San Francisco Church was rebuilt in the 14th century on an earlier 13th-century structure. It has a floor plan in the shape of a Latin cross, a single nave, chapels in the apse and a gabled roof. The outside is arranged in staggered heights, with three windows at the top. The main doorway is a pointed arch, and the archivolts are decorated with plant and geometric motifs. The tympanum has a representation of the Adoration of the Kings and Saint Francis receiving the stigmata on Mount Alvernia. At the east end of the church is the sarcophagus of Fernán Pérez de Andrade.
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.