Most historic film locations are ruins, museums or carefully preserved monuments where cameras are visitors. Diocletian’s Palace is something rarer: a 1,700-year-old Roman palace that never stopped being lived in. Built around 300 AD as the retirement residence of the Emperor Diocletian, it forms the beating heart of modern Split – a UNESCO World Heritage Site where people still work, shop and live inside imperial walls. For productions, filming in Diocletian’s Palace means stepping onto a set that history built and time never dismantled.
A 1,700-Year-Old Set That Never Closed
What sets the Palace apart is that it is not a museum piece frozen behind ropes. Some three thousand people live within its walls, and its lanes are full of cafés, shops, apartments and churches. Roman, medieval, Renaissance and Baroque layers stand side by side, worn smooth by seventeen centuries of daily life.
That authenticity is impossible to fake. The stone carries genuine age, the proportions are monumental yet human, and the light moving through its colonnades and narrow passages gives cinematographers texture no built set could match. It’s precisely this quality that drew HBO’s Game of Thrones, which used the Palace as part of the slaver city of Meereen.
The Substructures: Underground Roman Halls
Beneath the Palace lie its most cinematic spaces: the substructures, or cellars – a vast network of vaulted Roman halls that once supported the emperor’s living quarters above. Cool, cavernous and atmospheric, these underground chambers are among the best-preserved Roman interiors of their kind anywhere.
In Game of Thrones, they became Daenerys’s throne room and the dungeon where she chained her dragons. Their raw stone, dramatic vaults and controllable, enclosed environment make them ideal for interiors that need scale, mood and a sense of the ancient – from fantasy epics to historical drama.
The Peristyle, Cathedral and Cinematic Squares
At the centre of the Palace, the Peristyle – a colonnaded ceremonial square – offers one of the most striking ready-made sets in Europe: red granite columns, sphinxes brought from Egypt, and the towering bell tower of the Cathedral of St. Domnius, itself originally Diocletian’s mausoleum. Around it, the Temple of Jupiter, marble streets and shadowed passageways provide an endless variety of frames within a few steps of one another.
For productions, this density is a gift. A single location delivers grand ceremonial spaces, intimate stone alleys and soaring vertical architecture, all connected, all walkable, all authentic.
A Modern City Around an Ancient Core
The Palace is not an isolated monument but the core of a lively Mediterranean city. Step outside its walls and you find the Riva waterfront promenade, a working harbour, markets and contemporary Split. This means a production can move from a Roman interior to a modern cityscape to the open Adriatic within minutes, and Split International Airport is only a short drive away.
That versatility lets the Palace stand in for many places and periods: ancient Rome, a fantasy capital, a timeless Mediterranean town or a modern European city, depending on the frame.
Practical Notes for Filming in the Palace
Because the Palace is both a UNESCO site and a living neighbourhood, shooting here calls for careful coordination. Permits from the relevant heritage and city authorities, sensitivity to residents and businesses, and planning around a space that is busiest in the summer peak. None of this is an obstacle; it simply rewards early preparation and local knowledge.
That’s where the Split-Dalmatia Film Office comes in, helping productions secure permissions, plan logistics around the living city, and unlock one of the most extraordinary filming locations in Europe.
Planning to film in Split’s old town? The Split-Dalmatia Film Commission can help you scout Diocletian’s Palace and arrange your shoot. Get in touch.