Monkodonja is a hill fort occupied about 1800–1200 BC during the Bronze Age, located near the city of Rovinj. It is located on a hillside surrounded by a spatial area, a form of irregular ellipse stretching east-west, 160 m × 250 m. The settlement was surrounded with three concentric walls and two entrances that have explored so far (so called Western and Northern). The defensive wall surrounding the settlement was about 1 km long, about 3 m wide and at least 3 m tall. It was built by laying stone in the drywall technique. The stone was peeled off the hill, and its removal resulted in a useful surface. Approximately 1,000 people lived in the well-organized settlement: on the highest part was the acropolis, below it the upper town and still lower the lower town.
The Acropolis, where the higher layer of communities lived, had a nearly rectilinear space. In other parts of the settlement there was a crafts area. The houses differed with the position, size and manner of construction, and they were separated by passages and streets. Each had a hearth and numerous fragments of pottery pots originated from local workshops, but pots also came from the far east of the eastern Mediterranean. It was the first finding of fragments of Micens (Bronze Age) bowl in Istria. The Monkodonja was an important point in the communications of the northern Adriatic with Central Europe and the Aegean.
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.