Chapter 19

Nona is some hour-and-a-half's drive from Zara, for the greater part of the way over stony uplands with very little vegetation, but with extensive views over land and sea when the weather is fine. We were troubled by showers and a bitter wind, against which our overcoats were an insufficient protection; and we looked with some wonder at the herd boys and girls and other peasants whom we met, many of them barefoot and with no additional clothing to what they had found sufficient in the market the day before when the sun shone strongly. The town is now a mere village of some 500 inhabitants, and, though a few antique fragments may be seen, and the ruins of several churches of different periods, it is difficult to realise that it was once one of the most important towns in Dalmatia. It appears to have been a Roman port, and the head of one of the roads to Byzantium across Dalmatia--an ancient Liburnian city, the great prosperity of which, at the end of the first century A.D., is attested by the coins found here. It was called Ænona and Ænonium by Pliny and Ptolemy, Nona by Porphyrogenitus. Destroyed by the Slavs in the seventh century, re-occupied and restored by another branch, the dukes and kings of Croatia made it one of the thirteen Dalmatian "zupanje." Later it belonged at intervals to the King of Hungary and to Venice, and after 1409 remained in the power of the latter. In 1357 Count Giustiniani valiantly but vainly defended it against the Hungarians, when the garrison was reduced to such straits by famine that they had to eat their horses. It was twice burnt to prevent it from falling into Turkish hands and being utilised as an outpost, in 1571 and 1646. The harbour has silted up, and only a small piece of the walls is traceable. Of the Venetian dominion the only remains are the entrance gateway, with the lion of S. Mark above it, and the "Stabilimento," founded in 1786 by Girolamo Manfrin for the cultivation of tobacco, but ruined by a fire, and no longer used for that purpose.

The Christian Church in Nona is said to have been founded by S. Anselm in 117 A.D. Under the Croats it had a bishop and a chapter. The ancient church of S. Croce was the cathedral, a small cruciform church with three apses in the eastward wall, and a dome over the crossing. It is 30 ft. long, and each arm of the cross is 10 ft. wide. The dome has a flat-pointed vault and windows, while the nave and transepts have wagon vaults terminating in half-cupolas. To the west is a lintelled door, with consecration crosses on the jambs and carving of the ninth century on the lintel. A Slavonic inscription upon it (inside) has been read "Godeslav Juppano Ch[risto] Domo Co[nservat]." The breaking of the upper angles of the carved portion, and the difference in the character of the crosses on lintel and jambs indicate the use of early material in a later rebuilding; but the church is considered one of the oldest in Dalmatia. From 1697 it served as an oratory to the Count of Nona, being near his palace. Its bell (hung in the gable above the west door) served to call the people together for public meetings, &c. The eastern apse has a blank arcading on its exterior, which is square, and the same kind of ornament occurs on the drum which conceals the dome. There are three windows in the west wall, and others in the transept walls and gable. The church was restored some seven or eight years ago, as well as the somewhat similar church of S. Nicolò outside the town.

