Parenzo, but it was restored in the ninth century. In 1884 the floor of
the presbytery was lowered, and near the high-altar, at a depth of two
feet, Roman fragments and ninth-century carvings were found, with an
inscription of the fifteenth century; lower still were Roman
inscriptions and sculptures, and then a semicircular mosaic floor of 13
ft. radius, with a lily border on a black and red ground (grey, yellow,
and white tessera? also being used), with an inscription mentioning
Donatian, and small medallions with cross and square. Under the first
step of the demolished stairs was a second much damaged mosaic
resembling the early one at Parenzo. It may be seen by lifting a
trap-door, A bronze medal of Agrippina was found at the same time. Three
rectangular windows were also discovered, a large one in the centre and
two smaller towards the sides, the former filled with a pierced slab now
preserved in the presbytery. The triumphal arch is round, with early
caps and impost mouldings; other early caps and columns are visible in
the walls of the choir in hollows made to expose them. The theory is
that there was a confessional behind the apse instead of below it, of
which these fragments are the remains. Encrusted in the outer wall of
the south aisle is an inscription which runs thus: "In the year 857,
fifth indiction, under Ludovicus, Emperor of Italy, Handegis was
elected and consecrated bishop on Whit Sunday, and occupied the seat
for five years." It is thought that he was the restorer of the building.
Some of the ninth-century carvings are in the museum. Several small
windows high in the nave walls still retain the slabs pierced with
ninth-century patterns, and two unbroken ciborium or baptistery
archivolts still exist, one in the courtyard of the Beata Vergine della
Miscricordia, and the other in the Piazza S. Giovanni, where it is made
up into a little shrine with two fourteenth-century caps, and a
Renaissance pediment with two uprights of a chancel of Lombard work,
with three furrowed scrolls and crosses of the usual Syrian derivation.
The church was subsequently much altered, the transepts and apse have
vanished, and stones found which bear the marks of fire suggest that it
was burnt, either by the Venetians in 1243 or by the Genoese in 1379,
when they took the bronze doors away and burnt the archives. An
inscription on the front of the reliquary tomb, which is to the right of
the high-altar, and claims to contain the bodies of SS. Basil,
Demetrius, George, and Theodore, and of Salomon, king of Hungary, states
that Bishop Biagio Molin rebuilt the church in 1417. To this building
the retable of the high-altar, dedicated in 1469 and now in the north
aisle, belongs, still called La Madonna del Coro. It has figures of
saints in the upper row, half length, and full length in the lower row,
in high relief; the Madonna in the centre, and above her Christ over His
tomb, showing His wounds, and attended by the Virgin and S. John, with
fine tabernacle work and pierced pinnacles, all gilded except the flesh,
which is painted, and the ground behind the pinnacles, which is blue. It
is rather over-restored and looks quite new. The ciborium has cipollino
columns, antique caps, pointed arches, and Venetian dentil enrichments
with marble inlays. The nave arcade, of nine columns, has slightly
pointed arches, unmoulded except for a simple hood-mould and a kind of
engrailed crown above the abacus. The caps are for the most part late
fourteenth century in character, but some are antique. The columns have
been made up to the same size with plaster, and painted to imitate
granite, only a few having escaped. The last one on the south has a ring
round the centre; one base looks antique, many of them have spurs. The
restorations of 1640 and 1712 have obliterated all appearance of
antiquity. Bishop Giuseppe Maria Bottari, the last restorer, used so
many inscribed slabs in repairing the interior and building the
campanile that he was nicknamed "the sexton of inscriptions." There was
a cruciform baptistery to the west, the remains of which were destroyed
in 1850 in connection with the harbour works. To the north of the
cathedral is the communal cistern, which covers a great part of the site
of the early church of S. Thomas. In 1860 some reliquaries were found
here between the cistern and the cathedral sacristy, where the centre of
the apse probably was, and further investigations disclosed the steps to
the presbytery, remains of the apse, and stones carved with ornament. In
1332 this church was used for service in place of the ruined cathedral,
and as late as 1812 some remains of the walls were visible. The
reliquaries were contained in a stone chest some three feet below the
ground level. Within it was another smaller chest of Greek marble, with
Byzantine ornament, and a gable roof with an inlaid cross of green
stone. This was preserved in the cathedral for some time, but has now
disappeared. Within it the workmen found a flat rectangular casket,
described as being divided into sixteen compartments, which held silver
reliquaries, and in the middle a small golden box, in which were two
little finger-bones. In another was a small yellow piece of silk with
blood-spots on it. The sacristan asserted that there were also twelve
golden statuettes a span high, and some smaller silver vases; but all
the reliquaries have disappeared except two, which have been preserved
at Vienna since 1888. The more important of the two is an hexagonal box
with an ogee-shaped lid and a little rosette on the apex; on the sides
are _repoussé_ figures, the upper parts of which are repeated with some
modifications on the lid. These figures are: Christ, between SS. Peter
and Paul, and three single figures, two of which hold symbols, a roll,
and a tau-cross. The Christ is youthful, without a nimbus, and holds an
open book in the left hand. The draperies are all antique in style, and
the work is believed to be of the first or second century. A hasp is
attached to the lid, but there is no sign of hinge or corresponding
button. The smaller casket is rectangular, resembling that found at
Grado. On the lid is a cross in dark-blue enamel with surroundings of
filigree.
