Part 14 (1/2)
The Castelli were built as defences against Turkish raids. Starting from Trau the first is Castel Papali; Castelnuovo, Castel Vecchio, Castel Vitturi, Castel Cambio, and Castel Abbadessa follow, and Castel Sucurac is the nearest to Spalato and Clissa. These are the Sette Castelli, but there are several others--Stafileo, Andreis, Cega, Quarco, and Dragazzo.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A QUAINT COSTUME, TRAu]
Castel Papali, or Nehaj, is three-quarters of an hour from Trau, and was built in 1548 by Lodovico and Giovanni Celio. It was then called Celio or Lodi. In 1680 it pa.s.sed to the family of Francesco Papali, the Celi having failed of heirs male. It now belongs to Count Fanfogna-Garagnin of Trau.
Castel Stafileo was built in 1500 by Stefano Stafileo, of a family established in Trau coming from Candia. He separated it from the mainland, and it was entered by a drawbridge; the ditch is now filled up. The concession is dated 1484.
Castel Dragazzo, or Dracic, founded by Matteo Dragazzo in 1543, on a concession from the Venetian senate, was never finished, in consequence of his death. The material of the walls was used to construct the port of Castelnuovo. The Dragazzi appear in 1389. They were originally butchers, but for about three centuries gave the country men of intellect and valour.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE QUAY, CASTEL VECCHIO
_To face page 287_]
Castel Quarco ”in Bile,” of which very little is left, was built in 1588 by Giovanni Quarco with a walled courtyard. The site was granted to Matteo Dragazzo, who ceded it to Quarco.
The church at Castelnuovo inherited with the t.i.tle of S. Pietro the rights of S. Pietro di Klobucac, a little inland on the slope of the hill (where remains of a monastery or palace of the ninth to the eleventh century have been found). It was demolished in 1420. According to tradition some of the objects there preserved came from the older church. The _pala_ of the high-altar, a panel painting on gesso ground, the Virgin and Child seated, on the right S. Peter with the keys, on the left S. John the Baptist with scroll ”Ecce Agnus Dei,” half-length, is one thing. The inscriptions are in Roman capitals. Also two Romanesque-looking bronze candlesticks. The Castello has a square tower, which has lost the balcony which surrounded it at the height of the first floor. In the piazza is the Loggia, rebuilt in 1795, as an inscription states. It was burnt in 1523 together with most of the houses. The _provveditore_ granted materials for rebuilding, but it was again burnt in 1575. Until recently this Castello belonged to the Cippico. It was the birthplace of the historian Katalinic, born here in 1779.
Castel Vecchio was founded in 1481 by Coriola.n.u.s Cippico, with booty gained in the war against Mahomet II. in 1471, as is testified by the inscription over the gate, ”Triremis ex manubiis Asiaticis hanc villam aedificavit,” with date 1481. Tradition says that a house on the left of the eastern gate with a walled courtyard was also his work. He died here in 1493, leaving it to his sons Alvise, bishop of Famagosta, and Zuanne, archbishop of Zara. Over a door in the courtyard is the Cippico crest with the motto ”Omnia exalto.” Opposite is a chapel dedicated to S.
Joseph and the Virgin, built by Coriola.n.u.s's son Laelius, according to the inscription, with the incredibly late date of 1695. In 1480 Nicol Pisani, count of Trau, received a ”ducale” from Giovanni Mocenigo, in which Cippico was promised munitions of war and men-at-arms to preserve the Castello, and, by the a.s.surance of security, to attract cultivators to the fertile country ”for greater public usefulness.” This seems to support Karaman's statement that the Castello was founded in 1476. An inscription of 1492 above the arch between the court and main street records its ruin by fire and restoration by the senate. In 1500 the Venetian Government completed Cippico's work at a cost of 500 ducats. It was called Castel Vecchio because it was the first of the Castelli founded.
