Part 19

The treasury is above an altar at the end of the north aisle. The sacristan, who told us that he had filled that position for fifty years, lighted candles before opening the doors, kissed each reliquary before returning it to its place, and insisted upon the authenticity of each relic. The objects are scarcely so interesting as those at the cathedral, but include several fine fourteenth-century reliquaries as well as one or two which were made, or remade, in Renaissance times. The reliquary of S. Gregory has on the front Christ enthroned between standing figures of SS. Mark and John beneath a round-arched arcade on twisted columns. Three more saints are at the back, and at the ends are the subjects of the Annunciation and the Visitation. Upon the sloping parts of the lid are medallions of angels writing between scroll-work, and at the top is a figure of S. Gregory. It was a votive offering of Catherine, wife of Sandalius, Voivode of Bosnia, who died between 1433 and 1436. A reliquary of an unknown saint (which Bianchi speaks of as S. Zoilus) has on the front a fine equestrian figure of a knight with lance in rest, said to be S. Crisogono, between two figures of ecclesiastics (SS. Zoilus and Donato), all three in high relief. Upon the pyramidal cover are medallions of the symbols of the Evangelists in lower relief, with bands of running ornament along all the angles. At the back are figures of Christ and two saints, and at each end three saints. The reliquary of S. Quirinus, another work of much the same period, has saints under a pointed trefoiled arcade on twisted and horizontally ringed columns, with foliage in the spandrils. In the centre at the back is a figure of our Lord; on the lid are an angel, Gethsemane, S. Peter sleeping, and the winged lion, between scrolls. A panel of S. Gregory, with low mitre, and inscription in Lombardic letters, holding a dragon-headed crozier, and with his bird at the other side, has a stamped border of thirteenth-century character; and a fine relief of the Madonna and Child, with decorated nimbi upon a ground which has once been blue enamel, has a gabled top with a border of relics in roundels with jewels in the interstices. It must once have been used as a door, as the hinges, still attached to the wood, testify.

The reliquary of the clothes of Our Lord is of good early Renaissance design, but some of the figures appear to be of an earlier date. In the centre is an oblong panel with the Madonna "del Parto" in the centre, and S. John the Baptist and S. Paul in high relief. Outside, on brackets, are the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin; at the back are S. Anthony and another saint. Above is a medallion containing three relics from the manger at Bethlehem, from the house at Nazareth, and from the clothes of Our Lord, crowned by a crucifix and flanked by figures of the Virgin and S. John on brackets. On the foot are four medallions in niello amid arabesques. There are also six arm reliquaries of the usual pattern, two of which have little doors of niello, two or three heads, and an ostensory, at the top of which is a thorn from the crown of thorns.

[Illustration: RELIQUARY OF THE CLOTHES OF OUR LORD, S. MARIA NUOVA, ZARA]

The church of S. Simeone was a "Colleggiata," instituted in 1150 by Archbishop Lampridius, and dedicated to S. Stephen. It was subsequently called the Madonna della Pace, because the Madonna so called was deposited in it in 1567 from the suburban church of S. Matteo. The body of S. Simeon was brought here in 1632, having been in Zara since 1280, when it was brought from Jerusalem by Bishop Periandro. The celebrated "arca" was in the collegiate church of S. Maria to the north, destroyed in the middle of the sixteenth century to make room for the fortifications, a small chapel only being left standing, in which the wooden arca was kept, the silver one being consigned to the care of the nuns. In 1632 a new chancel was added to the church now S. Simeone; the arca was repaired and placed in its present position. The campanile was built in 1707. In the nave on one side are antique fluted columns with Corinthian caps, which belonged to S. Stefano. The area is of cypress wood, covered with silver plates, which are fastened with silver screws. It cost 28,000 ducats, and was supported on four angels of silver. These were melted down at the time of the war between Venice and Cyprus, and have been replaced by two of stone and two of bronze made from cannon taken from the Turks and given to Zara by Venice in 1647. On the lid a figure of the saint nearly life-size lies, and on the sides and ends are subjects referring to the history of the relics, and an inscription giving the date of 1380, and the names of the Queen of Hungary as the donor, and the goldsmith Franciscus of Milan as the artist. On the roof is a panel showing the artist at work on it. There is a reproduction in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In the treasury is a chalice also given by Queen Elizabeth the younger, late Gothic in style, with Renaissance additions, made of silver, parcel gilt, with niello and a little enamel; it has an octagonal knop with coats of arms reversed on quatrefoil ends and on the sexfoil foot. Upon the base of the cup are subjects in outline, the Crucifixion and figures of saints in petal-like forms. The treasury also contains some curious rococo painted vestments, apparently in water-colour on silk. To the right of the choir, in a chapel just outside the sacristy, is a reredos of _repoussé_ silver--two big angels kneeling below, and God the Father above a Madonna and Child with painted faces, the rest of the figures being in relief. The frame is flanked by S. Michael and a saint, with a little angel flying below and holding a book, also with the heads only painted. These figures and the Virgin and Child have a good deal of gilding about them, and may be of the fifteenth century, since they look earlier than the rest, which is late sixteenth or early seventeenth. In the chapel to the left is a Byzantine-looking relief gilded all over except the hands and faces, which are painted pink, mounted on a polished slab of black marble. The subject is the Virgin and Child standing, the Child draped. A half-finished building not far off is all that was completed of a magnificent church designed to house the arca of S. Simeon. It was commenced in 1572, but abandoned in 1600.

