Chapter 13

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.

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.

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.

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.

The church of SS. Vito and Modesto was built in 1631 after the pattern of S. Maria della Salute. In the wall by the entrance is a cannon-ball, a memento of the English bombardment of 1813. On the quays there is to be seen much the same mixture of types and costumes as at Trieste. The country people wear a black loose coat with sleeves, over a kind of sweater which hangs below it; the trousers resemble broad breeches with a bit of loose stocking showing above the shoe. The rawhide shoes are of the same kind as those worn at Grado, at Monte S. Angelo across the water, and all over the country further south, pointed in shape and turned up at the toes, generally brown, with the upper part covered with lacing. On the men's heads are little caps, black, brown, or red.

While we were having dinner in the Piazza Adamich a military band came and played two _morceaux_; after which they marched off to the accompaniment of music, looking very picturesque, with the light from candles in lanterns hanging from staves flashing from the brazen instruments and lighting up the coloured uniforms against the dim background of garden and distant house.