The parish church of S. Anselmo was the mediæval cathedral, rebuilt during the eighteenth century. Close to it is another church, once dedicated to S. Ambrogio, and now to the Madonna. In the treasury are various interesting pieces of goldsmith's work kept in a marble chest with glazed front and gilded metal door. When we were there the priest was enjoying his siesta, and, though we were in charge of an official from the town-hall, we were unsuccessful in rousing him from his slumbers. I therefore take the description of them from Bianchi, as I was not able to examine them critically. There are two caskets of silver-gilt with the heads of S. Anselm and his sister, S. Marcella, made by the same goldsmith. On the front are Christ, the Virgin, and S. John in relief, with a frieze of a hunting subject, the figures beneath trefoiled arches on twisted columns; on the back, SS. Anselm, Ambrose, and Marcella; on the ends, SS. Peter and Paul, and a king and queen. Bianchi says these are thirteenth century; Mr. T.G. Jackson says fifteenth, which is more likely. On the lids are the symbols of the Evangelists. Two other reliquaries contain the shoulder-blades of S. Anselm. On the front are figures of the three protectors full-length. An arm reliquary has pagan subjects in relief, and is set with precious stones. An inscription gives the name of Simeon the goldsmith, and the Bano Paolo (Lord of Bosnia also at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries). Two reliquaries of the feet of S. Anselm, given by Radoslav Utusano, chancellor of the Bano Paolo, and _zupan_ of the church of Nona, are dated 1309. There are two other reliquaries: one of SS. Giacomo and Orontius, with three medallions of saints; and the other with the Evangelists' symbols. Mr. T.G. Jackson also saw two crosses and a sixteenth-century chalice. I particularly regretted being unable to see the wooden area of S. Marcella, which is a very remarkable example of early Christian art. Bianchi says that it is varnished, and has eleven compartments, with figures in high relief. One is entitled S. Barbara--the first on the left. Then come a king with a double cross, S. Luke's ox, S. Marcella, S. Matthew's angel, the Virgin and Child, S. Mark's lion, S. Ambrose, S. John's eagle, and a queen with a lily in her hand. The eleventh compartment is not recognisable.

North of the parish church are remains of a Roman temple, and an antique cap or two may be seen. In a private house are remains of a bath and a mosaic pavement. The ruined church of S. Michele stands on the site of the Roman arena. Antique fragments are also recognisable in the walls of S. Nicolò. There are several ruined churches which appear to be of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. Some of them have been altered at a later period, but they contain nothing of first-rate interest. Nona had sixteen in the Middle Ages. We walked out to S. Nicolò, an early church, which crowns a hillock thickly sown with asphodels in blossom, some little distance from the road and a mile or so from Nona. It is cruciform in plan, with apsidal terminations to three arms, the west being square, and having a door with a semicircular tympanum above it internally. Squinches in the angles serve as transition to the semi-dome which covers each arm. From the pilasters between the apses cross arches spring beneath a domical vault with a pendant at their intersection; in the left pilaster by the apse is a recess. The central tower is octagonal and turreted; beneath the apse eaves are rough corbels, the door has a semicircular tympanum externally, little brackets supporting nothing, and the jambs and lintel are put together rather as if the material were wood. The church is probably of the eleventh century.

Borgo Erizzo, an Albanian village, lies but a short distance from Zara. In the eighteenth century the atrocities of Mehmed Begovich, pasha of Albania, perpetrated on the Catholics, being very great, some of them emigrated, seeking the protection of Vincenzo Zmajevich, bishop of Antivari, who was living at his native city of Perasto. A little later (1726) he became archbishop of Zara, and brought twenty-seven families of Albanians with him, recommending them to the protection of Count Erizzo, commandant of the fortress, who assigned them land near the city, where they flourished and increased. There are now about 3,000 of them. The church, which appears to be in a dangerous condition, was built for them by Zmajevich. The girls work in the factories till they marry, after which they remain at home. The men are agriculturists, and some own fields and vineyards seven or eight miles away, to which they walk or go in carts. The village is dirty and not very picturesque. They get their drinking-water from the Kaiser Brunnen, a spring covered with a dome close to the sea, said to be a Roman erection. Sailors also water there. Before the aqueduct was restored, in years of drought Zara had to import water, and in 1828, 1834, and 1835 it was brought from the Kerka by Scardona.

Zara Vecchia, formerly Alba or Belgrad, is some eighteen miles down the coast. Here Coloman of Hungary, nephew of S. Ladislas, was crowned in 1102. The "porto d'oro" is all that remains of a palace built by Bishop Valaresso, with its foundations in the sea. Mention of the place is infrequent. Towards the middle of the eleventh century Crescimeno Pietro, third king of Croatia, assigned a prebend to the Benedictines of Zara Vecchia. In 1092 Busita, daughter of Roger I., Count of Sicily and Durazzo, and wife of Coloman, king of Hungary, came here accompanied by Geoffrey Malaterra. In 1114 Ordelaffo Faliero took it, and in 1115 it was destroyed to the foundations by Domenico Michieli. Some of the inhabitants, with the bishop and clergy, fled to Scardona; the rest, with the notables, to Sebenico. The nuns escaped to Zara, and the Benedictines crossed to Tkon in the island of Pasman, where they still are.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Mgr. Bianchi has found the names of Madius and Zella in documents of 1067 and 1096, and that of "Sergius tribunus" in one of 1091.]