Castel Vitturi, built in 1487 by Girolamo and Nicol Vitturi of Trau, by concession from Count Carlo di Pesaro, is now without drawbridge or ditch. The founder of the family, Lampridio, son of Giacomo Vitturi, a Venetian n.o.ble, came to Trau in 1213, and married Bona Cega. The Castello is square, with two gates, one to the sea, and the other to the north, apparently entirely rebuilt in 1563, except the north side, which still has two turrets flanking the gate pierced for musketry, and traces of the holes through which the chains of the drawbridge pa.s.sed, also of a balcony which was probably for defence.
The next one is Castel Rosani (Ruinac), built in 1482 by Michele Rosani, under a concession from Count Francesco Ferro. The village was surrounded with walls; but, fearing that they would not be able to beat off the Turks, the inhabitants dismantled them, and sought refuge in Castel Vitturi, which was larger and better fortified. It is still in good preservation, however, with its little church, which contains the tomb of the unfortunate lovers whose story has been told by Marco di Casotti.
Castel Cambio (Kambelovac) was built in 1566 by Francesco Cambi of Spalato. It is still partly preserved. At one time it formed one parish with the adjacent Castel Abbadessa (Gomilica). It belonged to the lords.h.i.+p of Sucurac, which embraced nine villages. The nuns in the sixteenth century erected the Castello on an island, and here the abbesses were wont to come for the summer; hence the name. The nuns built the little church at the entrance of the village on the right of the road; it was dedicated to SS. Cosmo and Damian, and consecrated by a.s.salone, archbishop of Spalato, 1159-1160. It is suggested that the Slav name Gomilica (”ma.s.ses of masonry”) comes from the fact that the newer houses were built with the ruins of the village of Kozice, destroyed by the Turks.
Castel Sucurac is the nearest of the Castelli to Spalato, the first to which the Turks would come, descending from Clissa. The position and the Roman remains found here are held to prove that it was a suburb of Salona. It took its name from S. Giorgio, a little chapel upon the hill, which in Croat is called Sut Juraj, corrupted into Sucuraj. The church was built by the great zupan Miroslav; and the ruined walls which surround the present chapel, showing a foot above the soil, are supposed to be the remains of that church, since there are amongst them a few pieces of carved stone. The most ancient Croat doc.u.ment existing is a deed of gift of this place and church to the Archbishop of Spalato, Pietro III., by the King Trpimir, in 837, in exchange for 11 given by the archbishop for the construction of the church and monastery of S.
Peter, between the ruins of Salona and the fortress of Klis. In 1076 King Zvonimir confirmed the gift. One of the finest buildings in the village is the palace of the archbishop, dated 1488 by an inscription over the door. The Castello and walls round the village were built by Andrea Gualdo, archbishop in 1392, by concession of Valchio, ban of Croatia. In 1489 Archbishop Bartolommeo Averoldo of Brescia, built a second wall. In 1503 it was further strengthened; but two years later the Turks burnt it. In 1646, after being repulsed from Spalato, they attacked Sucurac again, but were unsuccessful. The first summer palace of the archbishops was in Vranjic; it was destroyed by the Venetian fleet in 1204.
Castel Cega was built by Andrea di Celio Cega in 1487, and rebuilt by Paolo Andreis. The Celio were an ancient family of Trau, said to date from Roman times, and had many branches, one of which (extinct in 1511) was called Celio-Morte, because a member of it had the habit of threatening opponents with death, and used a skull for his crest.
The following privileges were enjoyed by the n.o.bles of the Castelli, or founders of the towns. The right to special contributions from the country people, and the _jus patronato_ of the churches. The sacristan, without their a.s.sent, could not give the third signal of the Ma.s.s, nor of Vespers on festival days, a usage which is still observed at Castel Cambio and Castel Vitturi. In the church they had their own benches, and the s.p.a.ce they occupied could not be taken by any one else, not even for the erection of new altars. When the _provveditore_ was present at solemn functions a bench was placed for him and the ”padroni,” as well as for the authorities of the Castelli and the colonel of the district.
