Part 16 (1/2)
The other towns are Cittavecchia, Verbosca, and Gelsa. The first is the new Pharos, founded at the end of the third century B.C., and flouris.h.i.+ng during the Roman period. It lies at the bottom of an inlet six miles long, and is a nouris.h.i.+ng modern town with little antiquity visible. The campanile of S. Stefano, which appears to be of the fourteenth century, is on ancient foundations, and there are traces of Cyclopean walls here and there. In Verbosca is a fortified church with bastions, S. Lorenzo, which contains the fragments of a t.i.tianesque painting, ascribed to the master on the strength of an entry in the archives of a payment of 1,000 ducats to the Master t.i.tiano Vecelli. It is now in three portions, and shows S. Laurence with angels and the Virgin above, S. Roch, and S. Augustine. In another church, S. Maria, is a Birth of the Virgin, ascribed to Paolo Veronese. At Gelsa the church is also fortified, a memorial of the time when protection against Turkish raids was necessary.
Curzola lies due south of Lesina, separated from the long peninsula of Sabbioncello on the mainland by quite a narrow channel. It is the Corcyra Nigra or Melaina of antiquity, so called from its luxuriant pine forests, little of which now remain. Various origins are attributed to the settlement; one of them is commemorated in the inscription on the Porta Marina: ”Hic Antenoridae Corcyrae prima Melanae fundamenta locant.”
The early Greek geographers include it in the territory of Narenta or Liburnia. From Augustus to Heraclius (642 A.D.) it was Roman or Byzantine, and from that date till 998 Narentine. From the victory of Orseolo II. till 1100 it was Venetian, when the Genoese possessed it for twenty-eight years. In 1128 the Venetians, under Popone Zorzi, took it again, and it remained Venetian on the whole till 1357; from that time till 1418 it was sometimes Hungarian, sometimes Genoese, Bosnian, or Ragusan. Two years later it finally gave itself to Venice, with which it was connected till the Napoleonic wars. The English occupied it from 1813-1815. It has suffered from raids; and the attack by Uluz-Ali after he had sacked Lesina is noticeable for the brave conduct of the women.
The commandant of the island and fortress, Antonio Balbi, and a great many of the well-to-do inhabitants fled without fighting. The women and boys put on their uniforms and manned the walls, making the Turks think that the place was well garrisoned and too strong to be taken quickly with the force at their disposal. In one of the naval battles with the Genoese off the island, Marco Polo (who has been claimed as a Curzolan) and Andrea Dandolo were taken prisoners. Dandolo dashed his brains out against the side of the galley; but Marco Polo occupied his four years of captivity in writing his travels, and, according to legend, earned his freedom by the pleasure which his work gave to the Genoese.
The statute is the oldest in Dalmatia (1214), and is noticeable for its provisions against the slave trade, which are among the earliest in history. A curious survival of mediaeval festivity still exists in the ”Moresca,” a kind of Pyrrhic dance, danced on national festas, which is a reminiscence of the days of Algerian piracy. There are twenty-four dancers, and the leaders, the standard-bearer, and the ”bula,” who is the spouse of the Moorish king. The performers are divided into two bands, one representing Christians (in Spanish costume), and the other Moors, from which the name comes. The whites, led by the king of Spain, conquer in the combat, and the ”bula” is taken and freed amid general rejoicing. At the beginning and end, the Christians declaim a kind of prologue or introduction in accordance with the object of the festa, and a salutation and thanks to those a.s.sisting at the end. The costumes are rich, each dancer carries sword and dagger, and the performances (which are enthusiastically received) take place in the open air upon a raised platform. In one or two places there are also survivals of mediaeval mystery-plays.
