From Trieste steamers, large and small, ply to most of the places on the coast, and the islands down to Fiume. Though there is railway communication with a few places, travelling by water is much pleasanter in fine weather, and the towns are more easily accessible from the seaside. The country people throng to market in the early hours of the morning, and are ready to return by the time the average English tourist has finished his breakfast and sets out sightseeing.

We went to Muggia about midday by one of the little steamboats which round the Punta S. Andrea, and, passing the Lloyd-Arsenal, cross the bay, the Vallone di Muggia. The boat was full of belated contadini, for the most part rugged and picturesque, among whom was an old woman with a few long candles, which she vainly offered for sale to every person on the boat; a boy with nuts and sweets was more fortunate, and lessened his stock considerably. The deck was lumbered up with baskets, milk-cans, &c., which had been full in the early morning, and most of the passengers had bundles and parcels containing their purchases. Some thirty minutes were sufficient in the fine weather with which we were favoured to take us across, and, passing the smoky iron-works which are the principal industry of modern Muggia, we disembarked at the little quay, and immediately became objects of [80] interest to a small crowd of impertinent boys. Our principal objective was the ancient church on the hill where Muggia Vecchia once stood. We found on inquiry that it was closed as being in a dangerous state. This entailed visits to the municipio and to the parish priest, under escort of a uniformed official, who then conducted us by a steep and stony path up the hill Monte Michele, towards the summit of which, higher than the church, prehistoric graves have been found, consisting of stone slabs set roughly together, making a kind of chest which opens on to the hillside. The church stands amid fragments of ruined walls, the remains of the town destroyed by the Genoese in 1354.

Choir-screen and ambo, Muggia Vecchia

To the west is a stony space where wild irises grow and bloom profusely in the crevices of the rocks, and from which [81] there is a fine view over the sea northwards to the highlands of the Karst. Between this flowery wilderness and the church is an open grassy space enclosed by a wall, and with a few trees round its edges, which was probably the atrium. Opening upon this is the narthex, an open portico level with the tower which stands at the west end of the north aisle, with a stone seat running round the wall. Two steps lead down into the nave, and there is a door in the south aisle, which has two windows, the clerestory having four; though on the north side, where the graveyard lies, there are none. The building consists of a nave and aisles divided by an arcade of five round arches upon rectangular piers without caps, the two eastern bays being enclosed by dwarf walls with framings of marble slabs upon which interlacing patterns of the ninth century are carved. They return across the ends of the aisles, in each of which is an altar beneath a wagon vault, though there is no apse. The central apse is vaulted with a semi-dome, but does not show externally. The choir is raised two steps above the nave, and the altar is approached by a third. The ambo or pulpit stands outside the screen on four columns, approached by steep steps from within; an octagonal column of coloured marble supports a slab for a book-rest, facing eastwards at the foot of the steps. In plan the ambo somewhat resembles that at Grado, with six half-colonnettes projecting from the curved form, two of them terminating in heads on each side of the book-rest, itself supported on an octagonal shaft which dies into its underside with very flat vine or oak leaves spread over the surface. The whole has been so plentifully whitewashed that detail is nearly obliterated, but there is sufficient difference between the styles of various parts to make it probable that a reconstruction took place at some period, older material [82] being employed to a great extent. The fact that two of the bases have angle claws and are manifestly not in their original position supports this theory. The altar to the left is part of a Roman sarcophagus with a funerary inscription in letters of the Imperial period:

C • IVLIO
NICOSTKATO
FILIO • PIISSIMO
ANN • XVIII • M • VIIII " D • XII
IVLIVS • NICOSTRATVS

Upon the piers and walls are remains of paintings of various dates. On the first pier to the left is S. Catherine, vested as a Byzantine empress. Further to the east are the Madonna "Blacherniotissa" and S. Dominic, and near the ambo figures of the four Evangelists; the last apparently of the period of the foundation of the church, the ninth or early tenth century. On the last pier, which is broader than the others, and suggests a later addition (perhaps in the thirteenth century), is a gigantic S. Christopher, roughly painted, and with the well-known inscription stating that whoso looks at it will not die a sudden death that day. The [83] aisles have lean-to roofs, and the nave roof we found shored up, the supporting timbers being wreathed with garlands of artificial flowers. The dedication is to SS. Peter and Paul.

