Chapter 6

The descent from the high land to the coast level is very fine, the eye ranging far over the blue water, headland projecting beyond headland, paler and more diaphanous, till the historic point of Salvore fades into the distance scarcely distinguishable. Below the blue is stained by the smoke of steamers and flecked with the many-coloured sails of other craft, while in the middle-distance populous Trieste stretches round the curve of the bay, with many vessels at its wharves, and the smoke from the Lloyd-Arsenal mingling with that from the iron-works at Muggia beyond S. Servolo across the bay; or, if it should be night, lines of lights define the long stretch of quays and streets like strings of pearls, and sparkle up the heights which the houses climb in several directions. Prosecco is passed, which gives its name to a celebrated wine much esteemed in Trieste; Miramar, with its memories of the ill-fated Maximilian of Mexico, who delighted in its beautiful situation and splendour of appointment; then comes Barcola, where excavations have proved the existence of Roman villas, which have enriched the museum of Trieste with many interesting objects; and at last the train slackens and stops at the west end of the town, in the fine station built with that disregard for economy of space and lavish expenditure of material which the Englishman finds remarkable in Continental railway management.

Trieste is primarily a modern town, and the people are very proud of the important buildings which adorn it, as they have every right to be. The post office, for instance, is palatial, and round and near to the Piazza Grande are large and showy edifices which include the Town Hall and the Lloyd Palace, while the Greek church is a fine building in the Byzantine style, decorated with mosaics, and the church of Sant' Antonio makes a very effective termination to the Canale Grande. The broad quays are thronged with people of many nationalities and varied costumes, from the ships which lie along them flaunting ensigns of all kinds--red and white crosses, blue, yellow, and black stripes, moons and stars--Italian, Norwegian, Greek, Turkish, French, and Montenegrin, as well as Istrian and Dalmatian. The Greek ships generally lie in the Canal, the Norwegian by the Molo S. Carlo (so called from a warship which was sunk in 1737), and beyond the health office for the port at the Molo Giuseppino, where many others also lie, and the various passenger steamers in definite berths--the big English steamers at the end of the projecting quays. From a Sicilian ship hundreds of chests of oranges and lemons may be seen unloading; from a Venetian _trabarcolo_ great heaps of onions and ropes of garlic; an Istrian boat disgorges a small mountain of green water-melons; from a Dalmatian cutter barrel after barrel of wine is rolled out, much of which goes on to Bordeaux (!); and the same from a Greek schooner near, while its neighbour from the Levant lands grapes and chests of raisins, and the Norwegian ship brings train oil or wood. Many Turkish and Albanian costumes lighten up the crowd with their brilliant colours and quaint shapes, Bosniaks and Montenegrins are occasionally seen, and a fair number of Morlacchi, though fewer than lower down the coast. The weather-beaten Chioggian fishermen, too, with their red caps and waist-scarves, black curly hair and great rings in their ears, are very picturesque, though less unusual. The Triestines themselves are abandoning the old costume of the countryman, the "mandriere," described as consisting of a long waistcoat with great silver buttons hanging on it, short black hose open at the knee, and a short black, close-fitting jacket. In summer he wore a broad, flapping hat; in winter a costly cap of so-called beaver-skin, which he had probably inherited from his grandfather. The women had broad frocks with coloured borders, and a short, heavy cloth jacket; and on their heads a white linen cloth hanging down behind, with costly lace upon it. The girl of the people, the "sessolotta," and the seamstress, the "sartorella," both go bareheaded, and are proud of their hair; they are fond of flowers and songs, and spend much of their time in the open air. I quote a Gradese song, which is also sung at Trieste, and must be of some antiquity, since it names the gondola, which is not now seen either at Grado or Trieste.

Lisetta guarda, bella è la luna Argento piove sulla laguna, Non è una nuvola; quieto è il mar-- Lisetta, in gondola ti voi menar?