The town is on an oval peninsula on the north-east coast, united to the ma.s.s of the island by a low isthmus. The main street runs along the ridge from the land gate to the cathedral piazza. From the sea the walls appear almost perfect, but there is a wide quay all round the town, and the houses stretch a long way along the sh.o.r.e. There is not a street within the walls through which a vehicle could pa.s.s, all the thoroughfares (which are mainly alleys and staircases) rising steeply to the cathedral. The buildings remain much as when the Morosini and Faliero ruled, but comparatively few of the three hundred or so of houses within the walls are inhabited; most of the ruined palaces are of the period of the Ducal Palace, Venice, and some of them have been architecturally remarkable. The walls and towers are in the main of 1420, but were strengthened by the Venetians. The towers which remain are the Merlata Barbarigo of 1485, Merlata Tiepolo of about the same date, Merlata dell' Aspello, erected as a defence against the Turks in 1570, the gate-tower on the Piazzetta of 1649, and the Gothic Torre Lombardo of 1448, near the land gate. The walls can be walked round in a quarter of an hour, and are dominated by the Fort S. Biagio, erected by the English.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WEST DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL, CURZOLA]
The cathedral has a fine west doorway with twisted and knotted colonnettes and a pointed arch with tracery in the tympanum, and a modern figure of a bishop in front of it. Enormous brackets supporting couchant lions rest upon the knotted columns, with curious figures of Adam and Eve on their lower faces. A circular hood mould, with ogee finial, springs from them. In the gable is a traceried rose, above which is an elaborate cornice with beasts' heads projecting at the angles, sh.e.l.l niches, and floral finial, and at the meeting-point of the ramps a bust of an elderly woman in the costume of the fourteenth century, with hair in curls at each side of the face, a jewelled circlet, pleated gown with tightly fitting sleeves slashed and embroidered, and a border round the neck above a laced under-garment. There are two other doors at the ends of the aisles. The tower appears to have been added above the north aisle about 1463; it finishes with a shafted parapet and two open octagons with domical roofs, one above the other. Along the aisle roof a carved cornice runs, and above the trefoiled pointed clerestory windows is an arched corbelled cornice. The nave and aisles terminate in semicircular apses. The nave and choir together are of five bays, with a pointed arcade on monolithic pillars. The aisles are cross-vaulted without ribs, but with pointed arches between the bays. The roof of the nave is of wood. The triforium is of two round arches to each bay, with short coupled columns, now built up, and with wooden figures of the Apostles set in each arch. The tower occupies one bay of the north aisle, and encroaches on the next arch. Four of the caps have the symbols of the Evangelists; those of the columns of the south aisle bear flowing late Gothic foliage resembling two at Sebenico, and the doorway ill.u.s.trated at Trau; those of the north arcade are of the seventeenth century. A fourth aisle was added to the north in 1532 as a burial chapel. The ciborium has three octagonal stages pierced with quatrefoils, above long architrave blocks, the carving of all the lower part being Renaissance in style. The interior of the church was sadly modernised in 1804, but the curious sacristy door still remains. It has a tympanum with S. Michael weighing souls and trampling on the Devil, and, below the lintel, two brackets with musicians, the hood mould running up in ogee-shape to a finial. The high-altar-piece is a Tintoretto--S. Mark vested as a bishop and blessing, with a lion at his feet between SS. Bartholomew and Jerome, who are nearer the spectator.
On a side altar is a picture representing the Trinity, by Giacomo da Ponte (1510-1592). The treasury possesses some good embroideries and two or three chalices, one of which, with a half-figure of Christ in the tomb, is set before the baldacchino on Good Friday, to show symbolically that the Body of Christ is in the Sacrament.
On the way to the church of Ognissanti the Palazzo Arneri is pa.s.sed; it has a fine knocker in the manner of John of Bologna--Neptune standing and controlling two lions, a design of which there are examples in Padua and elsewhere. The church of All Saints was built in 1303. It has been modernised, but still retains a ciborium with quatrefoil piercings and angle pinnacles, bearing much resemblance to that in the cathedral. A stair leads to a Greek church, in which are several painted wood crucifixes and Byzantine pictures.
Some forty minutes away, on a small island to the east, is the Franciscan convent, La Badia, a building of the fifteenth century for the most part, containing a rather pretty cloister of white marble erected in 1477. The arches are stilted, pointed, and trefoiled, arranged in groups of three, with wider slightly segmental openings with cuspings for entrances. The spandrils are filled with Gothic leaf.a.ge, the bases and caps to the columns are early Renaissance, and the frieze is quite plain, with a dentilled cornice. The church is not interesting architecturally; the western facade is imitated from the cathedral, but it contains a crucifix brought from Bosnia by refugees after the battle of Kossovo.
[Ill.u.s.tration: TRAVELLING AT EASE: AMONG THE ISLANDS
_To face page 329_]
The plague of 1558 smote Curzola very heavily, and as years went by it sank lower and lower. The convenience of the neighbouring pine-woods, the two ports between which the town lies, and the existence of Porto Pedocchio caused the Venetians to move their a.r.s.enal hither from Lesina in 1776; and during the last century it has recovered to some extent, but the population remains poor.
The island of Lissa lies to the north-east of Curzola, much farther away from the mainland. The climate is very mild; palms, cactus, aloes, and myrtle flourish; and a wine known as Opollo is as much sought after as that made from Lissan grape-juice, praised in antiquity by Agatharchides. It is cut into by two large bays, to the west the Valle di Comisa, and to the north-east the harbour of Lissa. There are some small remains of antiquity. The foundations of the Roman theatre are partly in the sea, and other Roman ruins are round about the harbour, though the ancient Issa occupied the site of Gradina, 300 ft. above the sea. One statue at least which was found here has been taken to Vienna.