The church of S. Francesco is halfway up the hill to the castle, and is
now used as a military magazine. Towards the road the wall terminates in
a gable, with two pointed openings for bells; below is a red cross
inlaid within an enclosing moulding. A ramping cornice of shallow arches
with dentils above it finishes the wall, the centre portion of which is
pierced with a two-light trefoiled window blocked up below, while a
chapel to the north is lighted by simple-pointed windows. The fine
entrance door, with its rich mouldings, twisted columns, and round arch,
looks rather older than 1314, which is the date of the first certain
mention of the church; but in Istria and Dalmatia styles lingered late.
It is said to have been built by the Castropola in 1285, and a
half-obliterated inscription by the door records the date of 1406, when
a provincial Franciscan council was held in the church. On each side
of the door is a window of two trefoiled lights with slender shafts, and
above it a rose with Gothic tracery. The interior has a simple unvaulted
nave, a choir of one bay with cross vaulting, and a small chapel,
probably the sepulchral chapel of the Castropola, since their arms are
on the windows. The only remaining piece of the cloister serves as
entrance portico. The little garden outside the principal door has a
bowling-alley beneath a vine pergola, from which there is a beautiful
view over the bay; and in it grow trees of euonymus and oleander with
thick trunks, and an aloe, besides the usual roses, peaches, and
mulberries.
[Illustration: WEST DOORWAY, S. FRANCESCO, POLA
_To face page 154_]
The communal palace was built in 1296; the back portion is part of the
second temple. Some portions of the ancient building remain on the right
flank. It was the palace of the Margrave of Istria, and later of the
Venetian rectors or counts of Pola. According to Kandler, the figure of
a knight upon it represents Albert II., Count of Istria. The Genoese
damaged the palace in 1390, but it was restored the next year. After the
façade fell in 1651, it was rebuilt in its present form, with material
from S. Maria Formosa, but it was not finished till 1703. During the
last years of the Republic the count lived in the back portion, had his
stables in the temple of Augustus and his kitchen in the other temple.
The castle was built on the ruins of the Capitol, probably about 1200.
Within was the habitation of the count, a three-naved chapel, arsenal,
lodging for two hundred soldiers, &c. The Sergii seized it in 1271 and
became known as Castropolæ. Here the captains of the people lived, who
ruled Pola for the sixty-three years before 1328. The count was a civil
governor, and after 1331, when the Polese gave themselves to Venice, had
authority in the lower city; but a _provveditore_ was appointed for the
castle, who had a captain, a sergeant, two lieutenants, and eighty
soldiers under his command. In 1638 the two offices were united. The new
castle was commenced after the plague of 1632 from the designs of the
Frenchman Deville, who used the material of the theatre. Kandler says
that he remembered this castle, which had double walls with four towers
to each, and one larger tower towards Monte Maggiore. The present castle
is quite modern, and one is warned off when approaching it. The mediæval
walls were demolished in 1848. They appear to have been generally in a
bad state of repair, and records of their restoration are frequent. The
sea-walls were thrown down by the Venetians, who did not like the cities
under their sway to have defences on the water-side, though they were
sometimes obliged to permit something of the sort. For instance, in
1351, the Polese were allowed to build a wall 10 ft. high towards the
sea, which was a sufficient defence against a sudden raid, but of little
use in the case of a strong attack. As a matter of fact, the Genoese
broke it down in 1380, sacked the city, and put all opponents to the
sword.
