PAZIN-parish curch and monastery

Among the landmarks of religious architecture in Pazin, the parish church of St. Nicholas (sveti Nikola) and the Franciscan monastery of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (pohodjenje Blazene Djevice Marije) are outstanding.
The parish church of st. Nicholas was built in 1266 as a simple Romanesque building with a bell tower. In the 15th century (1441), a late Gothic sanctuary with a net vault was added. The vault was painted with frescoes by an unknown master schooled in the Alpine workshops (probably Tyrolean). The date of the construction of the sanctuary is seen from a Latin inscription that also containcs the oldest extant Pazin coat of arms.
With later remodelling, the church obtained its present appearance and in 1764 it was consecrated. From the beginning, the church has had the status of a praepositus. The oldest descritpions, dating from the 17th century (Tommasini, Petronio, Valvasor), emphasize the beauty of the churchh, the opulence of the sacristy and the interior decoration. The seven present altars date from the 17th and 18th centuries. The main altar is consecrated to St. Nicholas (the main altar from 1418 had been consecrated to the Mother of God). The stone tombstones testify to the old custom of burials in and around the church. Ath the foot of the bell tower, dating from 1705, is a passageway to the church that is surrounnded by a stone wall.

The Franciscan monastery was established in 1481. The church was completed between 1463 and 1477. The Franciscans conducted further remodelling and in 1484 the church was consecrated. The small monastery building with twelve rooms, pharmacy, hospital, surgery and library was also completed by that time.
In 1717, the monastery obtained a new wing with a refectory that was the largest hall in the city. Since 1781, an elemntary school has been in operation, and since 1836 a secondary school.
The monastery church has a single have and a square floor plan with a polygonal Gothic sanctuary, lateral chapel (from 1729) and bell tower. It represents the "ultimate southern expression of the Carniolian Gothic". In 1536, a polyptych painted by Girolamo da Santa Croce was obtained for the main altar. Statues of the Immaculate are beautiful examples of baroque art.
In front of the curch used to be the monastery cemetery, eliminated in the late 18th century. In its place, a monument to the victory over the French was erected in 1816. It consisted of cannonballs thrown into the Jama by the retreating French soldiers.
On the other side of thiw square is the building of the large State Secondary School (Gymnasium), the first school in Istria where instruction was conducted in the Croatian language (since 1899).