Istria, situated upon and about the rock beneath which the river Foiba
disappears. The railway winds round the sides of green and wooded hills,
rising with each curve till it is some height above the city. The
landscape is more striking than is usual in Istria, hills of some
size appearing on the horizon, while in the middle distance the Foiba
meanders through a fruitful valley, occasionally broken by a low
waterfall. The copses which clothe the hillsides here and there are
vocal with the song of birds, and nightingales may be heard in plenty in
the spring. The situation is magnificent. The town stands upon the
summit of a promontory spreading out like the fingers of a hand, and at
its base the river foams and rushes, entering a deep winding ravine and
plunging beneath a rocky precipice several hundred feet high, on the top
of which a few houses appear. The steep sides are green with trees to a
certain height, and then the grey rock appears scantily covered with
grass in places; above the abyss swallows dart and hawks hover. On all
sides the rushing of water is heard, and fountains in the streets
betoken an unusual supply, for Istria is generally a thirsty land. The
castle is so close to the chasm that from one of the windows a stone can
be tossed into the water. The dwarf wall shown in the illustration runs
along the top of the precipice. Upon the door the date of 1785 is cut,
but the greater part of the walls with their machicolations belongs to a
reconstruction of the ancient castle in the fifteenth century. It is
still inhabited, and part of it is used for district offices, but there
is little of archæological interest in city or castle. In the courtyard
is a well on a platform ornamented with stone balls to which twelve
steps ascend, a rather curious arrangement. The place for the bar which
fastened the doors is still there, but in these peaceful times they
appear to stand open day and night; at all events they were open when we
reached the place about 7 a.m., having left Pola soon after 5. In the
cathedral are a silver processional cross with figures of saints, and a
tabernacle of 1543, rich of its kind, also a picture by Girolamo da S.
Croce.
There was a cattle-fair on the day we were in the town; the place was
full of _contadini_, and the roads were thronged with cattle being
driven in for sale. The lambs were slung on donkeys' backs in couples,
confined in sacks with their heads out of the mouths, and one lively
little black fellow escaped and caused much excitement before he was
caught and reimprisoned. The type of the peasants is quite different
from that of those lower down the coast; the head is long, the nose
aquiline, and the countenance seamed with many deep wrinkles. The older
men wore one large earring in the right ear, hose of a thick whitish
woollen material, or brown or blue trousers which sometimes reached but
a little below the knee, a white shirt, and a brown jacket hung over the
shoulder. The daughter of the house, who served us at a rough restaurant
where we had _déjeuner_ together with some of the country folk, was
anxious to know whether the language we were speaking together was
Russian. I fancy English travellers are very rare in that part of the
country.
A few miles south of Canfanaro is the little town of San Vincenti, in
which is one of the best preserved of the Istrian castles, showing
indeed little sign of ruin externally. It occupies one side of the main
piazza. At right angles to it is the church, with a façade recalling the
work of the Lombardi, and there is a loggia and a public cistern, made
in 1808 to ensure a good supply of drinking-water. In this piazza a
joust was held as late as June 24, 1713. There Maria Radoslavich was
hung and then burnt as a witch on February 25, 1632.