Beyond the cathedral, and not far from the walls, is the church and convent of S. Francesco, consecrated in 1282 by Archbishop Lorenzo Periandro, according to an inscription on a pilaster in the choir. The choir contains a very fine set of stalls, made in 1394 by "Maestro Giovanni quondam Giacomo da Borgo San Sepolcro in Venezia," at a cost of 456 ducats of gold. They used to be in front of the altar, but were moved in 1808 when the new altar was put up. In the Cappella del Crocifisso is a large Carpaccio, an allegory of the militant and triumphant Church, with a row of portrait figures. It is in rather a bad state, painted in tempera on panel. In the sky is a pretty Madonna and Child in a vesica surrounded by angels. The rest of the sky has rows of angels in it, and below, on the earth, kneeling bishops, potentates, and others, with some nice little children in front. Between the two divisions is a landscape with a shrine in the centre, and the whole composition is contained in an upright oval, the corners being filled up with later painting. The usual white dog appears with a red collar-ribbon. The frame is well carved, but not architectural. In a side chapel is a S. Francis by Palma Giovane. The chapel of S. Carlo, once called degli Innocenti, can be entered either from the cloister or the church. In it is an enormous painted crucifix of wood in relief, with the Virgin and S. John half-length painted at the ends of the cross, and an angel above. It bears inscriptions in Greek and Latin, "ICTAVPOCIC" and "Rex Ivdeorvm," and, below the arms of Christ, "In me credentes ad me concvrrite gentes." It is believed to be of the tenth century, or even earlier. In the sacristy is a picture of 1430 on a gold ground in the original frame, restored at the emperor's expense. In the centre is the Madonna with the Child and little angels; on one side are SS. Jerome, Simeon, and James; on the other, SS. Peter Martyr, Nicholas, and Francis. A predella shows the twelve Apostles, with Christ in the centre. Above, in the centre, is Christ half-length, flanked by smaller nearly full-lengths of the Virgin and S. John; at each side three half-lengths of saints--left, SS, Martin, Stephen, and John the Baptist; right, a warrior, a bishop, and a man with green robe, and hat turned up in four pieces. The frame is fine, a blue ground and gilded arabesques. The church possesses four chalices of silver-gilt of the fourteenth or early fifteenth century. Two of them have elaborate knops with crocketed niches with figures, and one has the symbols of the Evangelists in high relief on the foot, with leaf-scrolls and big stars, the plan being octofoil. The finest has a sexfoil foot, and there are angular projections in both between the foils, and a pierced perpendicular band below. Upon the foot are six roundels, with Christ and saints in low relief, as if for _basse-taille_ enamel. The third has a knop with window tracery, pinnacles, and flying buttresses; on the foot, of a later date, are graceful leaf-arabesques, rather like the work of Aldegrever. The fourth is smaller and less elaborate. There are also some fifteenth-century psalters and antiphonaries. One of the three bells in the modern campanile is the oldest in Zara, dated 1328, and signed "Magister Beloa Viccentius." The tradition runs that S. Francis, going to or returning from the Holy Land in 1212, visited Dalmatia, and founded this monastery among others.

The church of S. Domenico (anciently S. Michele) has a pointed Venetian door, with a relief in the tympanum of S. Michael weighing souls, with the Devil pulling the scale down, an armed angel at one side, and a woman with a lighted taper at the other. On the lintel are a Virgin and Child, and several saints in little panels also spreading beyond on to the wall.

The Greek church, S. Elia, which the Servian orthodox Christians have had since the French invasion, is nearly opposite the cathedral. One year we were at Zara at the time when they were preparing to keep Easter. In front of the iconostasis was an "Entombment," surrounded with young grass amid which little lamps shone. The whole was covered with a canopy similar to that carried over the Host. It was delicate and pretty, and a great contrast to "Tombe," which we had seen in years gone by in Italy, and a few days before at Capodistria.

