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In Roman times it was known as res publica Crepsa. During the Middle Ages a settlement was organized on the eastern side of the bay, within the walls; in 1332 it got its Statutes, and from 1459 it was the seat of the Venetian administration for the islands of Cres and Losinj, which had earlier been located in Osor. In the 16th century, Venice built a new, partly preserved town wall. In the harbour, where most of public buildings and patricians' palaces were erected, the most prominent structures are the town gate with a clock tower (16th c.), and next to it the town loggia (15th/16th c.). Through the town gate one reaches a square with the Gothic-Renaissance church of St. Mary (15th c.) and a campanile (16th c.). The church features a Gothic wooden Pieta from the 15th century; a collection of paintings from the 15th-18th centuries is kept in the parsonage (polyptych St. Sebastian with Saints by Alvise Vivarini). The square in the back part of the harbour continues into a street which on the left-hand side has the Town Hall (16th c.); in its atrium is the Lapidarium - a collection of stone monuments and fragments. A cylindrical tower has been preserved in the north-western part of the town. From the town gate in the harbour in the direction of the pier is the so-called "fontik", i.e. granary (it. fondaco) along the coast (15th c., today a hotel), and on a small square behind the granary the Petris palace (15th c.), built in Venetian Gothic and early Renaissance styles. In a cluster of streets behind the Petris palace is a mediaeval church of St. Isidore (Sidar) with a Romanesque apse and a Gothic portal; the church keeps a wooden sculpture of the church patron (15th c.) and fragments of a Gothic wooden polyptych (15th c.). In the vicinity are the ruins of the Gothic Rodinis palace (15th c.). Outside the town, along the coast, is a Gothic church of St. Mary Magdalene from 1402, a Franciscan monastery with two cloisters and a church from the 14th-15th century (carved choir stalls, exhibits of Gothic plastics, illuminated manuscripts from the 15th c. in the monastery library). Slightly farther is the monastery of Benedictine nuns from the 15th century.
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