Across the square from the Rector’s Palace is the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin . The church was built on the site of a 7th-century basilica that was enlarged in the 12th century, supposedly as the result of a gift from England’s King Richard I, the Lionheart, who was saved from a shipwreck in the nearby island of Lokrum. Soon after the earlier cathedral was destroyed in the 1667 earthquake, work began on this new cathedral, which was finished in 1713 in a purely baroque style.

The cathedral is notable for its fine altars, especially the altar of St John Nepomuk made of violet marble.