bishoprics of Görz and Udine. The precious objects were stolen from
Udine, and have disappeared, but at Görz there still remain several.
There is a bishop's crozier of the end of the twelfth century,
Romanesque in style, decorated with seven pieces of rock-crystal
arranged diagonally, and with a knop of the same, set at a later date.
The crook is set with precious stones, rubies, turquoises, aquamarine,
and lapis lazuli. Within is the Lamb holding a cross; under it the whorl
finishes with a dragon. A much older bishop's staff is of worm-eaten
wood--set in metal at a later date to preserve it from
destruction--said to have been given to S. Hermagoras by S. Peter or S.
Mark. There is also a great crucifix of gilded silver on a wood basis
worked with a rough naturalism free from Byzantine influence. The cross
is made into a tree, from which grapes hang; the nimbus is set with
large amethysts and small rubies. Of the same period is a fine
book-cover of gilded silver with the subject of the Ascension. Christ
enthroned in a vesica is supported by two angels; below is the Madonna
as _orante_, surrounded by the Apostles. The border consists of fine
leaf-scrolls, late twelfth century in character. A silver statuette of
the Madonna and Child is of the fourteenth century. The Child is nude,
tall, and thin, and wears a crown decorated with pearls and trefoils.
The naked portions are matt silver, the draperies are gilded. It stands
on a pedestal of three ornamented steps. The fate of the precious
objects is reversed in the case of the documents. Those sent to Görz
have disappeared, whilst Udine still preserves a considerable number. At
Aquileia the only object remaining from the treasury is a statue of the
Madonna and Child, of Istrian marble, heavily painted. The work
resembles in style the carving at S. Giovanni in Fonte, Verona.
The campanile must have been built by Poppo, although the base looks
like Roman masonry, since the mosaics go right under it, but it was
added to later, and the octagonal bell-chamber is inscribed: "MD ·
XLVIII TADEVS · LVRANVS · HOC · O · FECIT." It is 39 ft. square and the
walls are over 7 ft. thick. The entrance is approached by 27 steps. It
is 70 ft. to the floor of the bell-chamber.
The narthex has three thick antique pillars, part granite and part
marble, with heavy early Christian Corinthian caps and super-abaci with
crosses upon them. The baptistery lies to the west of the narthex,
united to it by a building known as the Chiesa dei Pagani. This consists
of three bays with a descent of three steps from the first, over which
there was once a cupola. The other bays are cross-vaulted, and there are
several round-headed windows. In the pavement is a curious pierced
stone. It has a cross with the Agnus Dei in the centre (pierced), and
four little window shapes in the angles with round-headed tympana and
oblong piercings below. There was a second story; part of the wall of
this remains, constructed of ancient tiles, which were much used in
Aquileia in the Middle Ages; an inscription records a restoration in
1738. The baptistery was originally a Roman building, square externally
and octagonal within, with four niches, one of which is partially
preserved. Remains of the others have been found outside the octagon.
There was an hexagonal font in the centre, and in the angles of the
walls are the springings of vaults; there are also six pillar-stumps of
different thicknesses. Most of the present building is modern, the
result of several restorations. On each side of the baptistery and
Chiesa dei Pagani were halls with mosaic floors of the Christian period,
of which that to the south was least damaged when discovered; it had
three patterned fields, with borders. The open hall between was
stone-paved--a bit of the paving was found a foot deeper than the
original floor of the baptistery.
[Illustration: STATUE OF VENUS, MUSEUM. AQUILEIA
_To face page_ 36]
[Illustration: ANTIQUE STATUE IN THE MUSEUM, AQUILEIA]
The museum contains a quantity of exceedingly interesting objects, the
fruit of excavations, which the director, Signor Maionica, most kindly
piloted me through, calling attention to the various objects of special
interest and giving me details about them of which otherwise I should
have been ignorant. The collection of objects in amber, many of them
stained a fine red, is the finest in existence, though the most
splendid examples have gone to the British Museum, to Udine and Görz.
