The Sponsa Palace
The Sponza Palace together with the Rector's Palace is the most representative example of the Gothic-Renaissance style of Dubrovnik's architecture. It was constructed between 1515 and 1525 after the design of Paskoje Miličević on the site where the rain water was collected (the name Sponza comes from spongia - sponge), where there were goldsmith shops, an inn for the foreigners (hospitium), the Customs House, and the city's warehouses. When the Sponza Palace was erected, all these services were united under one roof and over time even extended with a minting house, a State treasury and a bank. The Grammar School was situated on its first floor together with the Academy of the Learned were the highly educated members of the 16th century discussed about literature, arts and sciences. Sponza is a two-floor structure with an exquisite Renaissance atrium resting on six columns. The first floor has the late-Gothic windows and the second floor windows are in the Renaissance style with an alcove containing the statue of St Blaise. On the left and right side of the atrium are the Customs warehouses marked with the names of the saints above the doors. The inscription on the central arch, where the set of scales was hanging once, warns measurers to be careful: FALLERE NOSTRA VETANT, ET FALLI PONDERA: MEQUE PONDERO CVM MERCES. PONDERA IPSE DEVU, meaning "Our weights do not allow cheating nor to be cheated: When I weigh goods I am weighed by God Himself." At the back wall of the atrium is a beautiful medallion with the Christ's initials and two angels made by the sculptor Beltrand Gallicus. Now it houses the State Archive with the priceless collection of manuscripts dating back nearly a thousand years. The most important section belongs to the Archive of the Dubrovnik Republic with more than 7000 manuscript volumes and over 100.000 documents. The oldest documents dates from 1022, and contains almost all documents and books and manuscripts successively kept from 1278 till the fall of the Republic in 1808 and more recent material from the 19th and 20th centuries. So, The Dubrovnik Archive is not only the outstanding source for studying the history of Dubrovnik only, but the Mediterranean as a whole. The great French historian Fernand Braudel wrote that, "for learning about the Mediterranean the most precious archive is the one in Dubrovnik."