As we descended the hill our guide, observing that flowers interested us, made a sudden dive through the gate of a garden full of wallflowers and picked a bunch for us, presenting it with as much grace as if they had been his own! a proceeding to which the rightful owners appeared to have no objection. The more modern town lay below us with its walls and towers, some of them ruinous and some restored, and looked picturesque enough except for the ancient castle which has been turned into a modern house by its latest purchaser, who has tried with more zeal than judgment to copy the style of the older portions. Through the postern by which we had left the town a number of workmen from the iron-works straggled, grimy and weary; in their modern dress and employment marking a contrast with their surroundings. Muggia Nuova first appears in history in 1235. When Paganino Doria destroyed Monticula (Muggia Vecchia) in 1354, the port Vicuna Lauri (now Muggia) increased, and twenty years later was surrounded with walls by the Patriarch Marquand da Randeck after his triumphal entry. It had nine square towers, a bastioned keep on the east, and a barbican with unequal sides, which covered the Porta a Mare, or of S. Rocco. Three other gates, the Porta Grande, which faced to the country, the Porta S. Francesco or Del Castello, and the Portizza, which joined the Imperial road of Zaule with a drawbridge, added to the defences, and a chain closed the port.

The nave of the church is of the eighteenth century, the apse twelfth, and the façade of the fifteenth century, with a wheel window of 1467 above the [84] west door, and a gable of an ogee-trefoil shape. In the centre of the rose of sixteen rays is a little relief of the Virgin and Child; the tracery is like that of the cathedral at Trieste. The door is square-headed, with a cable moulding on the inner and a dentil on the outer edge, and with a slightly ogee tympanum above, in which are an enthroned God the Father with Christ in His lap, two kneeling figures with palms at the sides, and two little angels on the uprights of the throne. On the architrave is an Agnus Dei-Two windows, slightly ogee-headed, flank the door. Coats of arms and inscriptions give the date. The treasury contains a late Gothic ostensory with Renaissance patterns on the foot, a chalice which has portions of several dates, and a seventeenth-century processional cross. The contemporary municipal palace is now made into dwelling-houses, though the lion of S. Mark, with closed book and the date 1444, still looks down from the wall, and the shapes of the windows reveal a mediaeval building.

While we were on the hill the few children had become a crowd, and our proceedings were much hampered, although our friendly guard adopted very rough measures more than once to keep them in order. The people have always been turbulent and unruly, and no doubt there is still an hereditary disposition among them to resist authority, though one must acknowledge that it was only among the young that we ourselves observed it.

Muggia Vecchia is first mentioned in a diploma of Ugo and Lothair, king of Italy, in 971, by which the Castello was given to the church of Aquileia. In 1202, when the Venetians were on their way to the Holy Land, they subjected the coast towns under the pretext of enforcing the patriarch's rights. Doge Enrico Dandolo disembarked at Muggia with [85] part of his troops, and was received by clergy and people with the ringing of bells. The citizens being collected swore fealty and subjection to the Republic, promising not to help pirates, and to pay each S. Martin's Day twenty-five "orne" of good wine. From this date till 1420 the city was ruled by a podestà elected every six months by the council and confirmed by the patriarch. There were three judges and several "anziani," who formed the lesser council, to attend to daily business. In the thirteenth century it had its own statute, and at that time the commune paid a doctor, a surgeon, and a schoolmaster. The crest is a turreted castle, seen on the campanile of the old church borne by two figures. It was sometimes under Venice and sometimes under the patriarch till 1420. At one time four noble hostages were confined for the latter in Cividale, who were obliged to prove their presence every day; at another the procurator swore fealty to Venice and received the standard of S. Mark with much pomp. In 1371 the council decided to elect every year two upright men who should do their best to settle disputes and quarrels among the citizens, and in case of failure to report to the council, when extraordinary measures were to be taken. The next year Raffaello Steno attacked the city at the head of the exiles and killed many supporters of the patriarch, sacking their houses and proscribing his followers; and it was only at the end of 1374 that he succeeded in retaking the town, coming in person to do so. After his triumphal entry in that year a castle was built to keep the people in subjection, and a castellan with a garrison was left in it; but the town rebelled again in 1377.