The sculptured objects include a very beautiful youthful Venus, a girl
apparently of about 17, a draped statue of the Emperor Claudius in Greek
costume, one of Tiberius as Pontifex Maximus (both found near the
theatre),one of Livia, showing the arrangement of the back hair, and
marble wigs to place upon the heads of statues to keep them in the
fashion. There is also a draped Venus with a Cupid hiding beneath her
robe, a copy of the Aura (Spring-rain) of Scopas, of which another is in
the museum at Trieste, and a most interesting sculptor's model for use
in the studio, showing how arms and legs of other pieces of marble were
affixed to statues. A pedestal shows the life of Priapus, from his birth
in the spring to his winter's inactivity; others have winged Cupids
bearing torches and bestriding dolphins, the idea being of a voyage to
the Islands of the Blest. A panel shows Bacchanalian Cupids; one desires
to drink, one is drinking from a crater, another, supported away,
inebriated; the robed master of the feast bears a sceptre and is playing
the Pan-pipes. Another relief represents a banquet in a triclinium. One
man sounds a double pipe, another carries food to the guests, one of
whom is singing an obscene song, which disgusts the women, who make the
sign of displeasure at him. In a relief of the time of Heliogabalus a
meteoric stone is seen carried in procession, preceded by duumvirs,
lictors, &c.--an evidence of an Oriental cult practised in Aquileia.
Five great medallions from the same building show busts in very high
relief of Jupiter, Mercury, Vulcan, Venus, and Minerva. A stone table
with a sundial and windrose engraved upon it has a low seat on three
sides, but the fourth free, so that the hour may be seen at all times of
the day without the annoyance of dodging one's shadow. The letters of
the inscription point to the second century A.D. as the date of its
production. Many sarcophagi come from the north-east of Aquileia near
Columbara, where a monument was found much resembling those of Petra and
Baalbek in its forms. Inscriptions name clothiers, fullers, joiners,
linen-weavers, builders and servants, purple-dyers, pikesmiths, a
silver-worker, an Oriental pearl merchant with a sign of the city of
Rome, &c. In the eighteenth century the Mint was discovered, with bars
of silver and baskets of coin. A fine plate of beaten silver, with the
story of Triptolemus, found here is now at Vienna.
Many pieces of ornament are preserved, often very finely modelled and
also with traces of colour. The larger pieces, many of which are coarse
in workmanship, are housed under a long shed in the open; among them are
slabs of ninth-century ornament, lead coffins, and pipes with pointed
covers to keep the sand out, urns for ashes, &c. There appears to have
been a Roman rococo at Aquileia, earlier than at Spalato or Florence.
Here, too, are some of the early Christian mosaics found during
the excavations in and around the cathedral. Especially beautiful are
the fragments with peacocks and other birds, and lambs, with freely
growing scrolls of vine. An asbestos net, found at Monastero, used to
wrap round the body during cremation and so keep the bones together, is
interesting, as are lachrymatories misshapen by the flames, small
bottles of rock-crystal beautifully cut, a few enamelled objects and
carvings in ivory, principally children's toys. Rings set with gems were
made of gold for the nobles and of iron for the citizens, who at a later
period used silver and even gold. Over 40,000 coins have been found in
the course of the excavations, and lamps bearing no less than 800
different makers' marks. The marks are the same as those found all
through Istria, Dalmatia, and the islands, proving a large export trade.
The most important were those of C. Vibio Pansa, whose stamp (or those
of his successors) is found in conjunction with imperial names till the
time of Constantine. In the delta of the Isonzo, near Monfalcone, a
portion was called "Insula Pansiana" even in the Middle Ages. A river in
the bay of Monfalcone is still called Panzano, and near there is a place
of the same name. There were also glass works at S. Stefano, Aquileia,
where fragments of coloured glass have been found.
Ruskin refers to a curious ceremony, instituted in the twelfth century,
which was observed in Venice till 1549 "in memorial of the submission of
Woldaric, patriarch of Aquileia, who, having taken up arms against the
patriarch of Grado, and being defeated and taken prisoner by the
Venetians, was sentenced, not to death, but to send every year on
'Giovedi Grasso' sixty-two large loaves, twelve fat pigs, and a bull, to
the Doge; the bull being understood to represent the patriarch and the
twelve pigs his clergy; and the ceremonies of the day consisting in the
decapitation of these representatives, and a distribution of their
joints among the senators; together with a symbolic record of the attack
on Aquileia, by the erection of a wooden castle in the rooms of the
Ducal Palace, which the _Doge and the Senate_ attacked and demolished
with clubs." Mutinelli quotes the decree.
The patriarchate reached the zenith of its power under Volfkertis of
Cologne, known to the Italians as Volchero. He was elected in 1204, and
ruled till 1218. His dioceses included seventeen bishoprics of Venice on
terra firma, stretching as far as Como and Trent, and six in Istria. The
Venetian island bishoprics, by the convention of 1180, were under the
Patriarch of Grado. In 1208 his dominions were so much increased that
they almost exceeded those of the Pope in extent. He held the duchies of
Carniola and Friuli, as well as the marquisate of Istria. He struck his
own coins, of which there are two types, one closely resembling those of
Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, and governed constitutionally with the
assistance of a parliament of three estates.
