Tradition dates the foundation of the monastery in Verrès to the 10th century, however the canonicals of St. Egidio are mentioned for the first time in 1050. It was the location of the parish church, which includes buildings dating from the 11h and 18th centuries. The main building, in visible stone, and the adjacent, main bell-tower were built in 1512 by the Provost Charles of Challant.
The current parish church of Sant’Egidio was instead built in 1775 on the site where the previous, Romanesque church lay. Only a simple, little belfry remains today. In 1775 Count Francesco Ottavio of Challant allowed the structures of the pre-existing church to be merged with the Chapel of Saints George and Maurice, built in 1407 by the knight Ibleto of Challant as his family’s burial chapel. The structures in this chapel are still easily identified today, from outside due to the magnificent mullioned window in worked stone that stands out on the wall facing towards the village and inside due to its gothic, ribbed vaults which were saved from eighteenth-century intervention.
References: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.