Vis in the 19th century, reading the Austrian cadaster

Abstract

The text presents the results of research into the historical and spatial development of the Town of Vis in the nineteenth century, based on the parallel reading of cadastral maps and written cadastral material from the Archives of Maps for Istria and Dalmatia of the State Archives in Split. The cadastral materials, which include the first cadastral survey of Vis conducted in 1834 and the reambulation of the cadaster from 1876, documents the time in which the urbanization of the Town of Vis was completed. In addition to the urban analysis of Vis, the reading of the cadastral materials provided insight into the social topography of the town. The research documented two development phases of the settlement. The first shows the situation in the area in 1834, when Vis, along with its two historical settlements, Kut on the east coast of the bay and Luka (Vela banda) on the southwest coast of the bay, was expanded to its western coast, Mala banda. The shape of the settlement that was developed along the shores of the bay shows traces of the previous historic period when the island was part of the Hvar Commune and when trade was carried out along the entire coast of the bay on ships and small private jetties. The second development phase shows the situation in the area in 1876, when the state of existing buildings was partly changed by extensions or additions of storeys, and the building structure of the settlement was made denser by new construction. The land reclamation and expansion of the harbor in Luka completely changed the image of the town. A new waterfront was created as a public good, on which numerous buildings would be built at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, which form the town’s appearance to this day. In the analysis of the historical and spatial development of the settlement, the drawings of the historical stages of development created on the basis of the Austrian cadastral materials are not merely illustrations, but represent the result of the research. Vectorized cadastral maps of the first cadastral survey with the results of research into the development phases of the settlement in the nineteenth century can be applied to digital cadastral representations of contemporary surveys. As such, they can be used as a starting point for further research into the spatial transformations of the settlement, both for the periods preceding the Austrian cadastral survey and for the periods that followed it.