yet the arms above it are those of Leonardo Vernier (1453-1454), Bishop
George Sisgoreo ([Symbol: cross]1453), and of Bishop Vignacco (elected
1454), apparently fixing its date thirteen years after Massegna had
received his _congé_. If it be contended that these arms are a later
insertion, which the arrangement of the masonry makes possible, the
value of all the coats of arms as fixing the dates of the portions of
the building on which they occur must be discounted. The design of the
lowest portions of the shafts in the right-hand jamb is different and
apparently later than the rest of the work, and the foliage on the
brackets beneath the lions also is very different from the fine caps to
the west of the crossing, so that one scarcely likes to assume that they
are by the same hand. Upon the pier, above one of the capitals
attributed to Giorgio, which has been compared disparagingly with the
caps last named, is the date 1524. This is below the level of the door
of the sacristy, which we know Giorgio built, and one would assume that
the pier must be anterior to the door, as the construction of the
sacristy would scarcely precede the roofing in of the aisle from which
it is entered. Moreover, the baptistery is beneath the apse which
terminates this aisle, and it was certainly completed in 1452, since it
is mentioned in the contract for the sacristy. The mixture of Gothic and
Renaissance forms is characteristic of Giorgio's work throughout; and it
is difficult to agree wholly either with Mgr. Fosco or Mr. T.G. Jackson
in the different conclusions on this subject which they draw from the
same data. The fact of Massegna having been dismissed on the definite
ground of errors made and defects discovered, with the additional
complaint of the throwing away of money upon ornament, suggests that the
earlier portion was not left as we now see it by the first architect, of
whom Mr. Jackson says: "To us there seems no fault in the design of
Antonio." The design of the western pair of caps of the piers at the
crossing is as different from that of the nave caps, which are certainly
Massegna's, as from that of the two eastern piers. Mr. Jackson says,
probably quite rightly, that the torus moulding decorated with the
laurel above the leaf cornice of the nave marks the commencement of
Giorgio's work in that part; the same moulding occurs in the same
relative position in the ambos to which he assigns the date of 1547: and
one does not quite understand why the same detail should not have the
same origin in both places. The only contract of 1547, quoted by Mgr.
Fosco, is one with "Checcus" of Padua for 350 squared paving-stones and
for laying them.
[Illustration: SOUTH-EAST PORTION OF CHOIR, CATHEDRAL, SEBENICO
_To face page 254_]
Whatever part George of Sebenico had in the construction he must be
classed with the great architectural designers. Leo Battista Alberti
commenced the recasing of S. Francesco, Rimini, which is generally
quoted as the earliest Renaissance work in Italy, in 1446, and the stone
for the work was imported from Istria. In that year Giorgio's first
contract was renewed for ten years. The Lombardi were then only
commencing their work. S. Zaccaria at Venice was built by Martino in
1456, and the Scuola di S. Marco in 1485. Pietro was engaged on the
Madonna dei Miracoli in 1483. So that Giorgio's work antedates theirs by
some years. He had numerous pupils, whose names have been recorded; the
other workmen came from Durazzo, Curzola, and Spalato. The best known of
them, Andrea Alexis, the Albanian of Durazzo, was much employed in
Spalato, Arbe, and Traù.
The votive church of S. Salvatore, just inside the Porta Pile, Ragusa,
built in 1522 after the earthquake of 1520, and designed by Bartolommeo
da Mestre, master mason at Sebenico in 1528, bears considerable
resemblance to the cathedral.
The door of Giorgio's house is beyond that of the sacristan, in a
narrow street, the Contrada S. Gregorio. To reach it, one leaves the
piazza by a slope beyond the Loggia, the ancient palace of the council
of the Nobles, a building of 1522, now a social club. The slope affords
a view of the enclosure in which the "vere" of the communal wells still
remain, four circular well-heads, with the symbols of the Evangelists
and coats of arms in roundels upon them, surrounded by cable mouldings,
four on each. Sebenico now has a fine water-supply brought from the
Kerka, twelve miles away, and they are no longer in use. The
aqueduct--the first constructed in Dalmatia in modern times--is named
the Lott-Brunnen, in commemoration of the clever engineer who designed
it.
