I visited zadar a couple years ago and tbh at the time I was a bit underwhelmed. I expected quite a bit of the city and It didn't fullfill. The Fortifications pale in comparison to those of Dubrovnik, the city has way less charm than sibenik and the Roman remains are almost inexistent. Nevertheless It is a nice city, with a pleasant old town, a very interesting church, a surprising Cathedral and an impressive set of fortifications.

In fact, Zadar IS already part of the whl as a component of venetian works of defence owing to those impressive fortifications. However, the new proposal, far from an extension, would requiere a completely new site, whose main Focus would probably be croatian preromanesque.

The church of st donatus, as pointed out by the state, is the main component of the site and clearly its most valuable asset. There's only a couple dozen preromanesque churches in Europe and st donatus is not only quite unique and big, but also acclaimed as the best example of the croatian regional a style, which is not represented in the list. The rest of the proposal includes several interesting buildings in the old town, chief among them the grande romanesque Cathedral.

Now, the list already has plenty of preromanesque churches, mostly carolingian, but also asturian and lombard. Croatia also has plenty more churches which could be included in a "croatian preromanesque" proposal (which IS imo the best way to represent these sites which are often quite underwhelming on their own).  As such I come upon a problem i'm sure iconos will stumble upon too. I would be in favour of st donatus being on the list, given Its importance in understanding preromanesque art..i'm just not sure which should be the side.

You see, st donatus is Big, but quite barren, as was the style at the time, thus It's far from the impressive carolingian art and even pales in comparison to the lacluster decorations of asturian preromanesque. In other words, I don't think the church by itself can support a proposal, and apparently neither does croatia.

Instead, Croatia has opted for including It in zadar historic town, which albeit nice, is no true wonder of itself. As such I feel conflicted about Its place in a list which already boasts Split, Dubrovnik, Trogir and sibenik as prime examples of adriatic medieval cities. Furthermore I deeply dislike duplication of world heritage sites.

The question is, does st donatus elevate zadar to wh status? My answer is: probably not. However I think It Will get in, because st donatus is important enough to act as a barhaining chip of sorts.

So my conclusion?...more study would be necessary, but a priori I wouldn't be against the proposal. Though It's barely to my liking. (Insert mild eyeroll)

It also opens the door for a new wave of preromanesque sites which seems to already be on the move. Spain has the intention to get the visigothic see of egara (with its dubious frescoes) and a set of mozarabic churches. There's also the real posibility of other visigothic churches getting on the list, perhaps as a multinational site.