Church of St Quirinus (Sv. Kvirin)

The church of St Quirinus (Sv. Kvirin) is the Romanesque church built against the cathedral in the old town of Krk, and one of the most unusual medieval buildings on the Croatian coast. Quirinus is the patron saint of the town, and his church forms part of the cathedral complex with the Cathedral of the Assumption beside it.

It is a church on two floors. The lower church is dedicated to St Margaret, an early martyr from Antioch. It has two naves, the eastern one wider, and two apses, and Mass is still said there. The upper church belongs to St Quirinus. It has three naves ending in three apses, and today it holds the cathedral's collection of sacral art. The apses face south rather than east, almost certainly because there was so little room in the dense medieval town. The building is usually dated to the 12th century, and a fragment of fresco in the vault of the western apse has been dated to the same period. The earliest written mention comes from 1335, when the people of Krk set aside rent to repair it.

The exterior is plain and handsome: walls of local white stone, a blind Romanesque arcade running under the eaves and a band of reddish stone at mid-height. The church was not originally joined to the cathedral. After Bishop Lambert received papal permission in 1290 to raise money for costly work on the cathedral, the two were connected, and the upper church became the women's gallery from which they followed Mass. It may first have been a chapel for the bishop or a gallery for the counts of Krk, the Frankopans.

The best view of the apses is from the lane beside the cathedral. The cathedral treasury's best-known piece is the silver altarpiece of 1477 donated by the Frankopans. The church, the cathedral and the town square of Krk lie within a few minutes' walk of each other, so they are easily combined with a walk along the town walls.