Near the cathedral is the little church of S. Barbara; the bell-turret
on the wall is used as its campanile. In the north wall is an
ogee-headed window, deeply splayed and with pretty tracery; below it a
little shrine to the Virgin is set most oddly, with an arch projecting
up into the window space. A little higher up the street is the fine
Venetian door illustrated a few pages back, with columns and pinnacles,
and returning wall with elaborately shaped battlements. At the church of
S. Giovanni Battista is a fine external stair of fourteenth-century
Venetian type, a double flight returning on itself, with a landing at
the change of direction. The balustrade is continued round the side of
the church and the tower, but with square unmoulded shafts in place of
the colonnettes. The trefoiled heads are cut in the rail with the carved
spandrils between. There are many pieces of sculpture of the Venetian
period, windows, balconies, &c., in the walls here and there, and
wheel-windows occur with quatrefoils filling the heads of the spaces
next the circumference.
[Illustration: BELFRY OF GREEK CHURCH, SEBENICO
_To face page 257_]
There are also a few pictures to be seen. In the cathedral is an
Andrea Schiavone (who died here in 1582), "The Adoration of the Three
Kings." In S. Domenico alla Marina there are said to be fine Renaissance
altars, and pictures by Lorenzo Lotto, Palma Giovane, and Marco
Vecellio. We did not see them, as, on the occasion of both our visits to
Sebenico, the church was being restored or rebuilt. The interior of S.
Francesco is harmonious. It was in the archives of this convent that
Mgr. Bulic discovered a gradual written on parchment of the ninth or
tenth century, which had been brought from S. Maria di Bribir in 1527.
[Illustration: COSTUME OF SEBENICO]
The Greek church has a very interesting belfry of late Renaissance style
in the gable; two arches with projecting semicircular pierced
balustrades for the ringers, and the bells (which are clappered) hanging
in the free space beneath the arch above. A third bell is in a higher
arch without the balustrading. The Greek Christians celebrate the Church
festivals with processions about the town, treated with great respect by
their Roman Catholic fellow-citizens, of which one held on the
Assumption may be described as typical. Boys and girls with garlands led
the way, followed by women with coloured aprons and voluminous
draperies. Then came a band in gay uniforms and plumed head-gear, then
priests in vestments of cloth of gold, swinging silver censers, or
bearing holy pictures; they were big men of fine appearance, with
religious earnestness in their faces. In the middle, under a silken
canopy with gold fringes, a higher ecclesiastic walked, a venerable
figure, with long silver hair and beard, bearing the most holy object
and looking like a high-priest, surrounded as he was with clouds of
incense. After the priests came a long line of men in country costume,
powerful figures with flashing eyes, and faces full of character. They
held themselves upright like soldiers, and bore large white tapers
fastened four together. The sides of the narrow streets were lined with
Roman Catholics who looked on with sympathetic interest at the religious
ceremonies of their fellow-citizens of a different creed, an example
which might be commended to sects nearer home.
The people are hospitable, and very generous, but proud, and, like the
Spaniards, easily moved both to acts of violence and kindness. There is
no nobility, the patrician families being either extinct or
impoverished, partly owing to a severe epidemic of smallpox which smote
the town in 1872. The men wear a ridiculous small red cap, like that
worn at Zara, but smaller, often requiring an elastic round the back of
the head to keep it on, and waistcoats and coats ornamented with large
silver buttons of filigree work (older examples of which are works of
art, but the modern mere articles of commerce). The collar is curious,
with a facing of red or black worsted, apparently intended to imitate
fur (shown in the drawing of the costume). The trousers are dark blue,
with a slit towards the ankle, laced up with silver wire, and strong
shoes are worn with turned-up toes covered with hide lacings. The women
have a white head-dress, a cloth twisted round and fastened to the hair
in the manner of that worn at Lussin Piccolo. One of the waiters at the
restaurant who came from Spalato, but whose side-whiskers stamped him as
an Austrian, told us he had been in Glasgow and other British towns--a
rather unusual thing with the men of his class, though many of the
sailors are acquainted with British ports. The dustmen reminded one of
the days of one's childhood when in England; they went round ringing a
bell and calling "Dust-ooh!" At the sound all kinds of refuse were
brought out to the cart, which went slowly along the narrow street.