La bavisella che va soffiando Con quel bel viso di quando in quando I biondi boccoli te li fa far-- Lisetta, in gondola ti voi menar?

The markets are rich with colour and well looked after. Officials go round constantly testing the articles of food sold, while the women (who are generally the sellers) look on with anxiety. A dozen or more, men and women, will bring in their wares on a cart, 10 or 15 ft. long, each putting a hand to the work.

The city existed in antiquity. Strabo knew it as a Carnian market-town. Various derivations of the Latin name "Tergeste" have been suggested, of which perhaps the most probable is from the Celtic "twr," water or sea, and "geste," colony, establishment. The fact that it was the only city held by the Carni on the sea-coast increases the probability. A Roman colony was established here in 129 B.C. The amount of tribute paid by the various cities is an index of their importance; both Pola and Parenzo paid more than Trieste. The Triestines were enrolled in the tribe Pupinia. The city was the landing-place for Roman troops, as was the case in Trajan's campaign against the Dacians. The fulling establishments of both Trieste and Pola were known far and wide.

The Romans made the hill of S. Giusto the centre of their colony, adding to the defensive works the temple of the Capitoline divinities, reconstructed with a magnificence worthy of the increased importance of the city by Clodius Quirinale, prefect of the fleet of Ravenna. Remains of it are the seven columns within the campanile (built in 1337 and restored in 1556), still bearing architrave, frieze, and cornice, and fragments of architectural carving and inscriptions encrusted in its walls, or preserved in the civic Museo Lapidario. There was an antique theatre at Trieste also; its shape only can be traced, though the name of the street is still "Rena Vecchia."

S. Hermagoras is said to have planted a church here about 50 A.D., by means of missionaries sent from Aquileia. S. Giusto, one of the patron saints of the city, probably died about 303. The other two are S. Sergio, a soldier, whose halberd still appears in the arms of the town, and S. Servolo, a pious youth who lived at one time in a grotto not far from this place, where they both were martyred. There is said to have been a bishop in the fourth century, but the list of authentic bishops begins with Frugiferus in the sixth. When Christianity triumphed, a church was built on the Capitol on the ruins of the ancient temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption. This was the part to the north of the present church (see plan), now the nave of the Holy Sacrament, "del Santissimo," in the apse of which are the mosaics of the twelve Apostles, probably earlier than the sixth century; while those in the vault, together with the border, are later. Till some twenty years ago a difference in the level of the floor between the three columns farthest east on each side (where the pulpit stands) marked the place of the original choir. The walled-up clerestory windows of the right side are ancient. The fourteen columns have been plastered over to make them uniform, but are evidently of different thicknesses, suggesting the use of older material. The caps are for the most part rough imitations of Corinthian, and the bases are stilted Attic in type. Of the baptistery nothing remains but the hexagonal font of marble in the chapel of S. John the Baptist, where there is also an ancient well and the apparatus for baptism by ablution, not now used. In the time of Justinian, the second, smaller, church (probably dedicated to SS. Giusto and Servolo) was erected at the south side by Bishop Frugiferus, about 550, as the monogram at the left of the apse shows. The mosaics in the apse are late Byzantine. Four great columns support a cupola in front of the presbytery, by means of four round arches, pendentives, and a drum, round which is an arcade of sixteen stilted round arches with foliated caps and prominently projecting abaci, which it is thought may belong to the original building, though the cupola itself is later. The small apse of the south aisle, with vaulted roof, also belonged to the first building. In front of the apses is a _solea_ with a wagon vault, except in front of the small aisle apse, where it is quadripartite. The aisle is raised a step above the nave. The arcades are uniformly round-arched and stilted, and the caps generally have super-abaci. The north aisle has pointed arches at intervals and a flat roof; the nave of the Santissimo also has a flat roof with beams and brackets. There is a triumphal arch and one blocked window in the apse, with mosaic on the splay of the jamb.

