Corridor: Via Adriatica
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Livno
Type: Christian religious centre
Epoch: Modern Times
Theme: Christian Monasteries
World Heritage:

The Franciscan Monastery Gorica is located near the town of Livno, in Western Herzegovina. The architectural ensemble comprises monastery church dedicated to Sts. Peter and Paul, monastery building, movable heritage inside the monastery and old school building.
The construction of Franciscan monasteries in Bosnia and Herzegovina started with the foundation of the Bosnian Vicariate in 1340. It was only in the 19th century, after buying land at Gorica, that the Franciscans came to the immediate vicinity of the town of Livno. The building of the monastery started in 1854, together with the church construction, and it was in 1859 that Gorica was finally proclaimed a monastery.
Over time, the monastery served several functions. Between 1889 and 1909, the monastery also accommodated a school for future priests. During the Austro-Hungarian occupation in 1878 there was a military headquarters in the monastery, and later military storages. During World War II, the monastery first served as prison and later as military hospital and storage for army purposes. Most recently, the monastery comprises a library, archaeological and ethnographic museum and picture gallery.
The history of this monastery is associated with a number of important people, certainly including the painter Gabriel Jurkic, who spent some twenty last years of his life in this monastery. Jurki? was a representative of modernism, one of the key phenomena of the late secession and symbolism in the region of the former Yugoslavia, who, at the peak of his success, stopped and dedicated himself to the nature of the native Bosnian landscape and realistic impression of his own kind. Today, apart from over 200 of his paintings, the monastery holds around 6,000 of his studies and sketches, as well as furniture from his studio and his personal items.

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