Sebenico was the birthplace of the celebrated Nicolò Tommaseo, to whom a
statue has been erected in the public garden below the piazza, where
Sanmichele's gate stands. He was born in 1802, and was philologist,
philosopher, historian, poet, novelist, critic, psychologist, statist,
politician, and orator, leaving behind him, when he died in 1874, some
two hundred works. In its time of prosperity the city owned several
islands, of which Zlarin is the most populous and the richest.
Sebenico is the usual starting-point for the excursion to the Kerka
falls; and, on the arrival of the boat, tourists make arrangements to
share carriages. It is a drive of about twelve miles, through a barren,
stony land, till one reaches the park-like country along the banks of
the river. The falls can also easily be reached from Scardona, to which
a little steamboat runs in the morning; but there is none back in the
afternoon, so those who are pressed for time generally drive. Scardona
is an ancient city mentioned by Pliny as a principal market-town of
Liburnia. The ruins which remain are late Roman. In the Middle Ages,
Venice, Hungary, and Turkey all coveted it, and it suffered accordingly.
In 1411 it became Venetian, in 1522 was sacked by the Turks, and retaken
by the Venetians in 1537. The fortifications were destroyed, and the
town abandoned and afterwards burnt; but the Turks held it till 1684,
when they finally evacuated it. The falls are about three-quarters of an
hour's walk away up the river, which was the ancient boundary between
Liburnia and Dalmatia. They form its final plunge to sea level, for two
tributaries join it, one on each side of Scardona, where it virtually
becomes an estuary. The water precipitates itself over five terraces
some 300 ft. wide, a magnified artificial cascade with a fall of 150 ft.
The main fall occupies the centre of the stream, and is slightly
horseshoe in shape; to the right and left are numerous smaller cascades
with a little island between. Many partly artificial channels conduct
the water to flour and fulling mills on both sides of the stream, of
which there are some fifty, the sound of the mill-wheels and the
fulling-hammers mingling with the rush of the waters. On the Sebenico
side are a mill for insect-powder made from the pyrethrum, and the
pumping-house for the water-supply of the city, the power for the
electric lighting being also generated here. The mills are not so busy
as they used to be, for the Hungarian and Russian flour is driving the
home product out of the market. The spray from the falls rises high in
the air, and bathes the overhanging trees and reeds, keeping the
neighbouring rocks clothed with ferns.
After dinner we strolled along the quay to the south of Sebenico. There
was no moon, and the stars were not as brilliant as they sometimes are
in these southerly latitudes, making it rather difficult to pick one's
way among the mysterious darknesses, which meant obstacles of one kind
or another. As we rounded a corner a lamp or two flashed in our eyes
from the other side of a little cove, and sparkled in broken lights upon
the uneasy wavelets which splashed and tinkled against the sides of
several coasting-vessels moored near at hand. The semi-silence of the
night was broken by musical sounds, scarcely melody, but an uneven kind
of chant, commencing in unison, and dying away in a prolonged
melancholy, wailing chord, swelling and falling, almost like the notes
produced by an Æolian harp as the wind sweeps over its strings. The
glow of light which showed the door of a wine-shop across the water
marked where the singers were enjoying their melancholy music, which, in
its formlessness and dying cadences, was in strange harmony with the
shapeless undulating dark masses, which by day were rocky islands
sparsely clad with trees, now only relieved by the glimmer of the paler
water, whose lapping formed an undertone to the stronger notes of the
voices.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: Mgr. Fosco states that Giorgio submitted a plan of his
proposed work, with cupola, apses, and transepts, with the little
choirs--possibly a model, such as we know he prepared at the time the
contract for the sacristy was signed.]
XX
TRAÙ AND THE RIVIERA DEI SETTE CASTELLI
From Sebenico, Spalato can be reached either by boat or by rail. On our
first visit we chose the train, since it gave us greater choice of times
for making the journey. The railway stations are generally far away from
the piers; we had observed this at Pola and Parenzo, and the same thing
occurs at Sebenico. The hotel porters are not allowed to carry baggage
to and from the steamers or the station; we were told there was a law
against it, which a man sitting by said was just enough, for the odd-job
men must live! The retrospect from the railway is fine. The southern end
of the inlet is in the foreground, with a training-ship upon it; the
city on its hill lies to the right, crowned by Fort S. Anna, and higher
still the Fort S. Giovanni; while to the left is the other portion of
the inlet which stretches towards Scardona and to the entrance, dotted
with islands and terminated by low hills. A bright sun illumined the
whole scene, increasing the lustre of the rocks and buildings, which
contrasted sharply with the colour of the sea, blue as the luminous
over-arching sky it reflected.