Capodistria is at the head of the next bay to the south-west, on rising ground which was once an island, though now joined to the mainland. From the sea the most conspicuous building is a great yellow prison. [86] There is also a naval school there, the cadets from which have to endure a certain amount of chaff when they acknowledge having spent five years at Capodistria. According to Dandolo the city was founded on the island of Capraria, and named in honour of Justin II. (565-578) Justinopolis; the fact of its having been free of money taxes during the Byzantine dominion makes some such origin probable; but it occupies the site of the Roman colony of Ægida, founded in 128 B.C., and a few antique fragments have been found, such as the restored statue of Justice on the communal palace, a Roman work of the Lower Empire, and the reliefs of an ox and a female dancer encrusted in the wall of a garden. In the church of S. Clemente there is also a little round antique altar, used as a holy-water basin.

Under Pietro Orseolo a treaty was made between Venice and Capodistria in 977, under which the hundred amphoras of wine (which had been sent since 932 as an annual present to the doge, and handed by him to the Patriarch of Grado) were made obligatory and a perpetual tribute, while a Venetian officer resided in Capodistria to look after it. Another stipulation was that the city should always be at peace with Venice, even if the rest of Istria were at war. The Venetian representative or consul had the right to sit with the Capodistrian judges whenever a Venetian had cause to appear before them. In 1145, envoys had to go to Venice to swear on the Gospels true and loyal fidelity to S. Mark, the Doge Polano, and all his successors, and to the commune of Venice, undertaking to renew the oath on the election of each new doge. In 1186 the commune was represented by a podestà and four consuls, the year in which the bishopric was founded on the strength of their promise to provide sufficient income. Eight years later they were obliged to decree that if any one did not pay his dues by the usual time he should have [87] his vineyard taken away, and if the tithe of oil was not paid by the Purification, it should be doubled. It was the first Istrian city with a fully formed commune, and the notice of the meeting of the council on July 5, 1186, is the earliest notice preserved of such a meeting. The first statute appears in 1238-1239.

When Venice had acquired the city the senate commanded Tommaso Gritti and Piero Gradenigo to build Castel Leone; it was constructed astride the road which crossed the marshes, so that all travellers and vehicles entering or leaving the city had to pass through it. The walls, for which the Patriarch Gregorio Montelungo was responsible, were damaged in 1278, when the city swore fealty to Venice, and were thrown down on the sea side after the insurrection of 1348. They were not completely repaired till the sixteenth century. In 1550 Michele Sanmicheli, and subsequently his nephew Alvise Brignoli and others were sent by the senate to report, and finally the repair of the walls of many of the Istrian towns was committed to Constantine and Francesco Capi. A hundred years later they were in such a state that Stefano Capello reported that it was useless to guard the gates, for entrance was easy through the ruinous part of the walls. The only portion now remaining is the Porta della Muda, built by Sebastian Contarini in the seventeenth century. It bears an inscription of 1701 stating that the sea then no longer flowed round it.

The Palazzo Comunale was burnt after the revolt of 1348, when the city had to surrender unconditionally, the clergy carrying crosses, and the citizens in procession, followed by the soldiers and the other foreigners, meeting the army outside the gates. Fifty of the persons most compromised were sent to Venice for trial, and the city was punished by increase of taxation and modification of some of the chapters of the statute. A few [88] years after it rebelled again, and was then deprived of all municipal rights. The burnt portion of the palace was ordered to be restored in 1353, but it had to he pulled down afterwards, and in 1385 the senate gave orders to the Podestà Leonardo Bembo to level it and rebuild. It bears resemblance in some of its details to palaces of the Bembo family in Venice. It was not completed till 1447, under Domenico Diedo. The right wing was altered in 1481, and further damaging alterations were made in 1664 by Vincenzo Bembo, who was so proud of his work that he put up a pompous inscription. There the façade, the earliest of which is dated 1432. Under the portico were the "bocche del leone" for secret denunciations, and, though the masks are gone, the chests within are still in position.

At right angles to the Palazzo Comunale is the cathedral, with the campanile projecting and flanking the façade to the south. It has a ground story of Gothic, three pointed arches, the central one pierced by a doorway with clustered pillars, and figures beneath niches above them, and an upper story with classic pilasters and cornice, the central space pierced by a circular window. These are somewhat the characteristics of the cathedral at Cividale, of which two Capodistrians, Bartolommeo Costa and Giovanni Sedula, were architects. It was reconsecrated in 1445, but the upper part was not finished till 1598. The side doors, with beautiful arabesques carved on the jambs, were constructed with material from the tribune in which the big Carpaccio was housed. It was destroyed in 1714 during the restoration of the cathedral. There is a terra-cotta medallion of Constantine Copronymus on the façade. The present campanile is of 1480. The great bell was cast in 1333 by two sons of the celebrated bell-founder, Jacopo da Venezia. Under the bell-chamber of the older [89] campanile was an iron cage in which ecclesiastics guilty of grievous crime were exposed, a punishment abolished in 1407.

