Part 28

The Dominican convent is just within the Porta Ploce, and the stair which leads to it dates back to Roman times, though it now has Venetian-looking balustrades of the fourteenth century. It led to a gate of the city. Until the seventeenth century it was the duty of the Dominicans to defend Porta Ploce; the Franciscans defended Porta Pile; and the cathedral canons Porta Pescheria. One hundred soldiers were selected monthly from the various ranks, and were divided into two bands for alternate nightly police; twenty-seven more were told off to defend nine selected points against external attack. The lesser towers belonged to patrician houses who were responsible for their defence, whilst the greater and more exposed were looked after by the State. The Dominicans were first established in 1225, in S. Giacomo in Peline, a small, roughly constructed church high on the hill, which has a fourteenth-century Madonna over the altar. Tradition says that S. Dominic himself established the community. The present church was building in 1297, and was consecrated in 1306. The portions which survived the earthquake of 1667 are the south door with the apse of the chapel close to it, the main apse, and the sacristy. This last is the ancient church of the Assumption, given to the Dominicans in 1253 by the Palmotta. The convent was built in 1348. The church has a long nave with a horizontal wooden roof and a polygonal apse. The choir was once vaulted. There are two side altars in recesses rather behind the high-altar. Above them are restored pictures by Nicolaus Raguseus. To the right the centre panel is filled by a figure of S. Nicholas in a shell-headed niche; on the right are SS. Mary Magdalene and James; on the left, SS. John the Baptist and Stephen. The panels are round-headed, and the sky fills the space behind the figures with their gilded nimbi. On S. Stephen's dalmatic are patterns in gold; S. Nicholas's chasuble is of gold with patterns on it. In the picture to the left the Madonna is seated on the crescent moon holding the Child, and surrounded by cherubs; on her right are S. Biagio holding the city, and S. Paul; on her left, S. Thomas Aquinas holding a church, and S. Augustine. There is a good deal of gold used in the draperies, and the ground is gold. Both these pictures are very decorative. The high-altar-piece is a Venetian Madonna and Child, with SS. Dominic and Clara. On the north wall is a picture ascribed to Titian, parts of which may be from his hand, but it has been restored. It represents S. Biagio with a crozier, holding the town; S. Mary Magdalene in ecstasy, with long hair and a white dress; at the right the donor kneeling, and behind him Tobit and the Angel. There is also a great coloured crucifix with SS. John and Mary, regarded as miraculous at the time of the plague of 1358. It was placed here by Pasquale Resti, and is well modelled, with the head cast down. The dark brown colouring of the hair is not pleasant, and the white drapery cuts hardly against the dark-hued flesh.

The pulpit is of stone; beneath shell-headed niches on the front stand figures of SS. Catherine of Siena, Dominic, Thomas Aquinas, and Peter Martyr. They and their emblems are painted; the nimbi and the ribs of the shells are gilded. Across the west end of the nave is a fine early Renaissance triple arch which was once the architectural setting to three altars on the north side of the church. Among the ornament, traces of Gothic feeling still linger. In the sacristy are an Early Martyrdom of S. Laurence and two other pictures in compartments on a gold ground, which bear a certain resemblance to others produced in the March of Ancona. The frame of one of them is especially fine, with projecting hoods to the niches in which the figures stand. In the centre is the Baptism of Christ, with a landscape background; on the right are SS. Augustine and Stephen; on the left, SS. Nicholas and Michael. Above are half-lengths of the Madonna and Child in a vesica starred with cherubs; on the right, SS. Peter Martyr and Francis; on the left, SS. Peter and Dominic. Another has the Madonna, SS. Julian, James, Dominic, and Matthew on a gold ground. These have also been restored. There are also two good Flemish pictures on panel, a Christ and a veiled woman. Within a pointed arch is an interesting funerary inscription stating that the port was the work of "Pasqualis Michaelis Ragusinus," with the date 1485. He was also master of the foundry, and apparently supervised the fortifications. He was the architect of the bridge of Porta Pile in 1471, and to him the design of the Sponza is ascribed by some. The note recording the commencing of the construction of the port (February 19, 1481) embodies the fact of the sailors' approval of the design.