The line climbs slowly up the slopes of Monte Dinara, towards
Perkovic-Slivno, the junction for Knin through a rather stony landscape
above rich and well-cultivated valleys. The hills in the middle-distance
look barren, but the foreground is interesting on account of the
variety of broken forms caused by projecting rocks and stones. It is
starred with green humps, and there are trees in places. The humps are
stunted growths of juniper, sloe, bramble, hawthorn, or a trifoliate
plant, with grass growing in the shadow. The trees are hawthorns, ilex,
olive, fig, almond, chestnut, mountain ash, hornbeam, or elm, and I
thought I saw oak, though it is said that it does not grow in Dalmatia.
Colour was added by many flowers, orchids, iris, yellow daisies,
asphodel, and fields of pink pyrethrum; while the dresses of groups of
peasants on their way to or from Mass gave brilliant patches of reds and
blues. Vines grew in pockets of earth among the rocks from which loose
stones had been collected to build rough terrace walls.
At Perkovic-Slivno, the song ol nightingales beguiled the tedium of
waiting, shut within a barrier, for the train from Knin, for one is not
allowed to stray about until the train arrives. After a little further
climbing, the summit of the range was pierced, and the lovely Riviera of
the Castelli lay spread before us far below. The long island of Bua
stretched towards the strait, by which the ancient port of Salona was
approached; a land-locked bay, from the other side of which above the
peninsula of Monte Marjan rose the campanile of the cathedral of
Spalato, swathed in the scaffolding of its long-continuing restoration;
beyond was the sea, with the southern islands in the distance, and the
littoral chain growing pale in aerial perspective. It formed an
enchanting whole, equalling views which have a world-wide reputation,
opalescent in the morning sunlight, with pale purples, blues, and greens
thrown like a veil over the rich soil and the grey limestone of the
mountains. The line descends rapidly, too rapidly for one's desires, and
approaches the shore near the fourth of the castelli, rounds the bay in
which Vranjic lies, passing beneath Salona, and, crossing the Jader,
arrives at the Spalato station through cuttings which prevent one from
seeing anything of the palace wall.
On other occasions we went by boat, reaching Spalato in the evening.
After the Punta Planka, the ancient Promontorium Syrtis is passed, where
the water is often rough, since there is no protecting screen of
islands, the campanili and towers of Traù come into sight, between which
and Bua there is a swing bridge across the channel. Beyond this the boat
passes under the lee of Bua, on the shore of which is a solitary white
monastery; whilst on the opposite shore the buildings of the Castelli
throw long tremulous reflections across the water, and boats with sails
painted in various colours and patterns pass to right and left, flushed
with the rays of the setting sun, and leaving trails of light or dark
behind them according as the water reflects the land or the sky. As the
sun sinks lower, leaving the sea in shadow, the glow upon the hills
becomes more and more roseate, till at last it fades, as the strait is
passed and the harbour opens. The smoke from a cement factory hangs in
the air like evening mists in an English valley; and, as we approach
still nearer, the long line of buildings upon the quays, dominated by
the great campanile and the colonnade of Diocletian's palace, gradually
grows more impressive in the failing light.
[Illustration: THE PORTA MARINA AND CUSTOM HOUSE, TRAÙ
_To face page 265_]
It is distinctly asserted by Strabo that Traù, the ancient Tragurium,
was founded in the fourth century B.C.. by Greek Sicilians from Lissa.
At a later date it was certainly a Roman colony. After the fall of the
Western empire it was subject to the emperors of Byzantium, and for
forty years or so in the ninth century to the Franks, after which
Hungarians, Byzantines, Genoese, and Croats struggled for it, till in
1420 it was taken by Venice. Its first privilege was granted by
Coloman of Hungary in 1108, renewed and amplified by Stephen in 1124,
Geysa III. in 1151, and Bela III. in 1182. Bela IV., with his family,
treasures, and a brilliant following, took refuge here in 1241 from the
Tartar hordes. He was received with due honours, and conceded in return
the confirmation of ancient privileges, &c. The city was mainly Slav
during the Middle Ages, and, on the whole, was happy and peaceful under
Hungarian rule, though sacked by the Saracens in 1123, and by the
Venetians in 1194, under the leadership of Vitale Michiele. Between 1322
and 1358 it belonged to the Venetians.