The interior of the church, considered the finest of the period in Istria, was recast in 1741 by the Venetian engineer Giorgio Massari. Under the last arch of the nave to the right is a picture by Vittore Carpaccio, signed and dated 1516—a Madonna and Child enthroned upon a damask-hung seat raised on five steps, which are covered with an Oriental carpet. Upon the steps saints are ranged, SS. Jerome, Roch, and an old man to the left—perhaps Zacchariah or Joseph; SS. Sebastian, George, and a bishop to the right—probably S. Louis of Toulouse: at the bottom a little lute-playing angel sits, flanked by two amorini on a lower level with white drapery. The Virgin is seated in an arched vestibule with a flat ceiling through which the sky and trees are seen. It was restored in r82g. Another picture from S. Nicolò near the port shows the Virgin with SS. Nicholas of Bari and John the Baptist. The organ wings were painted by Vittore's son Benedetto in 1538, and two other pictures of his are affixed to the west wall. The subjects are the Slaughter of the Innocents and the Presentation in the Temple. Other pictures by him are a Coronation of the Virgin, in the communal palace, signed and dated 1537, his earliest known picture; the Virgin between SS. James and Bartholomew, 1538; and the town damaged by a sea-storm. In Santa Anna is a picture of the Name of Jesus adored by SS. Paul, John the Baptist, Francis, and Bernardino, and surrounded by cherubs' heads. In the communal palace an indifferent picture of the entrance of a podestà escorted by the councillors (dated 1517) is ascribed to Vittore Carpaccio, who has been claimed as a Capodistrian, as his son Benedetto certainly was. He lived in the Largo di Porta S. Martino, in an old house [90] of two stories. In 1500 it was inhabited by the Scarpaza family, and before that they possessed a little farm in the locality called San Vittore; but the Capodistrian tradition as to Vittore's birthplace is erroneous, since he was born at Venice of a family of Mazzorbo, record of which has been found by Signor Molmenti. Lazzaro Sebastiani is also claimed as Capodistrian, and memorials of two other painters exist, Cleriginus de Justinopoli, who was living in. 1471, and Giorgio Vincenti. A Mag. Domenico di Capodistria began the pretty octagonal chapel at Vicovaro above Tivoli.

In the choir of the church of Santa Anna is a picture by Cima da Conegliano in the original frame made by Vittore da Feltre. In the central arched compartment the Virgin sits enthroned with the Child on her knees and angels at her sides; on the steps below are two child angels with mandoline and fiddle. The lower range of panels has full-length figures of SS. Anna, Mary Magdalene, Joachim, and Catherine. In the upper are half-lengths of SS. Chiara, Francis, Jerome, and Nazario, with Christ between SS. Peter and Andrew in the centre. It has been restored. There is also an altar-frontal of cut and gilded leather.

[click image to enlarge]

The lions from the ancient cathedral doors are now in the atrium of the high-school. The ancient baptistery is close to the north side of the cathedral; it has suffered Renaissance alteration inside, but outside still shows the early arrangement of pilaster-strips and corbel-tables. It is circular in plan, and has several round-headed, unmoulded windows built up, as well as a pointed-arched door with fourteenth-century shields in the tympanum.

Knocker on Palazzo Tacco,  Capodistria

In the large piazza which stretches to the south-east of the cathedral are two well-heads and the "fontico" or place where corn was sold cheaply to the poor, a building of 1432, restored in 1529, plentifully studded [91] with coats of arms. Opposite the Palazzo Comunalelis the Loggia, now a café, built in 1464 for a literary academy. It has seven pointed and traceried arches in front and two at the side, a Madonna and Child decorates the south-west angles, and coats of arms are between the windows of the upper story. Here the Compagnia della Calza was instituted in 1478 in imitation of that of Venice. A few houses have remains of late Gothic painting, and in others something of the mediæval arrangement may still be seen. Upon the Palazzo Tacco is a very beautiful knocker, ascribed to Sansovino, now happily the property of the commune; and the Casa dei Bello has a fine negro's head as handle, rather worn by use, and an elaborate knocker, probably of German work. The Casa Borisi also has a handle with the head and shoulders of a child emergent from leaves, and a knocker of similar design.