XIX

SEBENICO

Sebenico lies within a fine harbour at the mouth of the Kerka, some six hours from Zara. The entrance to the bay is defended by the strong fort S. Nicolò, which bears the lion of S. Mark upon the landward side, showing that Venice ruled when it was built in 1540 (according to tradition, from Sanmichele's designs), though the actual sculpture is a replacement of 1824 of the original thrown into the sea by the French in 1813. During the Italian struggle for freedom and unity many patriots were shut up in the damp dungeons of this fort by the Austrians. Within the strait, the Canale di S. Antonio, there is shelter for a large fleet; and it is reported that the Austrian Government intends to make it into a naval arsenal (of which the commencement may be seen in some very ugly buildings to the left of the town). Sebenico is commanded by three castles, from the highest of which, that of S. Giovanni, constructed in 1646, a splendid view over town, bay, and islands rewards the labour of the climb. The next is Fort Barone, so named after Baron Degenfeldt, the gallant defender of the city against 20,000 Turks in 1647. It is now abandoned and in ruins. The third is Fort S. Anna, which crowns the hill just above the houses. This is thought to occupy the site of a king's castle mentioned in 1066. Fort S. Giovanni and the walls, of which a great portion of the circuit still remains, were restored in 1837. These walls are for the most part the work of kings of Hungary, though the Venetians added to them. The sea suburb the Borgo di Mare is probably the oldest portion of the place; that on the land side, the Borgo di Terra, grew up with the need for the shelter of the fortress during the Turkish wars.

In 1117 the town was taken and destroyed by Ordelaffo Faliero; but in 1127, when Zara Vecchia was razed to the ground by Domenico Michieli, and the bishop and clergy were removed to Scardona, the bulk of the population took refuge at Sebenico. It was a pirate city, and there was continual strife between it and Traù. Until 1167 it was only a small place, but in that year Stephen III. of Hungary gave it the title of "city." Lago, however, says that it was only a "castello" till 1298, when the bishopric was established by Boniface VIII. in consequence of the representations of the archbishops of Zara and Spalato, and of Queen Maria of Hungary. The first bishop was Martin of Arbe. When he was consecrated, the ceremony took place in the piazza, because the church was not large enough. In 1412 the chapter was allowed to choose its own bishop; and the town and church authorities became responsible for law and order throughout certain defined territories. The city seals bear either an angel with nimbus standing on a dragon, and holding in his right hand an upright sword, and in his left an orb, or a half-length of a similar angel, holding an orb in his left hand and a sloping sceptre in his right, with the sun on one side, and a crescent moon on the other; above a city with a central gate and two side towers, with windows on each side.

Sebenico owes its chief celebrity perhaps to its cathedral, the _chef d'oeuvre_ of Giorgio Orsini, known as George of Sebenico, an architect of exceptional genius, whose work may also be seen at Spalato, Ragusa, probably at Ossero, and at Ancona on the other side of the Adriatic. His father was known as Matteo of Zara, and was also a stonemason, as George proudly announced himself to be when he carved upon the door of his house a mallet and chisels hung with garlands which are supported in the centre of the lintel by the bear, the cognizance of the noble house which acknowledged his grandson as a relation.