The mosaic in the semi-dome is probably an eleventh-century restoration of an older work, itself very carefully restored in 1863. The Virgin, robed in blue and holding the Divine Child to her bosom, is enthroned between the archangels Michael and Gabriel, who hold lilies and are robed in priestly costume. The Child blesses with the right hand in the Greek fashion. Below, on the wall, are figures of the Apostles, of a very early date, for SS. Peter and Paul are without their usual attributes, and the white draperies shaded with pale colours are early Christian in arrangement. Between the figures are palm-trees and conventional plant ornaments. The church is very dark, but the details of the mosaics may be studied in the careful copies in the museum. Above the altar of S. Giusto, to the right, in the semi-dome, SS. Giusto and Servolo stand on each side of our Saviour, beneath whose feet are two monsters, asp and basilisk. The central apse was reconstructed in the seventeenth century. The main reconstruction took place in the fourteenth century. The aisle walls of the two churches were demolished, and a nave built reaching from the pillars of one church to those of the other, thus uniting them under one roof, the western wall being placed contiguous to the campanile, and chapels added at each side. The memorial of the Gens Barbia was sawn in two and used as jambs for the west door, and inscriptions from the pedestals of statues and classical ornamental fragments were used in the campanile, both round the openings and close to the niche which encloses the statue of S. Giusto holding a model of the cathedral and castle. The consecration took place in 1385, Bishop Henry of Wildenstein officiating. Below the S. Giusto mosaics are wall-paintings of the fourteenth century, in niches of a much earlier date, with slender antique columns of precious marbles; in the centre the saint stands with a model of the city in his hand--the earliest record of its appearance extant; the other niches show his sufferings. In the niche of S. Apollinaris are remains of frescoes of two dates found in 1892, and thought to belong to the sixth and the tenth centuries; other remains of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, found under whitewash, prove that the whole church was ornamented with painting as the "Acts" relate. When the roof was raised the exterior of the drum of S. Giusto was enclosed within the church. The trilobate roof of the nave was mediæval, but has lately been restored. The façade also was restored in 1843, and the gravestones ranged along its base were then removed from the floor.

In the sacristy is a picture signed Tommaso Giottino, and dated 1313; it is thought to have belonged to the high-altar. There is a picture by Benedetto Carpaccio, of the Madonna, between SS. Giusto and Servolo, in the right-hand portion of the church. The treasury is kept in the chapel of S. Antonio Abate, to the north of the apse of the Santissimo; it is closed with a very fine late Renaissance German iron grille, with elaborate projecting floral bosses. It contains a thirteenth-century processional cross, with a _repoussé_ Christ on a ground of gilded silver.

The original wheel-window of the façade is in the Museo Lapidario, just below the cathedral, where a good many well-heads of Venetian type are also preserved, and a few fragments of eighth and ninth-century carving, as well as the usual antique columns, bases, and inscriptions, one expects to find. There are also stone balista balls, relics of ancient sieges, many cinerary urns, and a few mutilated figures, grouped under the trees and upon the terraces which descend to the little temple in which the better pieces are housed. These include the lower half of a female figure, graceful in pose, and, in the folds of the drapery, a decree of the Decurions' College of Trieste in honour of the quæstor and Senator Fabius Severus (of the time of Antoninus Pius), engraved on one of two large pedestals, a sarcophagus and steles, the inscriptions from the jambs of the campanile, &c. The collection is mainly due to Dr. Dom. di Rossetti, who, in 1830, erected the monument to Winckelmann (murdered here in 1768), which is against one of the walls. Near the Jesuit church, half-way down the slope of the hill, is a half-buried Roman arch of the time of Severus, ornamented equally on both sides, perhaps a memorial of one of the ancient gates. It is known as the Arco di Riccardo, from some fancied connection with Richard Coeur de Lion.