At the beginning of the fifteenth century Pola was surrounded by a
number of carefully built polygonal towers. There were eight gates with
machicolated defences above them, and the arms of fifteen rectors in
different places showed that the walls had been long in building. In
1610 the Uscocs sacked the city, entering through certain holes in the
walls, which, as Fra Paolo Sarpi relates, rendered the closing of the
great gates useless. The neglect of the Venetians in the matters of pay
and provision of war material in the seventeenth century reduced the
defences to a farce.
The laws of many of the cities prescribed penalties for crossing the
wall. Pola, 1442: "No person shall dare to pass over the walls of the
city of Pola in any manner, neither going nor returning, neither with
nor without a ladder, and neither shall they enter nor leave the gates
of the city, neither below nor above, under penalty of 50 lire di
piccoli and three months in prison." The inhabitants of walled places
had little liberty. Besides the duty of guarding the gates, a citizen
could neither enter nor leave except between certain fixed hours; if he
reached the opposite side of the ditch after the evening bell he found
the drawbridge raised, and had to seek a bed outside, or climb the wall,
in which case he ran the risk of being surprised and punished.
The communal museum contains many very interesting things belonging to
different periods of Polese history. Here are some very ancient stones
with Mycenean whorls cut upon Istrian material, perhaps by some prisoner
taken by Istrian pirates; also stones with these whorls half
obliterated, and hollows sunk here and there, which, it is thought, were
a kind of star map made by shepherds when Istria was wooded, to direct
them in driving their flocks. Here are two inscriptions mentioning an
entirely unknown god and goddess, and the inscription of Gordian in
which the name of Nesactium occurs, the discovery of which fixed the
site of the most important of the Istrian cities, the scene of the
massacre of the women and children by the hands of their husbands and
fathers, to prevent them from being taken by the Romans.
Many things found there are also in the museum--skulls, an ivory
spindle, fragments of pottery and glass, and two curious statues, very
archaic in style, from a tomb-building. One is a nude rider upon a
horse, the other an unclothed woman suckling a child, thought to be the
indigenous god Melescos and one of the goddess mothers. There are also a
prehistoric oven, bronze vases found in the well at Tivoli, near Pola,
fragments from S. Maria in Canneto and other destroyed churches; and
here also the chapter of the cathedral has deposited portions of the
cathedral ciborium and other architectural fragments.
Pola was founded as a Roman colony in 129 B.C., at the same time as
Trieste. It fought for Pompey, and was punished by destruction, but was
restored in 33 B.C. as "Pietas Julia"; and in 27 B.C. Augustus raised
the Istrian cities to the rank of _municipia_ by adding the province to
Italy. The Polese were inscribed in the tribe Valeria. Pola was also
called Polentia in honour of the mother of Vespasian, and Herculanea in
honour of Commodus. It had been the judicial capital under the Republic,
and was prosperous under the Empire, being the place where two lines of
traffic crossed, that from Rome through Ancona and so to the Danube, and
that from Britain to Constantinople, and also had agricultural riches
and manufactures of its own. It was the base of operations during the
reconquest of Italy from the Goths, both for Belisarius and for Narses,
and was made the principal city and harbour on the east coast of the
Adriatic. It was also the granary of the Exarchate, owing to the Lombard
destruction in Italy, and had a population of some 25,000. During the
plague of 1348, which lasted for several months, a fifth of the
population died, fifty patrician families became entirely extinct, and
privileges were offered to foreigners to induce them to re-people the
city. At the downfall of the Venetian Republic the population barely
amounted to 600 souls.
The popular tradition of the destruction of the Castropola (who had made
themselves lords of Pola) runs thus: Andrea di Tonata, the head of the
popular faction, arranged a conspiracy to free the city. The moment
chosen was the evening of Good Friday, during the annual procession
called "of the wood of the Holy Cross," which went round the city,
starting from the cathedral. Near the church of S. Stefano (which was
within the walls at the foot of the castle hill) the conspirators,
disguised in the dress of members of the Confraternity of S. Stephen,
drawing their daggers at a given signal, threw themselves upon the
Castropola, who were in a separate group in the procession, not thinking
of danger, and killed them. Then, calling on the people to rise, the
conspirators led them to the assault of the neighbouring castle, which
they took by surprise, killing any of the family or their adherents whom
they met. Only one child escaped, owing his life to the devotion of a
servant who hid him when the crowd had actually entered the castle, and
let him down by a cord into the Franciscan convent just below, from
which a monk took him secretly out of the city to one of the country
places belonging to the family. This tradition is not historical, for
the family continued in Pola till the fall of the Signory, and
flourished afterwards in Venice and Treviso; but there was certainly a
rising then in which the houses of certain of their adherents were
sacked. Two members of the aristocracy were appointed captains of the
people, but after a month they decided to give themselves to Venice; by
the Act of Dedition the Castropola were banished from Pola, Istria,
Friuli, and Schiavonia, though they were allowed to retain their
property. Their principal adherents were also banished. In 1334 an
attempt to regain the Signory caused the Polese to ask the Senate to
dismantle the castle, which was done, and the houses of the two heads of
the family were also destroyed. So Pola became a mere appanage of
Venice.
