This went on for several centuries, before the Venetians, the great merchant power of the Middle Ages, took formal control in 1420, bringing in a time of prosperity that would make Hvar the richest area in Dalmatia. Yet the Venetian rule was not without unrest and disaster: the Croats rebelled in 1510, and in 1570, the Turks attacked and burnt Hvar Town to the ground. The Venetians retained control until 1797 and rebuilt the city in the Renaissance style, and leaving behind a resplendent town for the new Austrian rulers to enjoy.

Yet the world was in flux, and the Austrians weren’t in power for long. Napoleon’s soldiers arrived to hold the island for France for a brief six years from 1806, before the island would fall back under Austrian control. The next century was a time of peace, during which locals set up Europe’s first tourist board in 1868, ‘The Hygienic Society of Hvar’, dedicated to building Hvar’s tourist offering.

Power would change hands again in 1918, when Italy was given Hvar in the spoils of the Great War, and yet again when Hvar became part of Yugoslavia in 1922.