There were thirty churches in Zara, fifteen of which have been destroyed or given to different bodies. Seven are now Catholic, and four preserve their outward shape, but are secularised.

The Loggia, the open hall of justice, ascribed to Sanmichele in its original form, was restored shortly before the end of the Venetian rule. It is now the Paravia library. It has three arches between coupled Doric columns, and is still quite well preserved. The Palace of the Priors, the former rulers of the town, was enlarged by the addition of private houses for the residencas of the Venetian Count and the _provveditore_; while the commune had to be content with the corn-magazine, near S. Simeone, which is still the communal palace. When the Austrian governor followed the Venetian _provveditore_ the palace was restored and modernised. It is a Venetian building of 1562, with a clock-tower which was restored in 1798; the clock itself was put up in 1807.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE TOWN OF NONA

_To face page 239_]

Nona is some hour-and-a-half's drive from Zara, for the greater part of the way over stony uplands with very little vegetation, but with extensive views over land and sea when the weather is fine. We were troubled by showers and a bitter wind, against which our overcoats were an insufficient protection; and we looked with some wonder at the herd boys and girls and other peasants whom we met, many of them barefoot and with no additional clothing to what they had found sufficient in the market the day before when the sun shone strongly. The town is now a mere village of some 500 inhabitants, and, though a few antique fragments may be seen, and the ruins of several churches of different periods, it is difficult to realise that it was once one of the most important towns in Dalmatia. It appears to have been a Roman port, and the head of one of the roads to Byzantium across Dalmatia--an ancient Liburnian city, the great prosperity of which, at the end of the first century A.D., is attested by the coins found here. It was called Ænona and Ænonium by Pliny and Ptolemy, Nona by Porphyrogenitus. Destroyed by the Slavs in the seventh century, re-occupied and restored by another branch, the dukes and kings of Croatia made it one of the thirteen Dalmatian "zupanje." Later it belonged at intervals to the King of Hungary and to Venice, and after 1409 remained in the power of the latter. In 1357 Count Giustiniani valiantly but vainly defended it against the Hungarians, when the garrison was reduced to such straits by famine that they had to eat their horses. It was twice burnt to prevent it from falling into Turkish hands and being utilised as an outpost, in 1571 and 1646. The harbour has silted up, and only a small piece of the walls is traceable. Of the Venetian dominion the only remains are the entrance gateway, with the lion of S. Mark above it, and the "Stabilimento," founded in 1786 by Girolamo Manfrin for the cultivation of tobacco, but ruined by a fire, and no longer used for that purpose.

The Christian Church in Nona is said to have been founded by S. Anselm in 117 A.D. Under the Croats it had a bishop and a chapter. The ancient church of S. Croce was the cathedral, a small cruciform church with three apses in the eastward wall, and a dome over the crossing. It is 30 ft. long, and each arm of the cross is 10 ft. wide. The dome has a flat-pointed vault and windows, while the nave and transepts have wagon vaults terminating in half-cupolas. To the west is a lintelled door, with consecration crosses on the jambs and carving of the ninth century on the lintel. A Slavonic inscription upon it (inside) has been read "Godeslav Juppano Ch[risto] Domo Co[nservat]." The breaking of the upper angles of the carved portion, and the difference in the character of the crosses on lintel and jambs indicate the use of early material in a later rebuilding; but the church is considered one of the oldest in Dalmatia. From 1697 it served as an oratory to the Count of Nona, being near his palace. Its bell (hung in the gable above the west door) served to call the people together for public meetings, &c. The eastern apse has a blank arcading on its exterior, which is square, and the same kind of ornament occurs on the drum which conceals the dome. There are three windows in the west wall, and others in the transept walls and gable. The church was restored some seven or eight years ago, as well as the somewhat similar church of S. Nicolò outside the town.