The cross of Uros I. (1275-1320) is over an altar in a room within the sacristy, the door of which is kept double-locked. It is not very interesting from the point of view of craft. It is a patriarchal cross with piercings at the crossings, and rosettes at the ends of the arms, which are probably later additions. The material is silver, parcel-gilt.

[Illustration: PLAN AND ELEVATION OF ONE BAY OF CLOISTER, DOMINICAN CONVENT, RAGUSA]

The treasury contains reliquaries and chalices, and a Gothic monstrance, but nothing of great interest. The south door has round arches beneath an ogee hood, the jambs are ornamented with damaged scrolled leafage, and in the tympanum is a figure of S. Dominic. The apse of the chapel close by is Romanesque, and, with the flight of steps to the door and the foliage of a tree which overhangs them, makes a picturesque background to the groups of Herzegovinians who pass on their way from the Porta Ploce to the Stradone. The cloister is, however, the most picturesque part of the convent. Beneath round arches smaller cusped round arches with shafts and caps are grouped in threes, the head having two circles within it, sometimes pierced as quatrefoils, sometimes with an interlacing pattern with Oriental suggestion, and reminding one of the patterns in a similar situation in the cloister at Tarragona. The same mixture of ornamental _motifs_ may be noticed in the richly carved moulding which terminates the wall beneath the parapet. The well in the centre is of 1623, but takes its place among the trees, flowers, and warm-toned stone quite pleasantly. Above towers the campanile containing two old bells, one cast by Battista of Arbe in 1516, and one by Bartolommeo of Cremona, in 1363. It was built by a Ragusan, Fra Stefano, in 1424, and has three stories of two-light windows, with mid-wall shafts under round arches, and a crowning octagonal stage. The enlargement of the church and convent was executed by the architect Pasqualis Michaelis, just referred to.

[Illustration: LAVABO IN SACRISTY OF FRANCISCAN CONVENT, RAGUSA

_To face page 353_]

The Franciscan convent is at the other end of the Stradone, just inside the Porta Pile. The Order was at first established outside; but the convent founded in 1235 was destroyed by the Republic to prevent the Servians from using it as shelter, and in 1315 the monks came within the walls. It is said that S. Francis himself came to Ragusa in 1220, and several of the Franciscan convents in Dalmatia claim to have been founded by him. The church has a late Gothic doorway on the south, with an ogee tympanum bearing a Pietà, and flanked by pinnacled niches which have statues of SS. John the Baptist and Jerome; above is a figure of a bearded saint holding a book. The foliage is well carved, and the pilasters are panelled in two stages. Behind the church is the first cloister, surrounded by an arcade resting on coupled octagonal colonnettes with unmoulded round arches, divided into groups of six by piers. The wall above is pierced by oculi of different sizes, some of which have quatrefoil tracery within, and the caps of the columns show an almost Romanesque variety and vivacity. The wall terminates with a carved quarter-roll moulding and a balustrade with cusped round arches above coupled colonnettes. This balustrade, notwithstanding its style, was only completed in 1629, unless this date refers merely to repairs done at that time. On the south side is a fifteenth-century fountain, with a later statue of S. Francis; in front of it is a paved walk flanked by seats, the backs of which form the enclosure of the raised garden on each side. It is as pleasant a place as the Dominican cloister, though quite unlike it. The architect was Mag. Mycha of Antivari, whose signature may be found on a corner pilaster, with the date 1363. Higher up the hill is another cloister, long and narrow, with round arches resting on square piers, and a well under a picturesque penthouse roof. Here it was that the herbs and simples were grown. By the side of the steep stair (which goes up still higher) a little rill of water flows, I suppose, to the lower cloister. The convent cost 28,000 ducats to the public treasury, besides much given by generous donors, the Ghent merchants especially contributing largely. The top of the campanile was replaced after the earthquake of 1667. In the sacristy are some stall-fronts and cupboards ornamented with intarsia of arabesques and figures of saints of the Order, the latter rather rough in workmanship. Also a pretty, early Renaissance lavabo in Istrian stone. The church plate, including a fine monstrance, is kept in a Gothic cupboard painted with the arms of the Bona family. In the church is a great crucifix which came from Stagno, painted in tempera, with the symbols of the Evangelists. The library is rich in literary documents, and in the convent, upstairs, is a picture which shows Ragusa as it was before the earthquake.