[Illustration: AN ANGLE OF THE CASTLE, SAN VINCENTI
_To face page 130_]
The castle is quadrilateral with a round and an octagonal tower at the
angles of the northern face. The opposite side has a square tower at the
angle to the right, and to the left the house of the governor just
beyond the entrance-gate; the walls splay out widely to the bottom of
the ditch. The slits for the chains of the drawbridge are on each side
of a little grated window, and above the door are the date 1485 and the
arms of Marino Grimani, with an inscription recording a restoration in
1589 after a fire in 1586. On a small door inside is the date 1728,
showing that the castle underwent restorations and rebuildings. In the
middle of the cornice is an arch for the castle-bell. The town was part
of the feud of S. Apollinare, and was destroyed in 1330 by the soldiers
of the Patriarch Pagano della Torre. The castle belonged first to the
Castropola, then to the Morosini, and finally to the Grimani. It was
dismantled by Bernardo Tiepolo after the war of Gradisca (during which
Loredano used it as his quarters general), with the object of freeing
the people from forced service of various kinds. Low buildings used as
harness and store-rooms, &c., still remain against the walls inside, but
the stair to the suite of principal rooms is ruinous. It is external,
and led to a terrace beneath which were prisons, and from which another
flight rose to a door of entrance, walled up but still traceable, at a
considerable height. Other prisons were in the towers, which were bound
together by the gallery which ran round the interior. The ground floor
of the seventeenth-century house which occupies the ancient keep was
arranged as guard-rooms and soldiers' lodgings; an internal stair
conducts to a few rooms which look into the courtyard; the floors of the
rest have been destroyed. Externally there is no opening for half the
height; then there are two pointed windows with a considerable space
between; above these in the middle is a large loggia with two pointed
doors, at the sides quadrangular windows, and higher up, beneath the
eaves, four more small window-openings. Some of the towers are
ivy-grown.
[Illustration: WAYSIDE CHAPEL OUTSIDE SAN VINCENTI]
In the church in the piazza is a S. Sebastian ascribed to Schiavone. The
most ancient church is, however, in the cemetery to the north, a simple
nave with pointed windows. The little chapel illustrated, at a crossing
of the ways, is characteristic of this part of Istria. The people still
speak Venetian Italian, though there are a good many Slav _contadini_,
brought from Dalmatia by the Grimani in 1628. The type has regular and
marked features, with dark eyes and hair. The costume is not quite that
of the Morlacchi, being all black except the shoes, which are of natural
leather. The women have short skirts, black stockings, and shiny shoes,
many chains round the neck, and earrings, and on festas have a coronal
of pins in their carefully arranged hair, like the women of the Brianza.
Their weddings are celebrated amid great gatherings of friends; two
pipers, with instruments timed in thirds, march first, playing a kind of
tarantella; then follows a company of _contadini_ two and two, not
arm-in-arm, but with a coloured handkerchief from one head to the other.
The bride has a kind of turban of brilliant colours on her head, from
which masses of vari-coloured silken ribbons hang, covering her to the
shoulders and breast except for her eyes, nose, and mouth. Her chemise
is finely pierced and embroidered on neck, bosom, and cuffs, and her
stockings are of open work, while her shoes are almost like sandals.
Rows of coral deck her neck, and her fingers have as many gold rings on
them as possible. The bridegroom's hat bears a crown of artificial
flowers, as does that of the best man; all the friends have a similar
bunch in their hands or caps. After the marriage the pipers play, and
the whole of the company form up in a straight line outside the church.
Then the best man comes forward with a kind of cake, which, after
various feints, he throws among the crowd of children which quickly
collects, and they scramble for it. Then the husband and wife, with the
best man, go to the goldsmith's to buy the marriage present. Later there
is a dance. The men and women face each other in line. They pace rapidly
back and forth without moving forward. Then the couples advance, the man
raises his right arm and opens the hand to the woman, who grasps it, and
turns herself under the arch of the two arms. Then the man passes his
arm round his partner's waist and they go round in measured walk.
Between San Vincenti and Pola are Valle and Dignano. At the former the
fortifications are earlier than the fourteenth century, heavy and
imposing, with five lofty towers (two of which are embattled), so that
projectiles were dangerous rather from the force of gravity than from
the impulse given. A portion of them is ruined, and one of the towers is
now the communal cistern. In the crypt of the church are fragments of
ninth-century carving, cut up disgracefully and made into a modern
altar, and there is a sarcophagus of the same period in the cemetery.