IV
GRADO
From Aquileia a steam-launch plies back and forth to Grado, a distance
of some six or seven miles, at first along a canal with grassy banks
plentifully besprinkled with giant snowdrops in the spring, then through
wide stretches of lagoon along a channel, marked by piles, sometimes
approaching the fishermen's huts, which occupy the summit of slight
elevations rising but little above the surface of the water. These huts
are mere shelters of reeds, and, one would think, quite unfit for human
habitation, but close by them the nets may be seen drying, and perhaps
food in course of preparation over an open fire, while the boat, thrust
into a creek or tied to a stake, occupies the foreground. These
wide-spreading lagoons, the resort of many kinds of water-fowl in their
passage from north to south and _vice versâ_, are very pictorial. The
enclosures in which fish brought in by the tide are retained, the beds
of reeds and rushes with yellow water-lilies, the figures of women and
children wading and seeking fishy treasures, provide excellent material
for the artist. Occasionally a boat passes in which a woman is taking
fish to Aquileia, leaving behind it a long trail of ripples. The two
great campanili, of Grado which we are nearing, and of Aquileia passing
into the distance behind us, each with its cluster of low buildings
around, are prominent against the horizon showing dark against the fine
cumulus clouds, which are heaped in sharply defined masses against the
blue of the upper sky and rise in threatening billows like exhalations
from some vast cauldron, soon to fade away innocuously in the late
afternoon.
Grado is on one of the islands of which a chain stretches from the mouth
of the Isonzo to that of the Brenta right across the northern border of
the Adriatic. Its port was one of the harbours of Aquileia, at first for
purposes of war, but later for those of commerce. The town was square in
plan, walled, and full of people. Cassiodorus speaks of its material
conditions. The modern town is most picturesque, with narrow streets and
numerous courtyards, with outside staircases, quaint shops, and
fascinating plays of light and shade, and so much of the life of the
people passes in the open air that there is always interesting matter
for observation. It is a seaside resort, visited a good deal for bathing
during the summer months, and there is also, as at Rovigno, an
establishment for scrofulous children. But its chief attraction for us
is archæological, for it contains early Christian antiquities of
considerable importance.
[Illustration: A CORNER IN GRADO
_To face page_ 42]
Its greatest prosperity was between the time of the great wanderings of
the peoples and the descent of the barbarians into Italy. Its patriarch
took the lead in establishing the government of the islands from which
the Venetian Republic sprang. In 460 Nicetas called all the bishops,
clergy, and leading officials of the islands together to deliberate on
the question of government, and, after discussion, they agreed to
establish one under the directorship of Tribunes. The first tribune was
to live at Grado, with three others, called "maggiori," but depending
upon him, one for Rivoalto, one for Candeana, and one for Dorsea, living
at Rialto, Eraclea, and Torcello respectively. They had charge of the
administration of justice, presided over the execution of the laws,
enforced discipline, and met at times in council to discuss propositions
laid before them. Grado lost its supremacy in 696, when the assembly
held at Eraclea gave it to that city, though the Patriarch of Grado,
Cristoforo, was given equality with the three tribunes which Eraclea
then had. The next year the first doge, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was
elected. It was by means of Fortunatus of Trieste, Patriarch of Grado
(803-825), that the cry of the Istrians, oppressed by the Frankish duke
and his supporters, came to the ears of Charlemagne, with the result
that after a strict inquiry held at Risano in 804, when the
representatives of the cities and castella exposed the odious
proceedings of the bishop, the duke, and their adherents, they obtained
redress. In 875 the Saracens attacked Grado, but were repulsed. The next
year a similar attack was made by the Slavs of Croatia and Dalmatia, but
the Doge Orso met them, defeated them, and gave back to several Istrian
towns objects of which they had been robbed.
Between Grado and Aquileia there was a constant struggle for supremacy,
which was in reality a contest between Venice and the empire, Aquileia
standing for the latter and Grado for the former. A formal peace was
concluded between them during the Lateran Council of 1180, by which the
Patriarch of Grado renounced all claims over the Istrian bishoprics,
except as regards the hundred amphoras of wine sent by Capodistria from
1075, given as a personal honour to the Doge Pietro Candiano, and by him
handed over to the Patriarch of Grado. In 452 the Patriarch of Aquileia
fled to Grado from the Huns, returning after they had passed, and in
578, when Aquileia had become Lombard, Paulinus transferred his seat to
Grado, thus putting himself under Byzantine protection. In 579 a synod
was held in the church. From 607 there were two patriarchs--one in Grado
and one in Aquileia--established for political reasons by the Lombards;
they were schismatical, that is to say, adherents of the "three
chapters." During the continuance of this schism, in 610, three Istrian
bishops were taken from their very churches by the military, and carried
off to Grado, where they were compelled to bend to the Imperial will in
the matter. Gregory III. sanctioned the division of the two
patriarchates in 731, both having become orthodox, Aquileia in 698 and
Grado in 715. In 1451 the patriarchate of Grado was transferred to
Venice, where the patriarch had been living for a long time.
The foundations of the cathedral were laid under Nicetas (456) by the
architect Paulus, who was sent to him by Pope Leo I. The plan is
Romanesque, a basilica with nave and aisles and no transept, the nave
terminating in an apse eastward. It has two western doors, which open
into a portico of almost the whole breadth of the church, part being cut
off by the campanile, which is nearly 20 ft. square and over 160 ft.
high. The clerestory and low-pitched wooden roof of the nave are
supported by two piers and ten columns on each side. The columns are
antique, but of varied material--cipollino, white and black and
white-veined marble, and granite; and there is one of a rosy and white
breccia. The caps vary both in design and size, and have been repaired
with stucco. Some of them are decadent Roman and the rest Byzantine: the
bases are hidden by a square wooden boxing. The eleven arches of the
nave arcade are round. The round-headed windows of both nave and aisles
had pierced slabs of stone in them, but in 1740 the openings were made
lunette-shaped. One pierced slab of the ninth century has been found,
and is now placed high up in the apse above the patriarch's throne.
Under Fortunatus and John the Younger, about the beginning of the ninth
century, the church appears to have been beautified; and again, in
the second half of the tenth, under Vitalis. It is related that the
relics were then provided with fresh receptacles and inscriptions. The
choir occupies three bays of the nave, with a modern enclosure raised by
several steps. Just outside the rail, by the fourth column on the left,
stands the interesting pulpit, which has a later canopy, but itself
appears to be of the ninth century, judging by the columns, two of which
are twisted, and by the carving of the symbols of the Evangelists, which
seems to be rather later. On the other hand, there is a square O in the
inscription on S. John's book, of which other instances occur at Cattaro
in an inscription of the ninth century, and in one of the seventh at
Spalato. The pulpit is sexfoil in plan; one side is open, and one has a
large cross carved upon it. The canopy has six fourteenth or
fifteenth-century octagonal colonnettes, supporting ogee trefoiled
arches with a domical termination, coloured in red and white chequers,
and with scrolls and rosettes of red on the spandrils of the arches
below. The shape and decoration show Arab influence strongly.
[Illustration: PULPIT IN THE CATHEDRAL, GRADO
_To face page 45_]
In the pavement is still preserved a great deal of that laid down by
Elias in the sixth century. It filled the nave, being entirely worked in
tesseræ of very few colours--black, a green-grey, red, yellow, and
white. From the west door a pattern, surrounded by a border, stretches
as far as the fifth pair of columns. It consists of a central band of a
wavy pattern, interrupted by inscriptions and medallions; the
easternmost one is blank and has a running border, with the corners of
the square (cut off by the band of inscriptions) filled with
scroll-work. The side portions are cut up into squares by bands of open
interlacings, with ivy leaves in the interstices, and different designs
within the squares, or with inscriptions, most of them in Latin, but one
in Greek. They record the gift of so many feet of pavement, as at
Parenzo; and one donor, Laurentius the Viscount Palatine, seems to have
been generous to both cathedrals. A long inscription leaves no doubt as
to the date, and that it was laid down under the Patriarch Elias
(571-585); it runs: "Atria quae cernis vario formata decore squallida
sub picto caelatur marmore tellus longa vetustatis senio fuscaverat ætas
prisca en cesserunt magno novitatis honori praesulis Haeliae studio
praestante beati haec sunt tecta pio semper devota timori."
The flat ceilings and the rococo stucco-work are due to the restorations
of 1740. The apse contains remains of mediæval painting--a seated Christ
of colossal size surrounded by the symbols of the four Evangelists, with
raised right hand and a closed book in the left; on one side S. John the
Baptist holding an open scroll, and on the other a saint in green, with
gold-shot stole and nimbus, but no attribute--both larger than life. The
corners are occupied by the patron saints, Hermagoras and Fortunatus.