High on the hill above the Franciscan church is the early nuns' church of La Sigurata, hidden away in a court. Like several others of the early churches it shows no sign of its great antiquity.

The Rector's Palace was commenced in 1388 and completed in 1424, at a cost of 40,000 zecchins. In 1435 it was partially burnt, and was restored under "Onofrio Giordani de la Cava," who had been five years in the city.

[Illustration: LOGGIA OF THE RECTOR'S PALACE, RAGUSA

_To face page 354_]

[Illustration: CAPITAL FROM THIS LOGGIA, RECTOR'S PALACE, RAGUSA

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The second story, which existed as a kind of tower above each end of the façade, was thrown down by the great earthquake, and never rebuilt. The loggia has stone benches against the walls, one to the left, and two, one above the other, to the right, which were the seats for senators on great _fête_ days. In 1462 there was another fire, so that only fragments of Onofrio's work remain--the hall on the ground floor with the seventeenth-century wooden ceiling, several of the caps of the loggia, and the courtyard within, the great door and the windows of the first floor. This is all that appears to have been preserved. The great council then called in Michelozzo the Florentine and George of Sebenico. The former was at Ragusa in 1463, looking after the building of the walls of the city; and on February 11, 1464, it was ordered "that the palace be rebuilt" after his designs; but, in the following June, George of Sebenico was appointed, working, no doubt, on the general lines laid down by Michelozzo. The great hall was burnt during the French siege, and very little remains inside worthy of note. There are two tolerable pictures, one an early copy of the Paris Bordone in the National Gallery, the Venus and Adonis, and the other, a Baptism of Christ, in the manner of Paduan work of the fifteenth century. Both have been restored. The courtyard has an arcade of round arches, resting on cylindrical columns with Renaissance caps, and an upper arcade resting on twin columns and piers, two arches to each bay, both stories being vaulted with sustaining arches, but without ribs. The loggia in front has ribs and bosses at the intersections. A small staircase to the right contains other remains of Onofrio's building--a bracket, on which is carved a figure of Justice holding a label, and with a mutilated lion on each side of her; opposite to it is a capital, on which is carved the Rector administering justice; neither of them in their original place. The main doorway is pointed with a richly carved moulding and caps, which belong to Onofrio's work; above it is S. Biagio in a Renaissance niche, and between the caps and the arch a shallow frieze is interposed, on which are carved little figures engaged in combats, a love scene, and Cupids with an organ and trumpets. The corbels from which the vaults spring are carved, the subjects being two groups of boys playing, a man fighting a dragon or basilisk with club and little target, a struggle between a girl and a bear, &c. The doors at the end, the Porta della Carità, where distribution of corn used to be made to the poor at a low price, and that opening on a stair to the hall of the Lesser Council appear to belong to the earlier building. The ring with the lion's head on the door is a fine piece of fourteenth-century bronze-work. The knocker is not so good. A knight with raised arm stands on a lion's head against a post covered with scales; above and below foliage spreads out. The caps of the loggia are very fine, though not of equal value. The three central ones are Renaissance work, and marry admirably with their heavy, ornamented abaci, which in the others appear over-heavy, and plainly an addition. In the earlier work the technique of the carving is better, and the foliage has more spring. The most interesting one is the Æsculapius subject, which De Diversis saw in the carver's hands in 1435, planned, as he says, by Nicolò de Lazina, a Cremonese noble, who was chancellor at the time. It is interesting both from the point of view of the carving and costume, and as showing the apparatus of an alchemist's laboratory. Close by it on the wall is the "metrical epitaph," which De Diversis says the chancellor composed. The columns, which are of Curzola marble, belong to the earlier building, though the entasis shows that classical feeling was beginning to affect even architects who worked in Gothic. Mr. T.G. Jackson's explanation of the addition of the heavy abaci seems quite reasonable--viz. that the earlier arcade was pointed, and that, since a good deal of the building survived the fire, it was necessary to raise the springing of the arches, when they were made round to match the levels of the ends which were not destroyed. The carved string-course above and the Gothic windows of the _piano nobile_ are also remains of the earlier building. There was a castle on the site of the palace from the days of the establishment of the Slav colony on Monte Sergio, which, together with the marshy inlet which then occupied the site of the Stradone, afforded sufficient protection to make sudden attack on the part of the Slavs inadvisable; when the two settlements were joined together by a common line of defences it became the seat of government.

[Illustration: ÆSCULAPIUS CAPITAL, RECTOR'S PALACE, RAGUSA

_To face page 356_]

[Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF ONOFRIO DE LA CAVA, RAGUSA

_To face page 357_]

There are two other pieces of Onofrio's work still in existence in Ragusa, the pretty little fountain between the Rector's Palace and the Sponza, next door to the Corpo di Guardia, of which an illustration is given, showing a certain admixture of Renaissance feeling with Gothic foliage, and the much mutilated fountain just within the Porta Pile. It had two columns at each angle, of which only the inner one remains, and a marble cupola surrounded by statues. The aqueduct which supplies it and the other fountains is eight miles long, and brings the water from Gionchetto. It was only completed in 1438, after many discouraging incidents. Opposite to it is the pretty façade of S. Salvatore, built after the earthquake of 1520, and due to Bartolommeo da Mestre, "protomagister" of the cathedral of Sebenico, which it resembles a good deal in the character of its design and mixture of Gothic and Renaissance forms. It has a nave of three bays with an apse; the vaulting is Gothic, as are the windows, but the arches rest on classic pilasters, used also at the angles of the façade, the horizontal lines of which are varied by the semicircular gable and quadrants which flank it. A rose-window occupies the central place, and above the door (which is rather later in style) is a long dedicatory inscription in an ornamented panel space.

[Illustration: PLAN OF LA SPONZA, RAGUSA]

At the bottom of the piazza, upon which the Rector's Palace, the cathedral, and S. Biagio face, is the Sponza or Dogana, the ancient custom-house and mint. The custom-house was on the ground floor, and the scales for weighing merchandise hung in the wide arch opposite the entrance. The mint was on the second floor, and the first floor was used for carnival and social meetings of the nobility. The building is of several periods dating from the beginning of the fourteenth century to 1520, a date given by an inscription on the second story. The courtyard has an arcade of round arches, four on each side, and one of a greater breadth at each end, resting on octagonal piers, the caps and arches moulded simply. The first floor has an arcade of pointed arches, two to a bay, with alternate piers and columns, the end having circular arches above the broader arch below. The second story is lighted by four little square windows, and above are three quatrefoils to give air to the roof timbers. On the end wall are two angels in relief, holding "I.H.S." within a garland. The two arcades are vaulted simply, the caps on the first floor have good foliage, and the stories are divided by moulded string-courses. Names of saints are inscribed over the doors of the warehouses opening from the lower cloister.