The campanile is considered to be the oldest in Istria. In the treasury
are a silver-gilt monstrance with many pinnacles and Renaissance scrolls
on the foot, a cross and a chalice of silver-gilt with medallions on the
foot, which once had an enamel ground. The most interesting thing,
however, is a chasuble of the fifteenth century, with embroidered
figures of silver-gilt thread in high relief upon the cross. At the
back, on the upright part, is a half-length of our Lord in a chalice,
and two saints, all three beneath canopies, and on the arms SS. Peter
and Paul. On the front are two figures and an Annunciation on the arms;
the Virgin on one side, and the angel on the other. The flesh is
painted.
XII
POLA
The town and arsenal of Pola lie at the head of one of those convenient
inlets which provide the Austrian coast so plentifully with fine
harbours. As the steamer passes between Cape Compare and Monte Grosso
the naval port appears to the right with many powerful ships-of-war
anchored in the bay: beyond and above the island of Olivi, occupied by
part of the arsenal, rises the town, its buildings climbing the hill
towards the castle which crowns the summit. To the left is the ample
commercial port with its long quays stretching towards the railway
station, the imposing mass of the amphitheatre dominating the whole of
that side of the picture. These two structures, the amphitheatre and the
arsenal, show the chief interests of Pola--the glory of antiquity, and
modern utility devoted to defence; for the monuments of mediæval times
are few in the city, and the destruction wrought alternately by Venice
and Genoa left it poor, and in many parts ruinous, till the modern
revival, with the transference of the headquarters of the Austrian navy
from Venice in 1861. The mouth of the harbour is less than half a mile
across and is over 100 ft. deep. The eastern portion has a depth of 20
ft. against the quays, which are all constructed on made ground. The
quarries on the Brioni Islands have afforded excellent material close at
hand for the buildings and fortifications both in antiquity and in
modern times.
The castle hill was the capitol of the Roman city, and the streets ran
round it, with others diverging like the ladders of a spider's web. A
canal isolating the city from the land existed to the east. Of the land
gates two still remain--the Porta Gemina (anciently the Porta Jovia) and
the Porta Ercole; the arch of the Sergii formed the interior face of a
third (of which a portion of the lower courses remain), the Porta Aurea,
so called probably from its having had grilles of gilded bronze. There
were also seven gates in the walls towards the sea. The forum was twice
the size of the present piazza, which occupies part of its site, and had
twin temples at one end, with the comitium between them, of which one
remains in good preservation, and a portion of the back part of the
other. There was a temple of Jupiter Conservatorius, upon the site of
which the cathedral stands; and one to Minerva, afterwards the site of
the destroyed basilica of S. Maria in Canneto. The theatre was near the
Porta Aurea, and is now marked only by the excavation of its curve in
the hillside and a few ruined arches in a private garden. The
destruction of ancient Pola is largely due to Venice, who appeared to
think that when the communes gave themselves to her she acquired the
right of removing any of the monuments to beautify herself; and it even
went so far as for a patrician to seriously propose to bear the cost of
transporting the amphitheatre to Venice, and re-erecting it on the site
of the present public gardens!
[Illustration: ARCH OF SERGII, POLA
_To face page 145_]
The Porta Gemina consists of twin arches, beneath a simple frieze and
more elaborate cornice supported by modillions, which rest upon three
engaged composite columns raised upon pedestal blocks. The key-stones
are flat, and the piercing of some holes in them suggests that metal
enrichments were affixed. It was an important gate, being the direct way
to the amphitheatre from the Capitol, and also the starting-point of
the military road towards the Arsa and Albona. By it also the aqueduct
passed into the city. The Porta Ercole is simpler, and probably older;
it bears the names of two duumvirs, Lucius Cassius Longinus and Lucius
Calphurnius Piso, and some rough carving. Of the Porta Aurea itself,
which had a central gate for chariots and two side gates for
pedestrians, little remains. Beneath the arch of the Sergii the ancient
pavement has been uncovered, bearing wheelmarks made many centuries ago,
and the lower courses of the gateway adjacent, but all the part above
the present street-level has disappeared. The carving on the arch of the
Sergii shows a curious economy. Since the gate was so close to it only a
portion of the coupled Corinthian columns could be seen; the fluting,
therefore, was carried only a third of the way round, and the capitals
were left merely roughed out, as were also the mouldings of the attic
which would be hidden by the cornice, except in the portions visible
from the external sides. The soffit of the arch is carved, and the face
of the pilaster below has a very rich and graceful vine arabesque upon
it. The other side is fully decorated with victories in the spandrils,
festoons and chariot-races on the frieze, and the attic develops three
pedestals for statues, inscribed to members of the family of Salvia
Postumia, who erected it in honour of her husband, Lucius Sergius, his
father of the same name, and his uncle Cnæus Sergius. Lucius Sergius was
tribune of the 29th Legion. The work is probably of the time of
Augustus.
