Part 20

The baptistery is a queer little building at the eastern end of the south aisle, and one of the entrances to the cathedral is through it. The font has a bowl and base of variegated marble, like that used at Veglia, very flat in shape and unmoulded, supported by three _amorini_, carved in Istrian stone, who stand round the supporting stem. The plan of the building is cruciform, the arms of the cross being semicircular niches which have shell-heads. The wall above them has Gothic tracery, on the eastern side pierced to give light. The ribs at the angles are supported on engaged columns, above which are Gothic figures beneath canopies, of which two, David and Simeon, remain; the other two were destroyed or stolen, I understand, by thieves who broke into the building. The figures bend forward awkwardly beneath the curve of the vault, which becomes domical, with angels and cherubs upon it. The boss in the centre bears a head of God the Father and the Holy Dove, with an inscription round the edge: "Hic est filius meus," &c.

The question of the part played by Giorgio in the construction of the cathedral is difficult to decide, being complicated by the mixture of styles and the possibly later insertion of several of the coats of arms of the rectors and bishops. The western piers of the crossing are considered to be part of the earlier work, because of the close resemblance of the carved foliage to Venetian-Gothic ornament; but it must be remembered that Giorgio was trained in Venice, just as Massegna was, and would be familiar with such work. Foliage of similar style occurs in domestic work at Traù, and in other places along the coast, so that it is scarcely safe to consider it the sign-manual of any one sculptor. The time from 1441, when he signed a contract for six years, to 1443 was spent in widening the street to allow of the eastward extension of the church. On June 16, 1442, the demand for the rebuilding of the façade of the count's palace (which was on the other side) was formally made for the bishop, procurators, and chapter. This additional space was necessitated by the design of the apse, &c., as laid down in Giorgio's plan, and still existing.[2] The Gothic character of the domestic doorway illustrated, with the late form of shield in the tympanum, shows that such forms lingered late in Dalmatia. The same may be said of the design of the rose-window, finished in 1531, and of similar details which occur in undoubted work by Giorgio in Ancona.

The door of the lions in the north aisle is quite Gothic in character, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.