[Illustration: LA SPONZA AND ONOFRIO'S FOUNTAIN, RAGUSA

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The façade terminates with a fantastic cresting above the roof cornice. In the centre of the second story is a niche with a figure of S. Blaise, flanked by two rectangular windows on each side. The _piano nobile_ has two ogee-headed windows with geometric tracery, flat decorated archivolt, and slender shafts on the outer and inner surface of the jamb, and a three-light window in the centre, made up to a square head with quatrefoils in the fashion of the Ca d'Oro at Venice. On the ground floor there is a graceful round-arched portico resting on columns with Renaissance caps; beneath it are the windows and entrance door of the custom-house. The building is still used for its original purpose, and Albanian and Herzegovinian porters lounge about it in strange costumes. The clock-tower was built in 1480, and altered in 1781. There is a bell in it founded by Battista of Arbe. Opposite is the Roland column. Affixed to a pilaster is a symbolic statue typifying freedom of jurisdiction and commerce. It was replaced there in 1878 after a prolonged sojourn in the Rector's Palace, having been thrown down by a storm in 1825, when a brass plate was found with an inscription of the beginning of the fifteenth century, stating that here was the place of the standard of the Republic. It is not a work of any artistic merit.

A little way outside Porta Pile (thought to be a corruption of the Greek word [Greek: phylê], a gate) is the cemetery church "alle Dancé," overlooking a bay beneath the Lapad promontory. It was begun in 1457 for the poor of the city, and contains a fine picture. The west door is elaborately carved with somewhat confused ornament, and in the pointed tympanum is a Madonna and Child flanked by two standing angels, which do not fit in quite comfortably. By the door is a holy-water niche of still stranger design, with a shell-head which quite insufficiently supports the three figures forming the crowning feature. The sacristy was in possession of several women who were washing clothes on both the occasions when I visited the church. The picture is by "Nicholavs Rhagvsinvs," who thus signs it, with the date 1517. It is in the original frame divided by pillars into three compartments, with a predella and a lunette above. In the lunette is a Crucifixion with the Virgin and S. John, two female figures and S. Mary Magdalene, and cherubs round our Lord; the Virgin's robe is deep blue; the others are red or green, on a gold ground. In the centre compartment are the Virgin and Child enthroned, with a little S. John kneeling, surrounded by little angels. Silver crowns have been added. The Virgin has a red robe with a cloak of cloth of gold on which is an elaborate pattern in dark blue; the Child holds fruit and corn; the cherubs have scarlet wings and gilt nimbi. In the right-hand panel is S. Martin on horseback, dividing his cloak; he wears a green tunic, over which is a golden coat with a design in red lines upon it. The cloak is bright scarlet. The beggar is Christ with cruciferous nimbus, On the left hand is S. Gregory, with his dove on his shoulder, carrying a crucifix; he wears a richly-embroidered cope of cloth of gold, with red pattern and a border of saints in niches. These are both on gold grounds. The predella has also three compartments. In the centre is S. George and the dragon, with a pale blue landscape and sea; the princess kneels in the background. On the right hand is a saint receiving a mitre from two bishops, surrounded by other bishops, monks, choristers, &c. On the left, a pope in a golden robe is being crowned by two cardinals, surrounded by cardinals, bishops, Dominicans, and Franciscans. There is a landscape background. The whole effect is most decorative, due partly, no doubt, to the fine frame with golden arabesques on a dark blue ground. Another picture above the high-altar looks later, though it is in a very architectural frame. It represents the Madonna and Child on a large scale in the centre, with God the Father and angels in an oblong panel above. At each side of the Madonna are two small saints one above the other, probably SS. Francis, George, Blaise, and Nicholas. The Madonna and Child and God the Father have crowns of silver or silver-gilt; the Child is nude; the Madonna draped in metal, with a pattern on the outer robe. The background and the frieze are entirely covered with little votive silver plaques.

From the hill which one mounts on the return, the whole of Ragusa lies spread at one's feet, from the great fort S. Lorenzo, perched upon its rock, to the Torre Menze, the culminating point of the walls, in front of which the lower slopes of Monte Sergio are covered with the houses of the suburb. On a fine evening the view past the fort towards the Bocche is enchanting, but when _scirocco_ blows, and the foam splashes high up the rocks, it is not safe to approach the edge. Here a pleasant garden has been laid out, and aloes grow, though not so luxuriantly as on the other side of the town.