The finely proportioned temple was erected at a later period during his
lifetime by the grateful Polese; such adulation could be tolerated only
in Asia, and Augustus declined to allow the dedication without the
addition of "Rome." The façade has four Corinthian columns, and at the
angles of the cella are four channelled pilasters; between these and the
four columns of the façade is a similar column on each side. The roof is
modern. Within it and around are collected numerous sculptured
fragments, antique and of the early mediæval period for the most part,
which would be the better for spacing and arranging. The other temple is
of a later date. They both stood upon a platform twelve steps above the
forum, themselves raised further by seven steps and a stylobate. The
rostra were on the forum side of the comitium.
Till 1875 the amphitheatre--which was built in 198-211 in honour of
Septimius Severus (who had been governor of Illyria) and of
Caracalla--lay open to the street. It was then railed round, and since
that time systematic excavations have disclosed the plan of the
sub-structures. The circuit, which is nearly perfect, consists of
seventy-two arches, and the elevation has a basement and a principal
story, with an attic of square windows to light the promenade, and a
finishing cornice through which the masts for the Velarium passed,
resting upon stone blocks above the cornice of the main story. The
arches at the extremities of the long diameter are wider than the rest,
and therefore cut into the frieze above, an unusual licence. There are
four towers, two towards the sea and two towards the hill, which
probably contained double staircases, but no sign of them remains,
though the doorways and grilles of pierced stone testify to their
usefulness. Excavations have brought to light forty or fifty pieces of
the steps of the auditorium, upon some of which the seats are marked by
dividing lines and by letters. The podium of the arena shows by its
lowness that fights with wild beasts did not take place in it. Until the
fourteenth century the interior remained nearly complete, the patriarch
having forbidden the removal of stones. At that time the seats were
taken to repair the town walls, and a great deal of the material was
subsequently sold to Venice. The stone of which the amphitheatre is
built has taken on a beautiful warm colour from the suns of centuries,
and glows in the sunset light as if it were the marble which makes so
many Italian buildings lovely in colour.
[Illustration: THE AMPHITHEATRE, POLA
_To face page 146_]
The most important church in Pola was S. Maria Formosa, or del Canneto
(of the marsh), built on the foundations of the temple of Minerva. It
was founded by Maximian, archbishop of Ravenna, the friend of Justinian,
who was born at Vistro, now Porto Vestre, a village to the south of
Rovigno. He came to Pola to consecrate it in 546. He also founded a
Benedictine monastery near, which soon became the richest in Istria by
its connection with Ravenna, endowed the convent of S. Andrea, and built
a house for the rector of the basilica. The site of the abbey is now
occupied by the buildings of the Hotel Central and other houses in the
parallel streets Via Minerva and Via Abbazia. It was a basilican church
with nave, and aisles raised two steps above it. There were ten columns
on each side, with varied capitals. The aisles were vaulted, and the
semi-dome of the apse was decorated with mosaics on a gold ground. The
high-altar was under a baldacchino; there was a throne for the abbot,
and seats in the choir for the monks. The windows were small and
round-headed, filled with pierced slabs. The ancient door of entrance is
between Nos. 27 and 33, Via Abbazia--a round arch simply moulded, with a
dentil round the tympanum and a lintel below. The nave stretched along
the space now occupied by the stable-yard of the hotel, and the wall of
the north aisle forms part of the stables. It has external pilaster
strips opposite to the places where the columns of the nave arcade
stood. The apse, with triumphal arch, still exists, and two round
chapels which flanked it and were entered from the aisles; one of them
was dedicated to the Madonna del Carmelo, and the other to S. Andrew.