In the cathedral treasury is a late fifteenth-century silver-gilt chalice with elaborately worked knop and stem; on the knop are saints under canopies, and angels with outspread wings emerge from scroll-work [92] round the base of the cup. Also a monstrance of the same period with very elaborate and beautiful architectural ornament and figures of angels in adoration. In two elaborate silver-gilt crosses of the sixteenth century there is a curious mixture of Gothic and Renaissance details.

There is also a Byzantine civil casket at Capodistria, with traces of ancient gilding upon it. It has the usual rosettes in the borders, and small plaques with figure subjects. On the front there are three gods and goddesses, separated by a repetition of the border pattern. The handle and fastenings are later in date.

Click image to enlarge

Just inside the Porta della Muda is the Piazza da Ponte, so called after the Podestà Lorenzo da Ponte, who in 1666 had the very curious fountain erected, in which he imagined a further memorial of himself by the punning design of the bridge, so unsuitable for its position. In front of the Palazzo Tacco is a column with a statue of S. Giustina, set up to commemorate the battle of Lepanto, at which Domenico di Tacco commanded a ship fitted out at his own expense.

In the churches on Good Friday a crucifix was laid on the chancel steps. Women and children knelt round and kissed it. In one or two of them a dead Christ, life-size and painted, was exhibited behind glass. There was also the "tomba," a custom to which one is used in Italy. A few men joined in the devotion. The Good Friday procession is over half a mile long, and takes two hours to get round the town, starting from the cathedral west door at twilight. It is formed in great part of the ancient confraternities (among which that of S. Maria is mentioned as early as 1082), who carry some 200 implements and standards, torches, candelabra, wax tapers, figures of saints, and lanterns. At the end of the procession a rich baldacchino is borne aloft above the priest who carries the Host. "Mazzieri" (from the mace [94] flashing and mingling of varied colours; while, above the houses of the Piazza Tartini, other houses and towers climb to the battlemented walls which crown the hill above a space filled with the grey of olives and green of the grass beneath them. Within the town the streets are narrow and often arched over, producing striking effects of light and shade; and there are external stairs to some of the houses and many balconies.

It is an ancient town, and may have been founded by Celtic immigrants, since the word "pyrn " (a possible derivation for its name) means "top of the hill" in Celtic. It certainly was inhabited in Roman times, for the foundations of a Roman house have been found, as well as inscriptions, bronzes, and other objects now preserved in the museums of Trieste, Parenzo, and Pola. The names of a good many places near are of Roman derivation, but the first definite mention of Pirano is made by the anonymous Ravennese chronicler. In the tenth century the Istrians attacked the possessions of the Patriarch of Grado and of Venice, under the Marquis Winter, who governed for Ugo, king of Italy. The doge retaliated by prohibiting all commerce with Pirano, Trieste, Muggia, Capodistria, Cittanova, and Pola, and this soon brought them to their knees, finally resulting in the treaty of 933.

A castle, the residence of the count or burgrave, was built nearly opposite the cathedral, with a wall falling sheer to the sea; this wall was still in existence in 1483, and was seen by Sanudo, but it was destroyed soon after. Venice gradually laid a heavier hand on this part of the eastern shore of the Adriatic, and, though the citizens struggled to retain their independence, the year 1283 saw the dedition of Pirano. Yet it always retained the right of displaying its own standard of S. George in the Piazza by the side of that of S. Mark. The existing bases for the support of these standards [95] date from 1464 and 1466, and bear the figure of S. George on one, and S. Mark's lion on the other, with the arms of the podestàs who ruled in those years. On the base of the Venetian standard the measures of . length then in use are engraved. The standards for measures of capacity were three hollows sunk in a stone which once stood at the foot of the stair of the communal palace. This palace was demolished in 1877. It was a building erected in 1291, outside the circuit of the walls as it then existed, "to show that a new spirit ought to animate the citizens to forget their ancient divisions," as a chronicler says. From 1264 Venice practically had control of the government, being the principal customer for the salt, which was (and is still) the chief product of the place.

