Old Town of Visoki

The Old Town of Visoki was a famous medieval city and fortress that emerged during the 14th century on the Visočica hill. At its foothills, and also at the foothills of Visočica, lies the city of Visoko today. On September 1, 1355, in a charter of the young Ban Tvrtko I Kotromanić titled "in castro nostro Visoka vocatum," the Old Town of Visoki was mentioned for the first time. It also served as the seat of a high feudal lord with the title of the Grand Duke of Bosnia. The Old Town of Visoki is situated on top of the 213-meter-high Visočica hill at an elevation of 766.5 meters, and about 300 meters above the valley where the city of Visoko itself developed. It is located at a prominent place with an excellent view of the entire surrounding area. The approach is on the southwest side, from a plain that is 60 meters lower, and the suburb of the fortress and the city was called Podvisoki. Although historically important, the Old Town of Visoki was not of large dimensions, being about 60 meters in length and about 25 meters in width, it had two towers that protected it along its entire length. Inside the city itself, there are several traces of buildings. The wall thickness is about 2 meters, and it is mostly built of slab limestone of local origin which is roughly hewn, while the cave sand for the mixture is of uneven strength and quite coarse. The primary function of the Old Town of Visoki was defensive, but it was also the place from where Bosnian rulers wrote many charters and documents, the last of which was written in 1436 when Prince Tvrtko Borovinić issued documents in Visoko. Today, the Old Town of Visoki is a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina.