the sea, and with its crown of battlemented towers among cypresses and
other trees which terminates the land as seen from the railway
descending from Nabresina to Trieste; for, though the Point of Salvore
stretches actually farther out, it is low, and does not catch the eye as
Pirano does, especially when its characteristic silhouette is emphasised
by the blue shadow of a passing cloud. The headland upon which the
cathedral is built, with its arched buttresses below, hides the town,
except for the fortified cresting high above the trees; but, when the
point is rounded and the harbour entered, one is tempted to assert that
there are few places so picturesque. The quays are crowded with
fishing-boats, which are backed by the brilliantly white buildings. The
green water reflects boats, buildings, and sky with a bewildering
flashing and mingling of varied colours; while, above the houses of the
Piazza Tartini, other houses and towers climb to the battlemented walls
which crown the hill above a space filled with the grey of olives and
green of the grass beneath them. Within the town the streets are narrow
and often arched over, producing striking effects of light and shade;
and there are external stairs to some of the houses and many balconies.
It is an ancient town, and may have been founded by Celtic immigrants,
since the word "pyrn" (a possible derivation for its name) means "top of
the hill" in Celtic. It certainly was inhabited in Roman times, for the
foundations of a Roman house have been found, as well as inscriptions,
bronzes, and other objects now preserved in the museums of Trieste,
Parenzo, and Pola. The names of a good many places near are of Roman
derivation, but the first definite mention of Pirano is made by the
anonymous Ravennese chronicler. In the tenth century the Istrians
attacked the possessions of the Patriarch of Grado and of Venice, under
the Marquis Winter, who governed for Ugo, king of Italy. The doge
retaliated by prohibiting all commerce with Pirano, Trieste, Muggia,
Capodistria, Cittanova, and Pola, and this soon brought them to their
knees, finally resulting in the treaty of 933.
[Illustration: THE INNER HARBOUR, PIRANO
_To face page 94_]
A castle, the residence of the count or burgrave, was built nearly
opposite the cathedral, with a wall falling sheer to the sea; this wall
was still in existence in 1483, and was seen by Sanudo, but it was
destroyed soon after. Venice gradually laid a heavier hand on this part
of the eastern shore of the Adriatic, and, though the citizens struggled
to retain their independence, the year 1283 saw the dedition of Pirano.
Yet it always retained the right of displaying its own standard of S.
George in the Piazza by the side of that of S. Mark. The existing bases
for the support of these standards date from 1464 and 1466, and bear
the figure of S. George on one, and S. Mark's lion on the other, with
the arms of the podestàs who ruled in those years. On the base of the
Venetian standard the measures of length then in use are engraved. The
standards for measures of capacity were three hollows sunk in a stone
which once stood at the foot of the stair of the communal palace. This
palace was demolished in 1877. It was a building erected in 1291,
outside the circuit of the walls as it then existed, "to show that a new
spirit ought to animate the citizens to forget their ancient divisions,"
as a chronicler says. From 1264 Venice practically had control of the
government, being the principal customer for the salt, which was (and is
still) the chief product of the place.
The city is an irregular triangle in plan, and is divided into four
sections, known as "Porte"--Porta Muggia, Porta Domo, Porta Misana, and
Porta Campo. Walls enclosed each of these sections, which were thrown
down by Venice at the same time that many of the nobles' towers were
destroyed; but some portions remain here and there, utilised for the
erection of later houses. Round the "Punta," the most ancient part of
the city, are remains of early walls, thought to be late Roman. The
Venetians allowed only one wall for protection, and the present towered
portion, so conspicuous along the crest of the hill, was finished in
1488. The suburb, the Borgo Marzana, which stretched along the shore,
was also enclosed within their circuit by 1533. They recall those of
Soave and Marostica in North Italy, where the houses cluster round the
piazza below, and the hillside is covered with olives, through and above
which the line of battlements may be traced high above the tops of the
campanili. The harbour was once larger than it now is, the Piazza
Tartini occupying the site of part of it. In 1320 the Venetians sent
three engineers to construct a port, but all that was done was to
strengthen the inner harbour as then existing. The chain which closed it
was replaced by a drawbridge in 1578, shown in a picture in the
cathedral, but this was demolished in 1894.
In 1379 the Genoese fleet of fifteen galleys demanded the surrender of
Pirano. Reply was made with cannon-shots which sank three large ships,
and the others sailed away. It was the only Istrian city which thus
repelled the Genoese attack, and the incident is also interesting as
showing that the Venetians used bombards before the war of Chioggia.
The statute is more ancient than those of most of the neighbouring
cities, and gives curious details as to pains and penalties and
municipal regulations. The penalty for mutilation was a corresponding
mutilation unless the fine prescribed was paid. The making of false
money was punished with death. The false witness, if insolvent, lost his
right nostril, and his name was published as a perjurer on the stair of
the communal palace. He who destroyed the property of another lost his
right hand. But there was no public executioner; and there are many
records of the flight of guilty persons, though an intention to make
"the punishment fit the crime" is evident. No one was allowed to build a
house close to the walls, and thatch was forbidden. A blasphemer was
pilloried for a day (a list of illegal words and phrases is attached to
this section). Workmen were forbidden to receive more than the wage
prescribed, butchers had to accept the price fixed for meat by the
justices, and the times and places for fishing were specified. The
commune had an inn "let to an honest man," with six good beds, which he
had to provide. No one else was allowed to let rooms till 1469, when the
payment of a tax of three ducats a year entitled the payer to a license.
In 1484 interest on loans was fixed at 20 per cent., and Jews were
allowed to charge no more. This people enjoyed considerable liberties,
as in Venice, and corresponding concessions were made to them. With the
establishment of a "Monte di Pietà" their occupation was gone, and they
migrated to Trieste. The commune paid a chief bombardier, a captain of
ordnance, a palace chaplain, two doctors and a surgeon, a canon of the
Community, a master of arithmetic, a professor of humanities and
rhetoric, and a preacher for Lent.
[Illustration: PIRANO, FROM NEAR THE CATHEDRAL
_To face page_ 97]
An academy, called "Dei Virtuosi," was also sustained at the public
expense, and by it public festivals were organised, with the
accompaniment of decorations and music, &c. The festival of Corpus
Domini is still celebrated with the hanging of cloths and paintings on
the walls of the houses, and with stretching awnings, like the
Florentine mediæval "cieli," across the streets, which are strewn with
flowers and ornamented with altars and fountains. Processions also still
accompany funerals and marriages, when garlands, flowers, and confetti
are thrown upon the cortège as it passes. The banner and pall are black,
with white embroidery, and the members of a red-clothed confraternity
attend the funerals, bearing a crucifix and tapers. Many of them are
quite old men, and they raise a quavering chant as they climb the steep
ascent to the cathedral, which is a late Renaissance building, and not
interesting, though finely placed. The campanile is an evident copy of
that of S. Mark at Venice.
In 1572, under an altar in the cathedral, a fine Byzantine civil casket
of ivory was found. Presented in 1884 to the Emperor by the
municipality, it is now in the Court museum at Vienna. It has a sliding
lid, the usual borders of rosettes, and long panels of subjects imitated
from the antique. In the library above the sacristy are several early
paintings in carved and gilt frames. The most important represents a
long arcade with four saints on each side of a broader central panel,
on which are the Virgin and Child enthroned. The figures have small
heads and meagre limbs. There is also a Crucifixion, which, from its
shape, was probably the top panel of a large picture in compartments.
These are of the fourteenth century. A later example shows four saints
in trefoil-headed panels, with a cornice above, composed of a series of
shell-headed tops of niches. These originally formed the doors of a
cupboard. There are also said to be a psalter and antiphonary of the
fourteenth century, and a Bull of Urban V. relating to the Crusades of
1365. The ancient baptistery stood opposite the cathedral, if one may
trust the views in Carpaccio's picture, and in one by Domenico
Tintoretto in the town-hall. The modern one is on the slope of the hill,
just below the campanile. It contains an early rectangular font. On the
side facing the door is a carving similar to that on the font at
Venzone--a naked youth astride of a sea-monster, said to typify the
control of the bodily appetites by the reason. The other sides are much
damaged.
The other important church is that of S. Francesco, which has a good
early Renaissance doorway and a cloister, some seventeenth-century
carved chairs, several Venetian pictures, and an early altar-piece. On
the façade a curious inscription is set in the wall, which states that
the church was dedicated on S. Mark's Eve, 1344, and that seven altars
were then consecrated by seven bishops--nine being mentioned,
however--Justinoplensis (Capodistria), Enonensis (Cittanova),
Parentinus, Polensis, Petenesinus (Pisino), Capiolensis, Evelinensis
(Buie), Domatensis, Soaralensis. The lion of the church is, however, the
fine Carpaccio in the chapel to the left at the bottom of the nave,
dated 1518, and signed "Victoris Charpatii Veneti opus," considered by
some his best work. It represents the Virgin seated, and holding the
Child to her breast. He has two cherries in His left hand; to His right
are three saints --S. Francis with a cross, S. George, and S. Louis of
Toulouse; to the left, S. Anthony, Santa Chiara, and S. Louis of France.
At the feet of the Virgin are two angels with lute and violin on each
side of a pot of lilies; a pillared hall, with a view of Pirano in the
distance, forms the background. The chapel has pilasters with very
beautiful arabesques. The design of the architecture and of the picture
agrees perfectly, and it is evident that it was intended that the
painted architecture should continue the effect of perspective, which
commences with the reality of carved and built-up marble.
In the office of the salt-works is a picture by Carpaccio's son
Benedetto, signed and dated 1541, which came from S. Lucia di Val di
Fasano. It shows the Virgin seated with the Child in a little shirt, in
the act of blessing. On the left is S. Lucy, on the right S. George
standing, with their heads on the same level as the Virgin, and
therefore on a smaller scale. The throne has a very shallow step. The
figure of S. George is a repetition of that by Benedetto's father in S.
Francesco.
In the Piazza Tartini, near a fourteenth-century house of Venetian
Gothic, once the palace of the family of del Bello, is a modern statue
of Tartini the violinist (1692-1770), who here commenced the study of
music, which led him to extraordinary executive triumphs and the
production of the celebrated "Trillo del diavolo."
Outside the walls, on the road to Porto Rose, are the ruins of the
monastery of S. Bernardino, founded in 1450 by S. Giovanni da
Capistrano, to whom the ruined convent on the island opposite Rovigno is
also due. It once possessed a Vivarini, a Madonna with a sleeping Child,
which was sent to Vienna in 1803. In the church of S. George is a
fragment of a carved stall with a figure of the saint, which should be
mentioned.
The town of Salvore seems to have been under the jurisdiction of Pirano,
and the commune held a fair there on S. John the Baptist's Day, to
celebrate the naval battle in 1177, in which Frederick Barbarossa was
conquered in the deep bay between it and Pirano. The jousts, boat-races,
and hunts which were held then and on the feasts of Pentecost and S.
Orligo were so sumptuous that the _provveditore_ limited the
expenditure.
The last boat for Trieste left Pirano at 1.30 p.m., an hour so
ridiculously early, that we determined to walk to Isola and proceed
thence by train. We started off bravely up the steep road which led to
the fifteenth-century Porta di Raspo, obtaining fine views down the
alleys and through garden doors as we ascended the hill. High above our
heads the battlements towered, and as we approached the walls we
realised what a business it must have been to attack a town so protected
before the invention of gunpowder. Soon the road bent away to the right,
which was not the direction in which we wished to go, but a path led to
some brick-works, and there we found an idle workman, who advised us to
go along the shore as being much shorter. So we plunged and slid about
among rocks of a considerable size, and skirted the base of slippery
cliffs, and ploughed through sand and shingle for some miles, rejoicing
when we met the road again in a flat piece of land where there were
salt-pans. From this point it made a long sweep inland and then rose in
wide curves up the shoulder of a hill which divided us from Isola. Here
we saw a train draw up to take on board two gentlemen and a little boy;
there was no sign of station or halting-place, and we wondered whether
all that was necessary was to stand by the line and wave one's hand to
the driver in order to be taken up! A stony path led us to the
summit--another short cut, which happily called for less exertion than
our previous jaunt along the shore--and a charming view amply repaid us
for our labours. In the foreground the stony path dropped between steep
banks, the soil being occupied by vines and olives, with a little shrine
perched on one of the banks. In the middle distance Isola lay like a
jewel upon the sea, opalescent with delicate blue shadows and the
indescribable tints of grey stone buildings at a distance in sunlight;
with the campanile crowning the slight elevation of the clustered
houses. Beyond were the horns of the Bay of Capodistria and the
highlands of the Julian Alps, blue in the shadow of the declining sun. A
few lighter houses scattered along the peninsula served to soften the
transition from the grey town to the green country.
The town is at least as old as the beginning of the eleventh century,
for in 1041 it was ceded to the monastery of Aquileia; at this time it
was probably unwalled, for in 1165 the Abbess Valperta allowed the
inhabitants to remove to Monte Albuciano and build fresh houses there,
as they did not feel secure. After the dedition to Venice in 1280 it was
strengthened; but that did not prevent a body of the patriarch's troops
scaling the walls and taking it on August 25, 1379, to be driven out a
few days after by the podestàs of Capodistria, Pirano, and Umago. Since
1411 it has been joined to the Capodistria road by a bridge, and no one
would now suppose that it was originally--as its name denotes--an
island. Nine square towers defended the walls, and the principal gate
was protected by a barbican. The ditch was so useful to the people in
peaceful times that the commune threatened with severe penalties those
who went by night to deposit in it the refuse of their houses and
stables. No trace of these works now remains.
The _Colleggiata_ is a late Renaissance building, but contains some
interesting things, including a picture by Girolamo Santa Croce of the
Madonna enthroned, with SS. Nicholas and Joseph, and a child angel with
a violin on the plinth, signed and dated 1537, but restored. The
treasury contains a fine monstrance of silver, Gothic in design, with
bands of pierced work and tabernacles at the sides on twisted columns.
It has a spire-like top with windows and pinnacles between round its
base, a feature which is repeated on the knop. In the seventeenth
century several figures were added or replaced and the stem repaired.
The Scuola dei Battuti, built in 1451, has a door with a frescoed
tympanum beneath a pointed arch on brackets, a good deal
weather-worn--Madonna sheltering the penitents beneath her cloak--and
pretty arabesque scrolls on the soffit.
Isola is delightful from outside; but inside there is much dirt, and
little food for the traveller. All that we could obtain was bread and
rough red wine. While waiting for the train, as the sun set and twilight
fell, we saw many of the _contadini_ returning from their work, most of
them on donkeys or ponies--a father with a little son before or behind
him, a man in a black cloak with panniers laden with branches of trees,
which hid the saddle, and, in the semi-obscurity, made them look like
some monstrous beast of strange form, another perched upon a great
bundle of hay or grass, and so on, all passing rapidly from the malaria
of the fields to the safety of the malodorous town.
It reminded one of the return of the townspeople within the walls at
nightfall necessitated by the mediæval custom of closing the gates an
hour after "Ave Maria," after which none could enter or leave the
cities; and how the lamps of the shrines were the only illumination of
the streets, about which none were allowed to go without carrying a
light.
In the train we had as fellow traveller an engineer who spoke English
well. He said that all over Istria nothing could be obtained to eat
(except, of course, in the more important towns). He had been
constructing a new line near Divaca, where nothing was obtainable, and
he and his companions had been obliged to take a cook and all supplies
with them. He appeared to have a very bad opinion of the Triestines,
whom he characterised as drunken swine, which we had not observed
ourselves. He said that beer was too dear for the majority, so they got
drunk on black wine and brandy--a statement which sounded strange to our
English ears. The smaller boats, being for the use of the country
people, are very inconvenient for tourists, since they generally start
so as to arrive at Trieste early in the day, thus allowing of return the
same night with the purchases made. Baedeker advises an excursion to
Muggia and on to Capodistria and Isola and Pirano, "returning by boat in
the evening"; but the last boat from Pirano leaves at 1.30 p.m., and the
last one from Capodistria at 4.0 (by which, by-the-bye, we paid twice as
much as we paid for the same journey in the morning), and after that the
traveller is dependent upon the little railway, which lands him in
Trieste after 10.0 p.m., at the S. Andrea Station, rather late to obtain
a meal.
VIII
UMAGO TO PARENZO
The next place along the coast, after passing the Promontory of Salvore
and turning south, is Umago. It is sheltered behind a shoal, upon which
the Chronicles say that the ship laden with the relics of S. Mark struck
during a storm on its way to Venice. It was given as a feud to the
bishop of Trieste in 929, at Pavia, by Ugo of Provence, king of Italy,
and to the bishop of Cittanova in 1029 or 1038 by the Emperor Conrad. It
had been sacked by the Slavs of Croatia and Dalmatia in 876, at the same
time with Cittanova, Rovigno, and Sipar (at which last place very early
wall-paintings are said to exist). It swore fealty to Venice in 1269;
but very little is known of its history, the English apparently having
burnt the archives in the piazza early in the nineteenth century. At
that period no one seems to have thought that such things could be of
any value; indeed at Portole, about 1850, the podestà actually sold all
the communal deeds to the grocer of the place, thinking them useless
rubbish, and at Cittanova the parchments were used by the citizens to
mend windows!
Cittanova lies at the mouth of the Quieto valley which, commencing at
Pinguente, passes Montona on its isolated hill (visible from the coast
like lofty Buie), and terminates in a marsh seven or eight miles long.
The mouth is known as Porto Torre, from a little place on the Parenzo
side of the river. The city was a Roman colony with the name Æmonia,
and the seat of an early Istrian bishop. A few years ago some seventy
carved slabs of the eighth or ninth century were discovered face
downwards in the pavement of the crypt of the basilica, which appear to
have belonged to the font and choir enclosure. Among them are several
archivolt pieces, very much like those of the font of Calixtus at
Cividale, which show by a mutilated inscription that they were due to
Bishop Maurizio, apparently a bishop suspected of being on the side of
the Franks, and therefore blinded by the Byzantines in 781. The slabs
are all of Istrian stone, except one, which is of marble, and the
carvings therefore may possibly to some extent be of local workmanship,
though we know that Comacines from Cividale were employed in Croatia.
They have the characteristic Lombard furrows and interweavings, and
other details met with in different parts of Italy. There are no
mouldings, but a slight bead and reel along the interior edge of the
arches. One slab shows two birds drinking from a vase in the upper part,
and, below, two others apparently going to divide a fish--at each side
vine scrolls springing from vases; another is carved with figures of
griffins. There are two window-slabs with pierced patterns: one has
simple rhomboidal forms; the other a central stem, with curling branches
terminating in trefoils of much more advanced type, suggesting the
panels in the later tomb of the Dogaressa Michieli in the atrium of S.
Mark's, Venice. The basilica was restored in 1409-1414, and in the
sixteenth century, with the assistance of Venice, at which time the
baldacchino was destroyed. The church stands on the edge of the land,
and has a small round-arched arcade on the façade divided by the
doorway, which is covered with a pointed hood on brackets. In the gable
is an oculus. The campanile resembles S. Mark's, Venice, as is usual.
Within, a Venetian Madonna and Child is preserved, Mantegnesque in
style, and therefore ascribed to Mantegna or John Bellini. In the
eighteenth century a picture by the latter was sent to Venice to be
restored, and, if this is the picture, the restoration was very
thorough. The baptistery, destroyed in 1780, had a vestibule like that
at Concordia. It was octagonal, with four little round-headed windows,
and the hexagonal font was built up from the floor, the rim being level
with the top-most of the three steps which surrounded the building.
Three steps also descended into it.
The city swore fealty to Venice in 1270. It still retains a portion of
its ancient battlemented walls, which have a curious feature--a
projecting spur, which runs out into the sea a long way, and was
probably intended to make the sea-front secure at low water. The commune
was very zealous in its preparations for war, and, according to the
statute, a citizen who wounded or killed a spectator during military
evolutions or practice was able to secure immunity from punishment!
In 1466 the see was divided from the patriarchate of Venice by Paul II.,
Francesco Contarini being made bishop, and was enriched by the gift of
the property of the suppressed bishopric of Equilium. Fifty years before
leave was granted to the then bishop to sell wine grown in his vineyards
outside the territory.
IX
PARENZO
The next town along the coast, Parenzo, is celebrated for its fine
sixth-century cathedral, the pride of the whole of Istria "the land of
basilicas," and is the headquarters of the Istrian Archæological
Society, several of whose members have devoted much time and money to
the elucidation of the history, construction, and decoration of the
building.