The finest objects in the Civic Museum are two pieces of antique Greek metal-work found at Taranto. One is a bronze jug, upon which are represented two griffins, facing each other by the sides of a palmette, with a flowing band of vine-leaves surrounding the body above. The relief is very delicate, and the design beautiful. The other is a rhyton of silver which is almost unique. The _motif_ is the head of a young deer. The ears, which project at right angles, are riveted on; the rest is _repoussé_ in one piece. It is so finely modelled and so accurate in its detail, that it has been recognised as a representation of the _Cervus Dama_, which was formerly common in South Italy. The interior of the ears and the lip of the cup have been gilt, and in the nostrils is niello. Round the neck is a band with four small figures, probably representing the nuptials of Poseidon and Saturia, daughter of Minos, from which sprang Taras, the mythical founder of Taranto. Two of the figures are seated, two standing; their draperies are gilded. The handle curves gracefully to the back of the jawbones, where it is attached to a palmette. The work may be of the fourth century B.C., the doe's head being much finer than the figures, which are possibly a later addition. The only similar piece of silver-work known is the bull's-head rhyton in the Hermitage Collection, St. Petersburg. In this also the figures (which are of barbarians) are inferior to the animal forms.

There are various sculptures discovered at Barcola, the finest of which is a male torso with the greater part of the legs, prehistoric objects, coins, a personification of Istria, things found at Pirano, and three splendid large Chinese bronzes. The copies of the mosaics of the Apostles from S. Giusto are on the ceiling of the upper room. A seal of the city of the fourteenth century bears three towers and the inscription: "Sistilianum · publica · Casiilir · mare · Certos · dat · michi · fines." Sistiana was on the north of Trieste; Castilir, the river Risano, was the southern boundary. The present arms were given by Frederick IV., 1464--a black two-headed eagle on gold on the first of three horizontal fields, and on the lowest the halberd of S. Sergius, on the colours of the archduchy of Austria.

The bishopric of Trieste corresponded to the Roman _municipium_ in its boundaries. The bishops gradually became temporal lords of the city, and in 1295 the commune bought its freedom from Brissa di Toppo for two hundred marks. At this time the first communal palace was built. The first statute, however, dates from 1313-1319. It provides for a foreign podestà, a greater and lesser council, and the usual officials from the noble families. The title of Count of Trieste was first taken by Antonio di Negri (1350-1370). During his time Venice besieged the city for eleven months, conquering it in 1368, notwithstanding the attempted succour of Leopold of Austria. They then built a fort on the hill of S. Giusto and another on the shore called Amarina. Trieste made overtures to the dukes of Austria, and war continued between them and Venice till 1370, when it was ended by the peace of Kaisach, by which Venice agreed to pay 75,000 florins of gold, and to give up the castle of Vragna, as well as to relinquish all claim to Trieste and her territory. The Venetian forts were demolished, and in 1382 the city gave itself to the Habsburgs to make itself secure. In 1470 Frederick III. built the castle to control the factions which had been indulging in civil war, and Trieste lost a good deal of her liberty. The mediæval city formed a triangle on the north-west slope of the castle. Till the middle of the eighteenth century it was a small town of 6,000 inhabitants, but the gift of free harbour rights by Charles VI., in 1719, soon made it prosperous. Italian, German, and Swiss merchants settled in numbers, and the population grew till it is now over 160,000.

The bishop of Trieste was subject to the Patriarch of Aquileia, and a special form of worship was used, invented by the Patriarch Paulinus. This is still in existence, partly printed and partly in MS.

On Saturday, June 10, 1501, Canon Johannes Baptista, the chancellor, used the Roman rite in the cathedral for the first time, a fact noted as remarkable in several documents. In Aquileia itself the form continued in use till 1585, and in S. Mark's, Venice, till the fall of the Republic. In Trieste confraternities were established very early. That of S. Giusto is mentioned in 1072.