Under Venetian rule the walls of Dalmatian cities, towards the sea were
weak, and often formed merely by houses and towers belonging to private
persons. Those of Traù are no earlier than the thirteenth century, and
only small portions of that date remain by the tower of the nuns of S.
Nicolò. In 1289 a wall was commenced round the suburbs; and Law XX. of
the first book of the Statutes obliged each count to build ten "canne"
of wall in the suburb each year, as Lucio states. Notwithstanding this
regulation, it was not finished till 1404, and one tower even was not
completed till 1412. The suburb was called Citta Nova, and the dividing
wall was subsequently demolished. In 1290 Stefano d'Ugerio of Ancona,
podestà, was freed from the obligation of paving fifty paces of the
street between the two main gates, which was laid on every podestà, so
one may suppose that the paving was completed. In Venetian times Traù
had seven gates. Of these three remain--a plain pointed arch near S.
Nicolò, the Porta Marina, and the Porta a Terra. This latter is also
known as Porta S. Giovanni from the figure of S. Giovanni Orsino which
crowns it, and before which a lamp continually burns. The gate is
Renaissance, with the S. Mark's lion in an oblong panel above the arch.
From the middle of the base of this panel a little cypress grew, which
remained the same size for generations. The country people believed that
its growth was due to the wonder-working power of the saint, and that
its colour foretold scarcity or a fruitful year. When I was there the
second time, in 1906, the podestà told me it had died. The sea gate is
also Renaissance; from the jambs still hang the ancient doors thickly
studded with iron nails, and behind the door is a S. Mark's lion with
the book closed, though they say it was open till the fall of the
Republic. Above the gate is another lion with an inscription of 1642.
Close by is the custom-house, which groups picturesquely with the
gateway.
The castle at the end of the quay, the Castel del Camerlengho, was built
in 1424. It is very well preserved. The three smaller angle towers have
been altered for cannon. It is now a store-house for sand and such
things, with a small garden and a few almond-trees. In the corner is a
little chapel nearly covered by the sand, and I was told there was a
shallow cistern in the middle. The round tower to the north-west dates
from 1378, when the Dalmatian towns were allied with Genoa against
Venice, and Traù was the _rendezvous_. The walls are battlemented, the
octagonal angle towers have had machicolations (tolerably well preserved
on one of them), and above each of the two entrances is a projecting
defensive work of the same kind.
[Illustration: THE PORTA S. GIOVANNI, TRAÙ
_To face page 266_]
A few discoveries have been made of pre-mediæval things. In 1899, some
half-mile towards Spalato, two terra-cotta urns were found, one of which
had been mended with straps of lead. It contained seven bits of a
statuette of Bacchus, which have been put together, and three bits of a
larger figure. They are now in the museum at Spalato. In 1903, remains
of an early church were excavated on the mainland, close to the
wooden bridge which crosses the isolating arm of the sea, bringing to
light a mosaic pavement, part of the apse, and one column. It was
probably part of a cemetery basilica of the fifth or sixth century, just
outside the ancient wall of Tragurium. Two Christian inscriptions of the
fifth century have been found near, upon one of which are the words
"sancta ecclesia"; and close by was discovered the torso of a prisoner
of war, apparently Roman work. Close to the cistern is the reversed
cover of an antique sarcophagus, and part of the front of another with a
sixth-century cross. A curious custom still existing suggests a
traditional memory of the site of the ancient cemetery. On Holy Thursday
the Confraternity, after visiting the churches in the town, and that of
the cemetery (about half a mile away), returns to the cistern, and,
gathering round it, prays for the dead.
At one time there were twenty-one churches in the city. Those of S.
Nicolò and S. Barbara are early. S. Nicolò (formerly S. Doimo) was
founded in 1064 by Giovanni Orsini for ladies of noble descent, but
little remains to show its age. There is said to be a Greek fragment of
the third century B.C. in the court of the convent. Two early caps in
the entrance portico appear to belong to the period of foundation.
[Illustration: PLAN AND SECTIONS, S. BARBARA, TRAÙ]