Lago says that under the building of the Blessed Virgin ”delle Graticelle” there are caverns said to contain the graves of Diomede and his companions. Apollonius of Rhodes says that the original colonists came from Issa in Lesbos, and were Pelasgic Liburnians; but Polybius tells of a Greek colonisation in 392 B.C. under Dionysios the Elder, of Syracuse. It is certain, from gems and inscriptions found, that a free state existed here about 340 B.C. It was through Issa seeking protection from Rome that the commencement of the conquest of Illyria sprang. Their being able to help the Romans with twenty s.h.i.+ps in their war with Philip of Macedon, and their founding such cities as Tragurium and Epetium show their importance in antiquity. The Goths of Ravenna destroyed the town in 535 A.D., on their way to Salona. It was destroyed a second time by the Narentans, and a third time, in 1483, by the Aragonese. The great battle for which Lissa is celebrated took place on March 13, 1811, when the French were beaten by the English, who destroyed all their s.h.i.+ps but three, the commander Dubourdieu being killed, after which Lissa was made a kind of Adriatic Malta. The Austrians strengthened the fortifications of the English, making it an a.r.s.enal, and in 1866 Tegethoff beat the Italian fleet here. Some interest attaches to the fortifications, monuments, and graveyards of the island, on account of the British occupation. The monument recording the English victory is in the English cemetery; in the other is a memorial to those who died in the Italo-Austrian fight. At Busi, a few miles away, is a blue grotto, discovered in 1884, claimed to be even more remarkable than the celebrated grotto at Capri.
Lagosta lies due south of Curzola. It belonged to Ragusa, and the islanders are still very proud of the connection. Uros I. (the Great) gave it to Ragusa in the second half of the thirteenth century. In the cathedral is a t.i.tian signed on the back.
Meleda is east of Lagosta, and south of Sabbioncello. It also belonged to Ragusa, given to the Republic by a Servian prince in the twelfth century. It has historical memories of Julius Caesar, Octavian, Septimius Severus, and Caracalla, and was used in antiquity as a place of banishment, like Bua opposite Trau. In the town of Porto Palazzo ruins of the palace built by the Cilician Agesilaus of Anazarba, governor of Cilicia under Nero, and sent here by Septimius Severus, still exist. In the ninth century the island was part of the Narentan dominions. The building, formerly a convent, traditionally said to have been founded before 1000 on the little island of S. Maria del Lago, is like a mediaeval castle with battlemented walls and a tower. The cloister is picturesque with ancient date-palms, and there are several monuments in the church. The island is prettily situated near the sh.o.r.e of the Lago Grande, one of two lagoons reached by a pleasant road from Porto Palazzo.
Nearer to Gravosa is Mezzo, the ancient Delaphodia, which also belonged to Ragusa. The mother church is away from the town, and is known as S.
Maria del Biscione, a building of the fifteenth century. It contains an altar-piece with gilt arabesques on a blue ground, and large painted and gilt wooden figures of Apostles and the subject of the a.s.sumption. A predella contains carvings of the Last Supper and the Was.h.i.+ng of the Disciples' Feet. It was made in the seventeenth century, though the style is earlier. There are also two pictures--a Madonna and Saints, of the earlier Venetian school, and an enthroned Madonna and Child with four panels of saints at the sides, both restored. In the sacristy are a Venetian lavabo, some embroideries, and a fine fifteenth-century processional cross. An iron grille round a side altar bears the Visconti arms, which are also those of Mezzo. The ”biscione” (serpent) in these arms gives its name to the bay, and so to the church. The church of the deserted Franciscan convent is now used as the parish church. It is a building of the latter part of the fifteenth century, and contains some fine carved stalls of the usual type, and a fine altar-piece by Nicolaus Raguseus, 9 ft. high, and with an arched top. G.o.d the Father is enthroned above, surrounded by angels with the instruments of the Pa.s.sion. The five panels in the upper row show the Angel of the Annunciation, S. Blaise, Christ with the Cross, and half-figures of S.