The city is an irregular triangle in plan, and is divided into four sections, known as "Porte"—Porta Muggia, Porta Domo, Porta Misana, and Porta Campo. Walls enclosed each of these sections, which were thrown down by Venice at the same time that many of the nobles' towers were destroyed; but some portions remain here and there, utilised for the erection of later houses. Round the "Punta," the most ancient part of the city are remains of early walls, thought to be late Roman. The Venetians allowed only one wall for protection, and the present towered portion, so conspicuous along the crest of the hill, was finished in 1488. The suburb, the Borgo Marzana, which stretched along the shore, was also enclosed within their circuit by 1533. They recall those of Soave and Marostica in North Italy, wherethe houses cluster round the piazza below, and the hillside is covered with olives, through and above which the line of battlements may be traced high above the tops of the campanili. The harbour was once larger than it now is, the Piazza Tartini occupying the site of part of it. In 1320 the Venetians sent three engineers [97] at 20 per cent., and Jews were allowed to charge no more. This people enjoyed considerable liberties, as in Venice, and corresponding concessions were made to them. With the establishment of a "Monte di Pieta " their occupation was gone, and they emigrated to Trieste. The commune paid a chief bombardier, a captain of ordnance, a palace chaplain, two doctors and a surgeon, a canon of the Community, a master of arithmetic, a professor of humanities and rhetoric, and a preacher for Lent.

An academy, called "Dei Virtuosi," was also sustained at the public expense, and by it public festivals were organised, with the accompaniment of decorations and music, &c. The festival of Corpus Domini is still celebrated with the hanging of cloths and paintings on the walls of the houses, and with stretching awnings, like the Florentine mediaeval "cieli," across the streets, which are strewn with flowers and ornamented with altars and fountains. Processions also still accompany funerals and marriages, when garlands, flowers, and confetti are thrown upon the cortege as it passes. The banner and pall are black, with white embroidery, and the members of a red-clothed confraternity attend the funerals, bearing a crucifix and tapers. Many of them are quite old men, and they raise a quavering chant as they climb the steep ascent to the cathedral, which is a late Renaissance building, and not interesting, though finely placed. The campanile is an evident copy of that of S. Mark at Venice.

In 1572, under an altar in the cathedral, a fine Byzantine civil casket of ivory was found. Presented in 1884 to the Emperor by the municipality, it is now in the Court museum at Vienna. It has a sliding lid, the usual borders of rosettes, and long panels of subjects imitated from the antique. In the library above the sacristy are several early paintings in carved and gilt frames. The most important represents a long arcade [99] and holding the Child to her breast. He has two cherries in His left hand; to His right are three saints —S. Francis with a cross, S. George, and S. Louis of Toulouse ; to the left, S. Anthony, Santa Chiara, and S. Louis of France. At the feet of the Virgin are two angels with lute and violin on each side of a pot of lilies; a pillared hall, with a view of Pirano in the distance, forms the background. The chapel has pilasters with very beautiful arabesques. The design of the architecture and of the picture agrees perfectly, and it is evident that it was intended that the painted architecture should continue the effect of perspective, which commences with the reality of carved and built-up marble.

In the office of the salt-works is a picture by Carpaccio's son Benedetto, signed and dated 1541, which came from S. Lucia di Val di Fasano. It shows the Virgin seated with the Child in a little shirt, in the act of blessing. On the left is S. Lucy, on the right S. George standing, with their heads on the same level as the Virgin, and therefore on a smaller scale. The throne has a very shallow step. The figure of S. George is a repetition of that by Benedetto's father in S. Francesco.

In the Piazza Tartini, near a fourteenth-century house of Venetian Gothic, once the palace of the family of del Bello, is a modern statue of Tartini the violinist (1692— 1770), who here commenced the study of music, which led him to extraordinary executive triumphs and the production of the celebrated "Trillo del diavolo."

Outside the walls, on the road to Porto Rose, are the ruins of the monastery of S. Bernardino, founded in 1450 by S. Giovanni da Capistrano, to whom the ruined convent on the island opposite Rovigno is also due. It once possessed a Vivarini, a Madonna with a sleeping Child, which was sent to Vienna in 1803. In the church of S. George is a fragment of a carved stall with a figure of the saint, which should be mentioned.

[100] The town of Salvore seems to have been under the jurisdiction of Pirano, and the commune held a fair there on S. John the Baptist's Day, to celebrate the naval battle in 1177, in which Frederick Barbarossa was conquered in the deep bay between it and Pirano. The jousts, boat-races, and hunts which were held then and on the feasts of Pentecost and S. Orligo were so sumptuous that the provveditore limited the expenditure.