XIII
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ISTRIAN COAST
Istria is in great part a dry and stony land, but there are valleys with
streams and woods. It slopes to the west and south with a tolerably
continuous declivity, so that the base of the triangular peninsula is on
the whole the highest part. Much of the vegetation is greyish, and the
rocks also are generally a pale grey. It is divided into three
districts, named, from, the prevailing colour of the ground, white,
yellow, and red. The first is the stony portion, the grey limestone of
the Karst; next the yellow sandstone formation which begins at Trieste
and extends through middle Istria; and then the southern portion where
the white limestone is underneath, and clay of a red ochreous colour
occurs in streaks. Round Pisino and Pinguente and between them are
fields, meadows, and even woods, with plenty of streams which burst from
the sandstone, while limestone hills jut out here and there. Pisino lies
on the edge of "yellow" Istria, and hills rise around it; on the south
side is a hill of the red land; and the houses are on an outcrop of the
white limestone. The Foiba runs along the junction of the two
formations. Middle Istria undulates from about 1,200 ft. to 900 ft.
above the sea, while Lower Istria is but 500 ft. The hills are lower and
less steep, there is more cultivation, and the villages and towns look
more prosperous.
COAST TOWNS
The shore (except for the deltas of a few streams) has no flat portions,
and the banks (scarcely cliffs), though generally perpendicular and
difficult to climb, are not at all lofty. The coast is broken into bays
by projecting tongues of land, making harbours of differing degrees of
safety, with an enormous number of small islands, many of which are mere
rocks, obliging the steamers to keep some considerable distance from the
land. The first navigable passage between them and the coast is the
Canal of Fasana, within the Brioni Islands. The view from the sea shows
rough steep stretches of bank with picturesque harbour towns; the stone
walls and towers, the tall campanile, generally reminiscent of that of
S. Marco, Venice, the white houses, the grey of the bare shores and the
varied greens of the surrounding country, with its woods, fields and
gardens, harmonise pleasantly, especially in the afternoon and evening
light. Nearly every town has an upper or more ancient portion built for
security on a hill which was once an island, and a newer part close to
the water. From the outer harbour the "mandracchio," the inner harbour,
opens with the fish-market close by. The "piazza," in and near which are
the _municipio_, the _loggia_, and the patricians' palaces, is generally
approached by one of the steep streets, many of which are on the natural
rock and impassable for wheeled vehicles. Above the coastline the hills
of the interior rise in bluer distance, with here and there a town
crowning a lesser elevation. Montona appears, cresting its isolated hill
above the Quieto, and Buie, the look-out of Istria, while to the
south-east the blue mass of Monte Maggiore is hidden or disclosed as the
clouds gather and disperse.
Beyond the harbour of Pola is the low point of Promontore, where the
coastline turns and runs north-east. All around the harbour forts are
seated on points of vantage, some older, some very modern; and little
villages occupy those elevations left vacant by the military
authorities. To the south are the large islands of Cherso and Veglia. At
the mouth of the Bado valley lies the little port of that name, around
which are many tiny islands. From Caorano, near the mouth of the canal
of the Arsa, the land begins to rise, and with Punta Nera, an outlying
spur of the chain of Monte Maggiore, the coast becomes rocky and
precipitous, from 950 ft. to 3,200 ft. high, furrowed by valleys running
down to the sea. The villages are high above the water, and there is
little green except in the lower parts, the grey of the rock being
varied only with brushwood. Albona may be taken as a typical example of
the situation of these villages, being high above its harbour, Rabaz. As
the boat approaches nearer the shore the range of cliffs plunging down
into the green water is impressive. Towards Abbazia the red soil becomes
more abundant, the hills are terraced, and vegetation is more luxuriant,
great chestnuts and bay-trees appear, and cypresses when Lovrana is
reached. This north shore of the Quarnero, stretching to Fiume, is the
Riviera of Austria. The Dinaric Alps surround it from Monte Maggiore,
and the Liburnian Karst to the Velebits. In this district hedges of bay
flourish, and in the Villa Angiolina park may be seen many varieties of
trees in blossom or fruit, which luxuriate in the sheltered situation.