Anthony and the Virgin. The centre subject is rather broader. Below it is a later painted wood carving of the Madonna and Child. The panels at the sides have figures of SS. Roch and John the Baptist, Francis and Catherine. The frame is carved and painted blue, and gilded. There is another picture by the same artist in S. Nicholas, which was the Dominican church--an Annunciation, dated March 16, 1513, with a predella of five subjects, a praying Dominican, a Nativity of Christ, a galley in the harbour of Mezzo, the Adoration of the Magi, and the entrance of the Dominicans into the cloister. A good campanile still remains, though the cloister is ruined. There are several chapels in the place, also roofless and in ruins, and two ruined castles.
A Captain Pracat, who left 200,000 ducats to the Republic of Ragusa, and who was honoured with a half-length figure set up in the court of the Rector's Palace in 1638, was a native of Mezzo. A towel given him by the Emperor Charles V. is preserved at Mezzo, together with some church plate of unusual design. The chalice is a mixture of late Gothic and early Renaissance in character, with two little angels, now wingless, holding to its edge, and treading with one foot on the knop, thus forming handles. It is so large as to recall the ancient ministerial chalices. Medallions with the Evangelists' symbols ornament the bowl, with scroll-work between; the knop is covered with similar ornament, and on the foot is a full-length figure of S. Blaise. An ostensory has the same detail of the flying angels, and there is also a large paten with Christ as the Man of Sorrows on a blue enamel ground.
The island of Lacroma is beyond Ragusa, and can be easily visited from that place. It is the last Austrian island of any importance, and will be described in the next chapter.
XXIII
RAGUSA
Ragusa is one of the most charming spots in Dalmatia, and one can quite understand the action of the inhabitants who refused to leave it notwithstanding the ruin wrought by the earthquake of 1667, when it was proposed to move the community to a safer situation. The grey town upon its rocky seat, lighted by the brilliant sun, contrasts with the blue of the sea and the green of the luxuriant vegetation (much of it tropical), amidst which villas nestle picturesquely, and from the cliffs on either side at morning and evening the glow of the sun's level rays, or the characteristic silhouettes of town and rock are equally effective, according to the position of the spectator. But the sea, which is generally calm and blue, can be lashed to fury when _scirocco_ blows, so strongly sometimes that it is difficult to keep one's feet, and, though storms do not usually last many days, the spray has been known to fly right over Fort S. Lorenzo, situated on an isolated rock 100 ft. above the water.
Large steamers cannot enter the little harbour, so Gravosa, on the estuary of the Ombla, a mile or so away, serves as the usual port. It is sheltered by the rocky island of Daxa, and affords another of those fine harbours with which Dalmatia is so well provided. On one of our visits to Ragusa we stayed at the Hotel Petka at Gravosa, and in front of the windows a flotilla of torpedo-boats lay at anchor with steam up. It was interesting to see the men doing everything to word of command. In the morning they got up at a signal; drew up water to a signal, washed themselves and then the boats, prepared meals, &c., &c., all in public view, for there was very little deck and apparently no room below at all. In the hotel we were interested by some tame swallows, which flew about the hall and came into the restaurant; but a detestable mechanical piano, operated by an electrical motor on the penny-in-the-slot plan, which was a source of great pleasure to some Slav visitors, interfered a good deal with our comfort. I am sorry to say that when I had time to look over the account for the rooms (for we were hurried in leaving) I found that we had been charged for a day more than we had been there, the only instance of such a thing which we experienced in our journeys up and down the coast. Some of the houses along the road by the water have delightful gardens, and piles of fruit and vegetables made fascinating colour compositions by the waterside, whilst the vivid colour of some of the strange costumes, such as that of the quaint old Herzegovinian charcoal porter, contrasted well with the more ordinary clothes of officials and traders. Large numbers of Herzegovinian emigrants take boat at Gravosa; and I remember one day, when Ragusa was full of them and their friends and every vehicle crowded between that place and Gravosa, what a strange sight the pier presented, so thickly packed with people that one wondered none were pushed off. The variety of colour and picturesqueness of costume and type among the men and women was interesting, and it was touching to think of the sundering of friends and relations, and the grief at parting which many of them showed in their strongly marked countenances. From Gravosa the source of the Ombla is easily visited, a strange river springing full-grown from beneath a cliff but a few miles from the sea. The Greeks called it Arione, the Latins Umbla, and it is believed to be the same river as the Trebisnizza, which becomes subterranean some two and a half hours'
journey away in the Herzegovina. Its depth is unknown, as the actual source at the foot of the Falkenberg cannot be approached, but the weir which dams up the river creates a pool some 65 ft. across, in which mulberry-trees, fig-trees, reeds, and bushes are reflected, and furnishes the power for working two great mills. The river is but three miles long before it merges in the estuary, and its banks are sprinkled with villas and villages, the railway station and the admiralty stores occupying the portion nearest to the harbour.