Round the apse, just above the patriarch's seat, runs a row of portraits
of bishops of later date, half-lengths, beneath a round-arched arcade on
a gold ground. On the left nave pier, near the door, are the remains of
a painting of S. Helena, who has nimbus, cross, and book. In the centre
of the apse is the ancient patriarch's seat, with an inscription upon
the wall commemorating the ancient supremacy of the see: it is mainly
composed of mutilated ninth-century carved slabs, probably portions of
the chancel of that date. Other slabs with similar designs and portions
of a ciborium are preserved in a little collection of marbles under a
shed behind the apse, where are also several sarcophagi and other
antique fragments.
[Illustration: THE PATRIARCH'S THRONE. CATHEDRAL, GRADO
_To face page 46_]
In the treasury are two early reliquaries of silver, found beneath the
high-altar in August, 1871. One is cylindrical, with a convex lid,
upon which is represented in relief the Virgin enthroned, with the Babe
at her breast. Her right hand holds a cross-headed sceptre, and behind
her head is a nimbus with the usual monogram, [Greek: MÊ ThT]. The
cylinder has no decoration but two bands of names of saints in Roman
capital letters. These are: "Sanc. Maria, Sanc. Vitvs, Scs. Cassianvs,
Sanc. Pancrativs, Sanc. Ypolitvs, Sanc. Apollinaris, Sanc. Martinvs."
Within is a central cylinder and six compartments radiating from it,
which contained a small cylindrical vase of gold with rings round it, a
little glass flask, closed up and containing water, a little gold box
with crosses and a leaf pattern on the outside, and a cross of
dark-green enamel on the cover, a small slab of chalk or cement with a
Greek cross imprinted on it, and several thin gold plates with the names
of saints upon them. Several of the printed accounts of the discovery of
this treasure say that there were six of these plates in the casket; but
the glass case which encloses it and its contents has eleven, with the
names as follows: "Domna Maria, Scs. Cassianvs, Sc. Martinvs, Sc.
Brancativs, Scs. Troteomvs, Sca. Agnes, Scs. Bitvs, Scs. Apolinnaris,
Scs. Hyppolitvs, Scs. Sabastianvs, Scs. Severvs." Dr. Kandler thought
that it came from the church of S. Niceta in Aquileia, and was brought
to the island with other treasures in 452, for safety, from Attila. De
Rossi thought that the appellative "Domna" distinguishing the Virgin was
an argument against such high antiquity; but in a later number of his
"Bullettino" he described an inscription of about 457 at Loja, in Spain,
in which the title "Domnus" or "Domna" is applied to all the saints,
including the Virgin. There is a legend that "When Paul was patriarch of
Aquileia the priest Geminianus was told in a vision to go to the
destroyed city of Trieste to find the bodies of 42 martyrs buried
between the wall of the church dedicated to them and the city wall.
Going thither with many other Venetians he found the holy bodies in the
specified place, covered over with marble slabs, and, taking them, went
to the destroyed city of Aquileia, where he added to the relics the
bodies of Cantius, Cantianus, Cantianilla, and the virgins Euphemia,
Dorothea, Thecla, and Erasma, and then took them all to Grado." Paul is
Paulinus I. (557-569), and the occurrence took place after the Lombards
had gone by in 568. The forty-two martyrs were laid side by side in the
church of S. Vitale, and Paul died the next year.
The other reliquary is elliptical, and has upon its sides reliefs and
inscriptions bordered with a rough leaf-moulding. Round the middle are
eight medallions with male and female heads, divided into two groups of
five and three by palm-trees. Above and below is a row of names; those
of the top row being: "[Symbol: cross] Sanctvs Cantivs, Sanc. Cantianvs,
Sancta Cantianilla, Santvs Qvirinvs, Santvs Latinv." The lower row runs:
"[Symbol: cross] S. Lavrentivs, vs loannes, vs Niceforvs
Santisreddedidbotvm" (vir spectabilis, &c., reddidit votum). The use of
b for v is characteristic of the period of the Patriarch Elias. The
cover is slightly domical; upon it are two lambs, and between them a
gemmed cross. They stand on a hill from which the four rivers of
Paradise flow. Within was a second silver casket filled with water, and
some remains of relics. At Pola some reliquaries of somewhat the same
kind were found, of which a description will be given later.