[Illustration: PLAN OF S. MARIA FORMOSA, POLA]
The S. Maria del Canneto of to-day is a cruciform chapel which lay to
the right, and has an apsidal eastern end. The entrance is past the
kitchen of the hotel; and from a window of an upstairs corridor one can
"assist" at Mass when it is performed, for the church is entirely
enclosed in the hotel buildings. The arms of the cross have wagon
vaults; at the crossing is a quadripartite vault with ribs and central
oculus on a higher level; rough projections along the ribs suggest the
copying of leaf ribs of early mosaics. It is about 22 ft. 6 in. high,
and there is a window in each wall. The roof shows ancient material and
in some parts the ancient manner of using tiles. On the face of the
bell-turret a piece of eighth-century carving is fixed. The walls are
now whitewashed, and the floor covered with red tiles. The round chapel
to the left of the apse has a cupola with an oculus and a lantern at the
top. There are still remains of the mosaic pavement of the apse in No.
20, Via Minerva: in 1898, when building the stables, some fragments were
found near to the aisle wall, which, with others unearthed in 1902, are
now in the municipal museum. The patterns are a guilloche border with
fishes, enclosing a field of plant sprigs, and a lotus border with a
more conventional pattern within. The colours used are two reds, two
greens, black and white, and pale blue occasionally. The cloister lay
between the church and Via Abbazia; the houses 39, 37, and 35, stand on
its site. The last notices of the church occur in the middle of the
thirteenth century; later mention refers only to the ruins. The
destruction appears to have taken place when Pola was sacked by the
Venetians under Giacomo Tiepolo and Leonardo Querini in 1243, though
some think that it was in one of the later sackings by the Genoese, of
which there were three in the fourteenth century--1354, 1376, and 1380.
In 1600 a number of the pillars were still upright, and mosaics and
sculptures were visible; at that time they tried to raise a chapel
within its walls. It is certain that the Venetians gradually despoiled
it of everything of value, with the consent of the Polese. Much of the
material was used in the seventeenth century for the restoration and
rebuilding of the communal palace, and two at least of the pillars of
the ciborium of S. Mark's, Venice, as well as the four of Oriental
alabaster, which the tourist is told came from the Temple of Solomon,
were spoils from this splendid church, the latter annexed in 1605, and
the former by Giacomo Tiepolo in 1243.
In 1545 Sansovino was sent by the Senate to bring away the marble
columns to Venice. The African marble on the landings of the Libreria
Vecchia also came from Pola, and the shaft of the holy-water basin in S.
Mark's, with dolphins and tridents, once belonged to a temple of Neptune
there. The Polese presented the four central columns to S. Maria della
Salute, from the theatre on Monte Zaro. In 1632 the Venetian Senate
ordered the _provveditore_ of the castle, Pola, to inform himself as to
the number and quantity of the columns of "noble architecture" which
were in one of the ruinous churches, and on August 21, 1638, praised the
diligence of Bragadin in sending marbles for S. Maria della Salute. He
had sent fourteen columns in April, and information of others at
Parenzo.
Several other early churches in and around Pola were destroyed while
constructing the fortifications. On the island of S. Caterina was a
cemetery church, the plan of which indicated early Byzantine origin; on
that of S. Andrea were a cloister and church of the sixth century; and
on the hill whence the Tegethoff monument now looks over the harbour
the double basilica of S. Michele in Monte, partly dating from the
seventh century and partly from the eleventh. The grave of Salomon, king
of Hungary, who died here in 1087 and was canonised shortly after, whose
body had been venerated in the cathedral from the fifteenth century, was
then found. The sarcophagus is now in the museum.