirely surrounded by defensive walls. Today only fragments of these walls have been preserved. The town was fortified in the thirteenth century with the coming of Venetian rule. In the turbulent times of warring between the powerful Italian ports of Venice and Genoa for supremacy in the Adriatic, Novigrad was finally forced to acknowledge Venetian rule in 1270, with fortification beginning shortly after.

The walls of Novigrad were the result of the painstaking labour of Istrian craftsmen, who used archaic methods to erect and maintain the tall ramparts made of broken stone. The walls were topped with crenulations (merlatura), a typical feature of medieval defence architecture.

After their construction, the walls were renovated a number of times and reinforced with round Renaissance towers. Preserved alongside the town gates that once were the main entrance to Novigrad is a quadrilateral tower dating back to an earlier period.