When it was determined to rebuild the cathedral on a larger scale in 1402, the bishop and council of forty-five nobles made provision in various ways for the work. The territory of Vodizze was assigned for the purpose, the bishop gave half of the tithes, fines inflicted were to go to the fund, notaries were charged to remind testators to leave something to the fabric, &c. If the community of Sebenico went back from their promises they were to be fined 1,000 golden ducats. When the towers protecting the mouth of the port were rebuilt in 1409 the Venetians seized the stone prepared for the cathedral, but subsequently paid 80 ducats of gold as compensation. The city became Venetian in 1412. In 1430, after some wavering, it was decided to add the bishop's palace and the street between it and the church to the cathedral site. The building was commenced in 1431, under Antonio, son of Pietro Paolo Massegna, in the Gothic style as understood by the Venetians; but in 1441 he was superseded by Giorgio Orsini with a six years' engagement, on the strength of a design which he had made showing how he proposed to complete the building. The west door with its scroll-work of exaggerated curvature, its pinnacled canopies supported on twisted columns, and figures of various degrees of excellence, shows Antonio's capacity and his limitations. The side door, which is rather simpler and in better proportion, is in much the same style, but has foolish-looking lions on brackets beneath the columns outside the door, with figures of Adam and Eve interposed between the columns and the canopied tabernacles above, which bear great resemblance to those in a similar position at Traù. The pointed and cusped cornice of interlacing arches, surmounted by a cable moulding, which continues to the end of the transept wall, seems to show that the building had advanced as far as this point when Giorgio appeared upon the scene in 1441. The arms of the Venetian rectors also afford indications of the progress and intermissions of the work.

In the tracery of the windows of the central apse a modification of a graceful Gothic pattern has been employed, resembling patterns used in the campanile at Traù, combined with classic pilasters and colonnette forms, but the greater part of the rest of the building is early Renaissance. The aisles are roofed with a half-wagon vault above the quadripartite pointed vaulting, forming a kind of triforium, which is, however, inaccessible; the chapels at the sides of the choir have the semicircular form of the roof of the nave and choir, perhaps suggested by the temple at Spalato, now known as the baptistery; and the east end is tri-apsidal, the apses being polygonal, but roofed with a semi-dome. All these forms are evident externally, the joints of the roofing slabs being covered by an ornamented band answering to the internal supporting rib. The external sculpture is in the main restrained and delicate, and the general proportions are excellent. The angle pier at the north-east of the north transept has the simplicity of its outline destroyed to provide place for figure sculpture and the dedicatory inscription, and the string dividing the stylobate from the principal stage bears a curious decoration of heads in the round; but these are slight blemishes amid much beauty. The heads have a good deal of character, and some may be portraits of the architect's assistants. The same _motif_ occurs round the square-headed door of S. Francesco alle Scale, Ancona. The construction of the semi-domes and of the roofs shows that Giorgio was a competent constructor; but the inventive and beautiful treatment of the decoration of the choir shows him as something more. The graceful singing-galleries at each side, terminating in the curved ambos attached to the main piers of the dome, are very delicate and beautiful; the lofty proportions of the nave and choir are impressive; and the little baptistery, with its curious mingling of Gothic and Renaissance forms, is quaint and ingenious, if not very pure in style.