They were the first to receive incense after the priest at Ma.s.s; and there were numerous other similar customs. If a child of the ”padrone”
died, all the bells rang; if an adult, they were clappered; and all the confraternities had to be present at the funeral, whether in the village, at Spalato, or at Trau. The ”padrone” was the medium of communication between the higher authorities and the village headman, who had to close the gates at night, and take him the key. He received the tolls paid for living in the village; and there was a kind of _corvee_ of forced work. Moreover, he had the right to buy the houses of those who sold them, at a third less than their real value, to sell again to fresh inhabitants. The oil-mills belonged to him, and a fifth of the produce was divided between him and the customs. If the olives were taken elsewhere a tenth of the oil was paid to him all the same.
Wine-presses were also his property; the oven, too, and a proportion of the wine made and bread baked went to him. Nothing could be bought or sold without his license. He received all the tongues of oxen killed, and the heads of pigs. He covered the cistern in time of drought, and water could only be drawn when he took the cover off. The streets were ordered to be kept clean, and slops taken to the sea, not thrown out of the window! At Christmas and Easter the country people still bring presents to their lords.
The proverb ”Wine of the Castelli, honey of Solta, and milk of Bua” is still justified; and agents for wine merchants, especially French, bargain for the wines before the grapes are ripe. Enormous hogsheads are s.h.i.+pped on the boats, and the trans.h.i.+pping them is often a dangerous business, if we may judge from our own experiences. At Castel Vecchio we were nearly spectators of a serious accident when a cord slipped, and we observed that the men crossed themselves each time one was safely lowered into the hold.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: The last king to visit it was Sigismund in 1387.]
XXI
SPALATO
Spalato appears for the first time in the ”Tavola Peutingeriana” under the name Aspalathos, as a station on the sh.o.r.e road which led from the promontory Ad Dianam (at the end of Monte Marjan) to Epetium (Stobrec) below Salona, but appears at that time to have been a place of no importance. It, however, is thus proved to have existed before the end of the third century, which makes the accepted derivation of the name from ”ad Palatium” plainly erroneous. Its great celebrity is due to the palace which Diocletian began to build for himself there shortly before 300 A.D. and to which he retired after his abdication in 305. Within its walls fugitives from Salona, who had returned from the islands to which they had fled at the time of the destruction of the city in 639, found shelter, and so the existing city began its mediaeval course. The palace faced the sea to the south, and along this side were the imperial apartments with the open loggia of fifty arches raised above the water upon ma.s.sive substructures. The plan is not quite square, but imitates a Roman camp, with great square towers at the angles, a gate in the centre of each of three sides flanked with octagonal towers, and with smaller square towers between gates and angles. Towards the sea was a water gate on a lower level. The material is marble from Trau and Brazza limestone. The sea facade is about 550 ft. long, the north about 530 ft., the east and west some 620 ft. The external walls are double throughout, of worked stone filled in with concrete, the thickness being 6 ft. 6 in., and the height from 60 to 80 ft. On the three land facades are double-arched windows 20 ft. from the ground, 6 ft. 6 in. broad, and a little over 11 ft. high. Only three of the angle towers remain, the fourth having fallen in 1555. The princ.i.p.al gateway is towards Salona, and is known as the Porta Aurea. Above the gate itself is an open arch flanked by niches on each side; above them are brackets which sustained the columns of a higher row of seven niches, the whole forming a grandiose architectural composition, of which the ill.u.s.tration shows the effect. The pa.s.sage-way is 13 ft. high by 11 ft. 3 in. wide. The other gates are known as the Porta Ferrea and Porta Argentea. The latter has practically disappeared; the former is over 14 ft. high, and the same width as the Porta Aurea, but without its architectural magnificence.
These gates gave entrance to streets which divided the palace into quarters, that from the Porta Aurea leading to the great peristyle, around and beyond which were the public buildings and the imperial apartments, while the women's quarter was probably to the west of this street, and the officials' rooms to the east, the street at right angles separating them from the more important parts of the palace.