Part 13 (1/2)
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 gra.s.s 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 Ma.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e near the fourth of the castelli, rounds the bay in which Vranjic lies, pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed, where the water is often rough, since there is no protecting screen of islands, the campanili and towers of Trau come into sight, between which and Bua there is a swing bridge across the channel. Beyond this the boat pa.s.ses under the lee of Bua, on the sh.o.r.e of which is a solitary white monastery; whilst on the opposite sh.o.r.e the buildings of the Castelli throw long tremulous reflections across the water, and boats with sails painted in various colours and patterns pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PORTA MARINA AND CUSTOM HOUSE, TRAu
_To face page 265_]
It is distinctly a.s.serted by Strabo that Trau, 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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 Trau are no earlier than the thirteenth century, and only small portions of that date remain by the tower of the nuns of S.
Nicol. 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, podesta, was freed from the obligation of paving fifty paces of the street between the two main gates, which was laid on every podesta, so one may suppose that the paving was completed. In Venetian times Trau had seven gates. Of these three remain--a plain pointed arch near S.
Nicol, 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 podesta 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 Trau 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PORTA S. GIOVANNI, TRAu
_To face page 266_]
A few discoveries have been made of pre-mediaeval 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.
Nicol and S. Barbara are early. S. Nicol (formerly S. Doimo) was founded in 1064 by Giovanni Orsini for ladies of n.o.ble 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN AND SECTIONS, S. BARBARA, TRAu]
S. Barbara was originally dedicated to S. Martin, but the name was changed when the altar from the church of S. Barbara was brought here during the Turkish siege of 1537; it is mentioned in 1194. It is the most ancient church in Trau, and the lintel of the door has an inscription upon it with diamond-shaped O's, as used in the eighth century. The ornamental carving also is consistent with that period in its design, with crosses of interlaced work in the centre and at the ends, two griffins with tails entwined in a circle, one on each side of a central feature, with a rosette within a cable moulding, and rough trefoils filling up gaps. The interior has nave and aisles, with four stilted arches resting upon columns on each side, and three apses (of which the central one is larger and longer than the others) with two niches in the wall, covered by a semi-dome on squinches, the plan being square. The caps and columns appear to be antique for the most part, and just outside is a shallow cap of the same pattern as one at Kairouan.
The aisles are very narrow, and are vaulted with cross-vaulting without ribs, but with strengthening arches thrown across to the wall. The nave has a barrel vault with pilaster strips running up to the springing of the strengthening arches, which are all round and unmoulded. A moulding with three projecting corbels runs round the base of the apse vault. It is said that there was once a central cupola. The east window still retains a lattice-pierced slab. The church is now a store-house for odds and ends, with a floor halfway up over the western part, but the podesta told me that they hoped to clear it out and make it into a museum.
S. Domenico retains portions of Gothic work. The building was finished in 1372. A rough relief in the tympanum shows a Virgin and Child, and on the right a local saint, Augustino Ca.s.sioti, canonised by Pope John XXII. (1313-1334), with mitre and pectoral, and on the left S. Mary Magdalene. At the feet of the saint kneels the foundress, his sister Bitcula. A Gothic inscription gives her name, and that of the sculptor, ”Maiste Nicolai de te dito cervo d Venecia fecit hoc opvs.” Within are a picture of the Circ.u.mcision by Palma Giovane, with a pretty Virgin, the marble sarcophagus of the family Sobota, a grandiose Renaissance production, and six panels of saints on gold ground, rather like the Gubbio school in style, arranged in threes on the wall of the choir.
The cathedral, however, is the glory of Trau. It replaces an earlier building, reported to have dated from the sixth century, but destroyed by the Saracens in 1123. At this time the Traurines fled to Spalato, and apparently did not venture back till 1152. The builder of the main part of the cathedral was Bishop Tregua.n.u.s, a Florentine who came from Hungary, and was bishop from 1206 till about 1256. The south door bears the date 1213, the great west door 1240, but the west gable has the arms of Bishop Casotti (1362-1371) upon it, and the campanile was not finished till 1598. The plan shows a nave and aisles five bays in length, terminating in three apses, while to the west is a broad and lofty porch, above one end of which the tower rises. This porch is entered by an arch at the south end, but there is another opposite the great west door; and at the further end is the fifteenth-century baptistery. Round it runs a low seat with arcaded panelling, which serves as base to all the shafts. It is vaulted in three bays, with twisted colonnettes in the angles of the piers. The vaulting is quadripart.i.te, with ribs and two arches three feet broad repeating the divisions of the nave, all the arches being round. The central compartment rises like a dome upon the surface of the terrace above. In the aisle walls are two pierced circular windows, Romanesque in design.
In one, two dragons are represented devouring a man; in the other are two lions rearing against a twisted pillar on which is a cup. The bodies are broken, and the tails, which remain, encroach upon the wall surface.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF THE CATHEDRAL, TRAu]
The great west door is the pride of all Dalmatia, and is unsurpa.s.sed in the elaborate richness of its carving. It is dated in the lintel inscription 1240, and signed Radua.n.u.s, a Slav name Radovan latinised.
There are two orders and a tympanum with octagonal shafts in the angles, those nearest the door apparently having fragments of highly carved work inserted, since the plain octagonal shaft is visible both above and below the carving. A flattish gable surmounts it, with a kind of tabernacle work at each end above the figures of Adam and Eve, and a cresting of crockets shaped like eighth-century crockets in a similar situation. In the centre is a little niche with a later figure of S.
Laurence, the patron saint. The tympanum is occupied by the subject of the Nativity, arranged in two stages. In the centre above is a curtained recess, with the Virgin in bed, and the Child in a kind of cradle, above which the heads of the ox and a.s.s appear. Over them are two angels, one of whom holds a star from which rays stream down on the Child, whilst the other speaks to the shepherds. Below are Joseph and two women, one of whom pours water into a tub, while the other washes the Child in it.
Behind Joseph is a shepherd (these two figures are named). On the left are the shepherds and their flocks; on the right the three kings ride up. ”Guasper” and ”Balthssar” are also named. The arches above are unmoulded, but carved on the face. On the outside order at the top is the Crucifixion, with the Virgin and S. John and two kneeling figures.