The parish church of S. Anselmo was the mediæval cathedral, rebuilt during the eighteenth century. Close to it is another church, once dedicated to S. Ambrogio, and now to the Madonna. In the treasury are various interesting pieces of goldsmith's work kept in a marble chest with glazed front and gilded metal door. When we were there the priest was enjoying his siesta, and, though we were in charge of an official from the town-hall, we were unsuccessful in rousing him from his slumbers. I therefore take the description of them from Bianchi, as I was not able to examine them critically. There are two caskets of silver-gilt with the heads of S. Anselm and his sister, S. Marcella, made by the same goldsmith. On the front are Christ, the Virgin, and S. John in relief, with a frieze of a hunting subject, the figures beneath trefoiled arches on twisted columns; on the back, SS. Anselm, Ambrose, and Marcella; on the ends, SS. Peter and Paul, and a king and queen. Bianchi says these are thirteenth century; Mr. T.G. Jackson says fifteenth, which is more likely. On the lids are the symbols of the Evangelists. Two other reliquaries contain the shoulder-blades of S. Anselm. On the front are figures of the three protectors full-length. An arm reliquary has pagan subjects in relief, and is set with precious stones. An inscription gives the name of Simeon the goldsmith, and the Bano Paolo (Lord of Bosnia also at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries). Two reliquaries of the feet of S. Anselm, given by Radoslav Utusano, chancellor of the Bano Paolo, and _zupan_ of the church of Nona, are dated 1309. There are two other reliquaries: one of SS. Giacomo and Orontius, with three medallions of saints; and the other with the Evangelists' symbols. Mr. T.G. Jackson also saw two crosses and a sixteenth-century chalice. I particularly regretted being unable to see the wooden area of S. Marcella, which is a very remarkable example of early Christian art. Bianchi says that it is varnished, and has eleven compartments, with figures in high relief. One is entitled S. Barbara--the first on the left. Then come a king with a double cross, S. Luke's ox, S. Marcella, S. Matthew's angel, the Virgin and Child, S. Mark's lion, S. Ambrose, S. John's eagle, and a queen with a lily in her hand. The eleventh compartment is not recognisable.

[Illustration: PLAN OF S. NICOLÒ, NONA]

North of the parish church are remains of a Roman temple, and an antique cap or two may be seen. In a private house are remains of a bath and a mosaic pavement. The ruined church of S. Michele stands on the site of the Roman arena. Antique fragments are also recognisable in the walls of S. Nicolò. There are several ruined churches which appear to be of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. Some of them have been altered at a later period, but they contain nothing of first-rate interest. Nona had sixteen in the Middle Ages. We walked out to S. Nicolò, an early church, which crowns a hillock thickly sown with asphodels in blossom, some little distance from the road and a mile or so from Nona. It is cruciform in plan, with apsidal terminations to three arms, the west being square, and having a door with a semicircular tympanum above it internally. Squinches in the angles serve as transition to the semi-dome which covers each arm. From the pilasters between the apses cross arches spring beneath a domical vault with a pendant at their intersection; in the left pilaster by the apse is a recess. The central tower is octagonal and turreted; beneath the apse eaves are rough corbels, the door has a semicircular tympanum externally, little brackets supporting nothing, and the jambs and lintel are put together rather as if the material were wood. The church is probably of the eleventh century.

Borgo Erizzo, an Albanian village, lies but a short distance from Zara. In the eighteenth century the atrocities of Mehmed Begovich, pasha of Albania, perpetrated on the Catholics, being very great, some of them emigrated, seeking the protection of Vincenzo Zmajevich, bishop of Antivari, who was living at his native city of Perasto. A little later (1726) he became archbishop of Zara, and brought twenty-seven families of Albanians with him, recommending them to the protection of Count Erizzo, commandant of the fortress, who assigned them land near the city, where they flourished and increased. There are now about 3,000 of them. The church, which appears to be in a dangerous condition, was built for them by Zmajevich. The girls work in the factories till they marry, after which they remain at home. The men are agriculturists, and some own fields and vineyards seven or eight miles away, to which they walk or go in carts. The village is dirty and not very picturesque. They get their drinking-water from the Kaiser Brunnen, a spring covered with a dome close to the sea, said to be a Roman erection. Sailors also water there. Before the aqueduct was restored, in years of drought Zara had to import water, and in 1828, 1834, and 1835 it was brought from the Kerka by Scardona.

Zara Vecchia, formerly Alba or Belgrad, is some eighteen miles down the coast. Here Coloman of Hungary, nephew of S. Ladislas, was crowned in 1102. The "porto d'oro" is all that remains of a palace built by Bishop Valaresso, with its foundations in the sea. Mention of the place is infrequent. Towards the middle of the eleventh century Crescimeno Pietro, third king of Croatia, assigned a prebend to the Benedictines of Zara Vecchia. In 1092 Busita, daughter of Roger I., Count of Sicily and Durazzo, and wife of Coloman, king of Hungary, came here accompanied by Geoffrey Malaterra. In 1114 Ordelaffo Faliero took it, and in 1115 it was destroyed to the foundations by Domenico Michieli. Some of the inhabitants, with the bishop and clergy, fled to Scardona; the rest, with the notables, to Sebenico. The nuns escaped to Zara, and the Benedictines crossed to Tkon in the island of Pasman, where they still are.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Mgr. Bianchi has found the names of Madius and Zella in documents of 1067 and 1096, and that of "Sergius tribunus" in one of 1091.]

XIX

SEBENICO