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Heraclea was an ancient city of Magna Graecia. The ruins of the city are located in the modern comune of Policoro in Basilicata. It was a Greek colony, but founded at a period considerably later than most of the other Greek cities in this part of Italy. The foundation of the city is placed by Diodorus in 432 BCE. It became famous as the site of the first major battle of the Pyrrhic War in 280 BCE in which king Pyrrhus of Epirus defeated a Roman army on the head of a coalition of Southern Italian Greek city states.
The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.