User:Daß Wölf/sandbox/Vlaška Street

Vlaška Street (Vlaška ulica) is a street in the city centre of Zagreb, Croatia. The street extends from Kaptol in the west to the Kvaternik Square in the east.

Description
The street begins at the intersection with Toma Bakač Street, just south of the Zagreb Cathedral. It continues eastwards past Europe Square, ending at Kvaternik Square. The street continues as Maksimir Road onwards to the eponymous park. East of Count Janko Drašković Street, the street carries tram tracks and is used by ZET lines 4, 11 and 12, while west of Junije Palmotić Street, it is part of the Zagreb centre pedestrian zone.

History
The area of Vlaška Street has been inhabited since at least Roman Ages. Roman coins dating to 4th and 5th century AD have been excavated in Zagreb, and the largest Roman settlement in the area seems to have been located near the beginning of today's Vlaška Street.

The street, as it exists today, was first known as Laška Ves or Vlaška Ves (Vicus Latinorum), meaning the Latin Street or the Street of Vlachs. It is believed to have acquired this name because its inhabitants were French builders and architects, or Italian traders. Some of them had worked on the Zagreb Cathedral, but most of their work has been lost in earthquakes. Zagreb historians Ivan Tkalčić and Velimir Deželić Sr. argued that Vlaška Street was the oldest continually inhabited part of Zagreb, and that its non-Slavic inhabitants may have predated the settlement of Croats in Zagreb. Tkalčić wrote that Vlaška Ves' parish church of St. Mary predates the Diocese of Zagreb, and that the bishop of Zagreb held the mass there from 1093 until 1217, when the cathedral was consecrated, and believed that the oldest part of Zagreb was located next to the former Medveščak stream, between Krvavi Most and Drašković Street, the latter part being the beginning of Vlaška Street, today commonly referred to as Stara Vlaška ("Old Vlaška").

The name Vicus Latinorum dates back to a 1244 proclamation by the bishop of Zagreb, Stephen II Babonić, giving the villagers the right to be elect their own judge, although the settlement was indirectly referred to in a 1198 decree by Duke Andrew of Slavonia. The Church of St. Mary was, along with the rest of the neighbourhood, destroyed during the 1241 Mongol invasion, and new church, dedicated to St. Anthony, was built in its place. During the Middle Ages, the western part of the street was inhabited mostly by craftsmen in employ of the bishop's residence at Kaptol, while the eastern part was inhabited by serfs, who settled on the land of Kaptol's canons in the 14th century.

In 1789, the oldest part of Vlaška Street was raised, burying the ground floor of the surrounding buildings.

The street carried traffic headed for Sesvete, and onwards to Varaždin and Vienna. For this reason it was known as Viennese Street (Bečka ulica) around 1820. Until 1850, Laška Ves was considered a separate municipality, at which point this and a number of other municipalities (the largest being Kaptol and Gradec) were consolidated into the City of Zagreb.

Notable buildings
The beginning of Vlaška Street contains some of the oldest surviving houses in Zagreb. Lacković–Žigrović House, located on Vlaška Street 5, is believed to have been at one point home to the masonic lodge Prudentia, formed in 1773 and frequented, among others, by Zagreb's bishop Maksimilijan Vrhovac. Vrhovac was also responsible for the construction of the former bishop's estate at Vlaška 75, today at the corner of Vončinina Street. Vlaška 87 is the site of a former military hospital known today as the Old Military Hospital, designed by Anton Steidl in 1833, and financed by Aleksandar Alagović, the bishop at the time. It is today often used for filming television series and films. In 2020, the Elly Bašić Music Academy moved into a part of the complex.

There are two churches in Vlaška Street today: the Church of St. Peter the Apostle, and the Church of St. Martin. St. Peter's Church was built sometime around the turn of the 17th century and consecrated in 1622. It was located far from the city, so the mass was not often served there during the first century of its existence, the parish priests having favored the older Church of St. Martin in Stara Vlaška, and its graveyard was located on the site currently occupied by the Petrova Street Maternity Hospital. The church was rebuilt in 1769–70, and re-consecrated in 1795. It was painted in 1858 by a painter from Rome, and its tower was adorned with a clock. In 1889, architect Hermann Bollé planned the enlargement of the church, which was carried out in 1926. St. Martin's Church is home to one of the oldest remaining tombstones in Zagreb, which was built into the church's inside wall and dates back to 1270–1300. Vlaška Street was also the location of the Church of St. Mary, which was destroyed during the Mongol invasion and replaced by the Church of St. Anthony. The latter served as the parish church, but was, according to some sources, abandoned in the 16th century.