The view from the harbour at Fiume in the afternoon is delightful, the
mass of Monte Syss on Cherso guarding the entrance to the Quarnero on
one side, while the many spurs of the Monte Maggiore range on the other
troop to the sea, blue in the shadow, and paling and lowering with
greater distance.
[Illustration: WINE-BOATS IN THE FIUMARA CANAL, FIUME
_To face page 163_]
XIV
FIUME AND VEGLIA
Fiume is one of the few towns along the coast in which the Italians are
in the majority. It lies at the north-eastern end of the Bay of the
Quarnero, and is the chief seaport of Hungary, to which it has belonged
in the main since the beginning of the twelfth century; and permanently
since 1870. Though it was a thriving town in the Middle Ages, and
existed in Roman times, there is very little to be seen older than the
period of the late Renaissance. It is a busy modern town, and for the
archæologist is merely a convenient place of departure for other more
interesting sites, though there is some picturesqueness of costume and
situation about it; and the Englishman is pleased to see many ships with
the national flag, and to know that one of the great industries of the
place is the Whitehead torpedo factory. The Tarsia, as the Rjeka was
called, gave the name of Tarsatica to the ancient Liburnian city. The
Romans built a castle on the bank of the stream to rein in the ferocious
Gepids. Round this castle the ancient Tarsatica grew up. The only Roman
remains existing are: a triumphal arch said to have been erected in
honour of the Emperor Claudius II., Gothicus (268-270), which resembles
the Arco di Riccardo, Trieste, in its situation on the side of the hill
in the old city, but is much less ornamented and more dilapidated; some
remains of Roman construction in the Castle of the Frangipani; and at
the top of the hill above the Porto di Martinschizza (called "Solin"),
the remains of another Roman fortress, which protected the city to the
east, commanding the ravine of La Draga, a mile and a half from
Tarsatto. Tarsatica was destroyed in 799 by Charlemagne.
[Illustration: STALL ON THE WINE-QUAY, FIUME]
The wine-quay, by the Porto Canale, Fiumara, is shaded pleasantly with
trees, and always busy with its own particular trade, supplemented by
stalls at which various goods are offered for sale. Close by is a
street, which in the spring is bright with Judas-trees in flower. The
ravine down which the stream flows has always been the boundary of the
Croatian kingdom. On the further side is the ascent of 410 steps to the
pilgrimage church of the Madonna del Tarsatto, on one of the spurs of
the hills which surround the city; an ascent which devout pilgrims are
said to have negotiated on their knees. A chronogram over the church
door gives the date 1730, but it was founded in 1453 by one of the
Frangipani counts on the site once occupied by the Nazareth House now at
Loreto, the tradition being that this rested here for three years and
seven months, from 1291 to 1294; and in a dark passage behind the
high-altar a room is still shown said to be a part of it.
The church contains a picture of the Madonna and Child, ascribed as
usual to S. Luke, of which a little copy hangs by the choir arch in the
aisle; the two heads and hands are painted. The rest is covered with
silver-gilt plates modelled in low relief to represent the drapery,
nimbi, &c. Near the high-altar are frescoes with Latin inscriptions, of
no great interest, also two great silver candlesticks and portions of
Turkish harness, gifts of the Emperor Leopold I. The pillars are hung
with the votive offerings of rescued mariners. The church has only one
aisle, to the north. At the west end is an organ gallery on slight
columns with fifteenth-century carving. The choir has a fine
seventeenth-century wrought-iron grille with two amorini, a crown and
heart, &c., interwoven with scrolls, gilded and painted. The beaten work
is mixed with scrolls of flat thin material between strong uprights and
cross pieces. At the height of the face of a kneeling figure is a row of
small balusters. The upper portion is painted white.
In front of the church is an avenue of horse-chestnuts, and on a spur of
hill to the left is the Castle of Tarsatto, once belonging to the
Frangipani, now in the possession of Count Nugent, and completely
restored. In the castle is a collection of statues from Minturnum, a
gift of Ferdinand I. of Naples to Field-Marshal Nugent. From it a flight
of steps conducts to a pleasant field-path which rounds the shoulder of
the next hill and brings one back to the steps by which the church is
reached. The view from the plateau is very extensive, the islands of
Veglia and Cherso, in conjunction with the spurs of Monte Maggiore,
seeming almost to enclose the sea, while to the south the Velebit range
towers, generally cloud-capped.