Franciscan monastery in Zaostrog

One of the most important monuments in Zaostrog and the entire Makarska coastline is the Franciscan monastery of St. Mary. To this day, it remains unclear when exactly the monastery was founded. Presumably, it was built in the early 15th century by the so-called "hermits of St. Augustine", otherwise known as Augustinians, who abandoned it after the fall of Bosnia in 1463 and retreated to the islands. In 1468, the Franciscans from Bosna Srebrna repopulated it, and to this day it remains their monastery. Andrija Kačić Miošić, one of the most prominent Croatian poets, spent a good part of his creative life there. Visitors can take a walk through a museum, an ethnological collection, a gallery and a large library with over 30,000 titles. The collection contains 24 incunabula, 500 volumes printed between 1500 and 1600. There are also 5,000 books printed in the 17th and 18th centuries from all known fields of science: medicine, pharmacy, theology, philosophy, history, agronomy, literature, linguistics, natural sciences and various editions of encyclopedias. These books are significant as the historical basis for education in the monastery, as the library collects numerous scientific and literary works from all around the world.