History of Iz Island

Sourse en.wikipedia.org

The island of Iz has been inhabited since prehistoric times; there are traces of an Illyrian hillfort and a Roman settlement. Constantine VII calls it „Ez“ in 10th century. In that time it was under the rule of the Zadar commune, which, as a feud, gave it to the female Benedictine monastery of St. Mary, and later leased to the Zadar aristocracy. Above the bay of Komoseva, at the top of the village of Mali Iz, there is an old romanesque church of St. Mary from the 11th century, circular-shaped with a semicircular apse.

It is located right next to the new parish church from the beginning of the 20th century and represents the oldest cultural monument on the island. There are also records of the first Croatian settlers that date from the year 1266.

Since 1409, Iz has been part of the Venetian Republic. In the time of Venetian-Turkish wars during the 15th and 16th centuries, many refugees from the mainland moved to the island, especially from Ravni Kotari.

Both the parishes of Veli and Mali Iz have a thousand-year Glagolitic history, meaning that from their beginning the Roman Rite in the church was celebrated in the Old Church Slavonic language, not in Latin, from liturgical books written in the old Croatian Glagolitic script. History records more than 200 glagolitic priests on the island and many documents in the Glagolitic alphabet from the 15th to 19th century are still preserved, including manuscripts, printed liturgical books and stone epigraphs. In 2019. a Glagolitic inscription in stone from 1685. was discovered in the family house Švorinić, being among the most recently reveled Glagolitic stone inscriptions in the world.

In the 18th and 19th century Iz became one of the leading maritime and trade centers in the Zadar archipelago.

The castle of the Zadar family Canagietti has been preserved; the castle of the Fanfogna family, originally built in the romanesque style but later rebuilt, was converted into a school in the 19th century.