In 1444 Giorgio went to Spalato to build the chapel of S. Ranier in the church of S. Benedetto, which was to have been finished in two years, but it was nearly four before the donor was satisfied. The price was 306 ducats of gold. It no longer exists. After his first contract expired at Sebenico, where the work apparently progressed very slowly, he went again to Spalato in 1448 to make the chapel of S. Anastasius in the cathedral. Here he had to compete with the work of Gaspare Bonino of Milan, who had made the corresponding chapel on the other side in 1427. They are both rather late Gothic in style. In 1449 he returned to Sebenico, his contract with the chapter having been renewed in 1446 for ten years at an advance of five ducats. The first contract was for six years, at a salary of 115 ducats. In a notice of 1450 from Zara, he is thus referred to: "Mistro Zorzi, taglia pietra, proto alia fabbrica della chiesa di S. Giacomo di Sebenico." The contract for the sacristy is dated March I, 1452. It cost 600 ducats. He was at Ancona in 1451, when he undertook the façade of the Loggia de' Mercanti, an ornate work, which took eight years to build, and has several details resembling those parts of the cathedral, Sebenico, which are ascribed to Massegna. In 1556 it was burnt, and was restored by Tipaldi. Barnabei, a contemporary writer, states that Giorgio also built the adjoining Palazzo Benincasa. He must have gone backwards and forwards between Italy and Dalmatia, for in 1455, while he was under contract with the Sebenico authorities, he completed the fine façade of S. Francesco alle Scale, Ancona, receiving a bonus of 70 ducats above the price, according to Lando Feretti. The church was built in 1323. The monastery is now half barracks and half hospital. Between 1455 and 1459, the façade of S. Agostino in the same town was built as an addition to a church of 1338, which also is now a barrack. The foliage, twisted columns, and canopies are a good deal like the earlier work at Sebenico. In 1460, Giorgio returned to Sebenico, but in 1464 and 1465 was at Ragusa, where he helped in building the Torre Menze, and in restoring the palace of the Rectors. The next year he was at Pago, improving and enlarging the courtyard of the bishop's palace. It was the Bishop of Ossero, who thought he was going to obtain the removal of the see to Pago, but failed to do so. The façade of the cathedral at Ossero has been ascribed to him, and there is nothing in its design to make his authorship impossible. In the next year he undertook work on the façade of the Cappella Grande of the parish church at Pago. In 1470 he went to Rome, where his compatriot Giovanni Dalmato, the sculptor, of Traù, was at work on the monument of Paul II. He went as representative of the procurators to Paul II., in reference to certain charities left by Bishop Vignacco, who died at Porto, near Rome. In 1472 it is stated that he had let all the houses which he had in the Venetian dominions. In this year he commenced the façade of S. Maria, Cittanova, in the Marche. During his frequent absences from home, his Venetian wife Elizabeth looked after his affairs, apparently having a power of attorney. He had many pupils, some of whom continued to work on the cathedral at Sebenico after his death in 1476.

The cost of the building is stated to have been 80,000 Venetian ducats of gold. It was thoroughly restored between 1843 and 1860; seven out of the fourteen caps of the nave arcade have been replaced, and a good deal of the framing of the panelling of red marble above. At each side of the west door are monuments to bishops, and also at each side of the choir steps. The slabs are sloping, and bear figures in relief. That on the right of the door is Bishop Sisgoreo's, made under Giorgio's direction, with an inscription added in 1874 by a descendant. The tomb of Lucio Stafileo ([Symbol: cross]1557). under whom the cathedral was reconsecrated, is to the north. Those at the entrance to the choir are Luca Spignaroli ([Symbol: cross]1589) to the left, and Domenico Calegari ([Symbol: cross]1722) to the right. The choir is raised six steps above the level of the nave, and the sanctuary seven steps higher still.

At the time of Giorgio's death the work had progressed as far as the roofing in of the apses, if one may trust the arms of Bishop de Tollentis (elected in 1468), placed above the upper arch of the transept; while upon the external arch to the north are those of Count Captain Piero Canal, who left in 1470; and on the arch of the central apse inside, behind the sculptured bust representing God the Father, are those of Count Captain Girolamo Pesaro, who began to rule in 1476. At that time, therefore, the nave and cupola remained to be completed. Upon the cupola there are no arms. Those of Count Nicolò Mulla on the clerestory north wall show that it was finished to the cornice in 1491-1493. Those of Nicolò Navager, who died 1489, fastened with iron clamps in the same place, suggest that it was not completed at his death, though it was probably in course of construction. The arms of Count Andrea Gritti, captain in 1534-1537, on the summit of the façade, show that the western end of the vault was completed by Giovanni Masticevich in 1536. The western rose (at which Giacomo, son of Matteo da Mestre, capo mastro, 1528-1535, was working in 1531) has Gothic cusped arches to the radiating bars, but the mouldings round are Renaissance, as are the angle pilasters to the nave wall and the pateræ decorating the quarter-circles of the aisles. The fluted pilasters of the dome are in harmony with the pilasters of the open gallery above the nave arcade. The pointed arches, which were certainly finished in 1444, are probably Massegna's work, though the leafy cornice above bears great resemblance to carving for which Giorgio was responsible at Ancona.