VI

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ISTRIA

The name "Istria" is derived from the Istro, confounded by the ancient geographers with the Danube (Ister), and therefore supposed to be a branch of it. Considering the testimony of ancient writers as to the migration of Thracians, it appears probable that the Istrians were of these people, a band who left Pontic Istria by ascending the rivers Danube, Save, and Lubiana, crossed the Julian Alps, and descended to the Adriatic. Some such migration may be at the root of the story of the passage of the Argonauts, pursued by the Colchians. In the ninth century B.C. Ionians from Miletus settled colonies in Istria, who were followed by Corinthians in 735 B.C. It has been claimed that the name "Adriatic" is derived from Adar, the Asiatic sun-god, or god of fire. Plenty of stone implements and other prehistoric objects have been found in caves and burial places, and there are many Celtic place-names; the Celts arrived in the fourth or fifth century B.C., and contested the country with the older immigrants. Under Roman rule the two races ultimately intermixed, the Celts being in the majority.

The oldest inhabitants thus appear to have been of Pelasgic stock, Celto-Thracian. The Carnians were a branch of those of Lycaonia and Acarnania, who also settled in Gaul, and, according to Livy, mixed with the Etruscans during the reign of Tarquinius Priscus. They were sailors and merchants, but also pirates. When the Romans founded Aquileia they were forced to take measures to ensure safe navigation and to prevent danger to the new colony. Therefore, in 178 B.C., an expedition against the Istrians was undertaken under the Consul Aulus Manlius Vulso, but without the authorisation of the Senate, the army being transported by ship to the environs of Muggia. The Istrians attacked the camp in a fog, and, having driven the Romans to the shore, sat down to eat--and drink. While they were incapacitated in consequence, the Romans returned and killed most of them. The following year they entered Istria again, sacking and devastating the country. In the battle which followed, 4,000 Istrians were left on the field, and the rest took refuge in the cities, and asked for peace. The negotiations were broken off owing to the Consul Claudius proceeding in an irregular manner, and Nesactium was vigorously besieged with two fresh legions. A stream which defended the walls and supplied drinking-water was diverted by the Romans; its failure convinced the inhabitants that their gods were either powerless or angry, and during the final assault the despairing Istrians killed their women and children to save them from slavery, and threw their bodies over the walls. Epulus, the king, fell upon his sword when he saw the enemy within the walls; the rest either perished or were made slaves. Mutila and Faveria were also attacked and levelled with the ground, and quiet reigned in Istria. Livy says that at that time 5,622 persons were sold into slavery, the authors of the war were beaten and then decapitated, and Istria was garrisoned with Roman troops. In 129 B.C. the Istrians rose in revolt when Rome was occupied with the Gepid war. The Consul Caius Sempronius Tuditanus crushed this revolt, and after that colonies were established at Ægida (Capodistria), Æmonia (Cittanova), Albona, Parentium, Piquentum, Pola, Tergeste, and probably in other places. Many Istrians fled into the Karst region, and for a long time the land was unsafe. Julius Cæsar had to take measures to protect Tergeste from raids.

The Italianising of the country proceeded apace. Many Slav names occur in Roman inscriptions; but in 127 B.C. 14,000 Roman colonists arrived, and year by year more came, until the time of Augustus, both plebeians and patricians. Many of the latter of Istrian birth occupied important posts outside Istria; and, according to an ancient Aquileian breviary quoted by Dr. Kandler, many of the Christian martyrs belonged to patrician families. The names of SS. Euphemia, Thecla, Apollinaris, Lazarus, Justina, Zeno, Sergius, Bacchus, Servulus, and Justus may be quoted. The towns benefited in material ways, aqueducts were constructed to supply them with water, and fine roads, such as the consular road from Pola to Aquileia and Venetia, with its many branches, provided easy and rapid communication. There was traffic in wines, wood, marble, and granite. Istrian acorns nourished a fine breed of pigs which were exported to Rome. The purple-dyeing factories of Cissa near Rovigno, the fulling works of Pola and Trieste, and the potteries of Aquileia were known far and wide. Nor were philanthropic works neglected. Under some of the later Pagan emperors foundling hospitals and schools were established in separate provinces for orphans and poor children.