Ratac  
 


The remains of a fortified monastic complex are situated on the coast, on a peninsula between Bar and Sutomore.

Ratac was first mentioned in 1247 but it is quite certain that it had been built in an earlier period. In the early 14th century, king Milutin confirmed, in a charter, the endowments bequeathed to the monastery by queen Jelena, his mother. During the 14th century, the monastery was repeatedly referred to in the Dubrovnik archive. This was the period of the greatest building activity in Ratac. The monastery seems to have been abandoned after a raid by the Turks in 1532 and destroyed in 1571.

The oldest building in Ratac is a church C built most likely at the beginning of the 11th century. Possibly, the Church of St. Luke's in Kotor was modelled on it. The chapel A is a Romanesque building from the second half of the 12th century or early 13th century. The unfinished basilica B, whose construction began in the mid 14th century, had been designed to be the largest church building in the complex and its surroundings, including medieval Bar. A cloister was built next to the church in the 12th or 13th century, with the tower G, which played an important role in the monastery defense.