The last boat for Trieste left Pirano at 1.30 p.m., an hour so ridiculously early, that we determined to walk to Isola and proceed thence by train. We started off bravely up the steep road which led to the fifteenth-century Porta di Raspo, obtaining fine views down the alleys and through garden doors as we ascended the hill. High above our heads the battlements towered, and as we approached the walls we realised what a business it must have been to attack a town so protected before the invention of gunpowder. Soon the road bent away to the right, which was not the direction in which we wished to go, but a path led to some brick-works, and there we found an idle workman, who advised us to go along the shore as being much shorter. So we plunged and slid about among rocks of a considerable size, and skirted the base of slippery cliffs, and ploughed through sand and shingle for some miles, rejoicing when we met the road again in a flat piece of land where there were saltpans. From this point it made a long sweep inland and then rose in wide curves up the shoulder of a hill which divided us from Isola. Here we saw a train draw up to take on board two gentlemen and a little boy; there was no sign of station or halting-place, and we wondered whether all that was necessary was to stand by the line and wave one'shand to thedriver in order to betaken up ! A stony path led us to the summit—another short cut, which happily called for less exertion than our pre-viousjaunt alongthe shore—and a charming view amply [101] repaid us for our labours. In the foreground the stony path dropped between steep banks, the soil being occupied by vines and olives, with a little shrine perched on one of the banks. In the middle distance Isola lay like a jewel upon the sea, opalescent with delicate blue shadows and the indescribable tints of grey stone buildings at a distance in sunlight; with the campanile crowning the slight elevation of the clustered houses. Beyond were the horns of the Bay of Capodistria and the highlands of the Julian Alps, blue in the shadow of the declining sun. A few lighter houses scattered along the peninsula served to soften the transition from the grey town to the green country.

The town is at least as old as the beginning of the eleventh century, for in 1041 it was ceded to the monastery of Aquileia; at this time it was probably unwalled, for in 1165 the Abbess Valperta allowed the inhabitants to remove to Monte Albuciano and build fresh houses there, as they did not feel secure. After the dedition to Venice in 1280 it was strengthened; but that did not prevent a body of the patriarch's troops scaling the walls and taking it on August 25, 1379, to he driven out a few days after by the podestàs of Capodistria, Pirano, and Umago. Since 1411 it has been joined to the Capodistria road by a bridge, and no one would now suppose that it was originally—as its name denotes—an island. Nine square towers defended the walls, and the principal gate was protected by a barbican. The ditch was so useful to the people in peaceful times that the commune threatened with severe penalties those who went by night to deposit in it the refuse of their houses and stables. No trace of these works now remains.

The Colleggiata is a late Renaissance building, but contains some interesting things, including a picture by Girolamo Santa Croce of the Madonna enthroned, with SS. Nicholas and Joseph, and a child angel with a [102] violin on the plinth, signed and dated 1537, but restored. The treasury contains a fine monstrance of silver, Gothic in design, with bands of pierced work and tabernacles at the sides on twisted columns. It has a spire-like top with windows and pinnacles between round its base, a feature which is repeated on the knop. In the seventeenth century several figures were added or replaced and the stem repaired. The Scuola dei Battuti, built in 1451, has a door with a frescoed tympanum beneath a pointed arch on brackets, a good deal weather-worn—Madonna sheltering the penitents beneath her cloak—and pretty arabesque scrolls on the soffit.

Isola is delightful from outside; but inside there is much dirt, and little food for the traveller. All that we could obtain was bread and rough red wine. While waiting for the train, as the sun set and twilight fell, we saw many of the contadini returning from their work, most of them on donkeys or ponies—a father with a little son before or behind him, a man in a black cloak with panniers laden with branches of trees, which hid the saddle, and, in the semi-obscurity, made them look like some monstrous beast of strange form, another perched upon a great bundle of hay or grass, and so on, all passing rapidly from the malaria of the fields to the safety of the malodorous town.

It reminded one of the return of the townspeople within the walls at nightfall necessitated by the mediaeval custom of closing the gates an hour after "Ave Maria," after which none could enter or leave the cities; and how the lamps of the shrines were the only illumination of the streets, about which none were allowed to go without carrying a light.

In the train we had as fellow traveller an engineer who spoke English well. He said that all over Istria nothing could be obtained to eat (except, of course, in [103] the more important towns). He had been constructing a new line near Divača, where nothing was obtainable, and he and his companions had been obliged to take a cook and all supplies with them. He appeared to have a very bad opinion of the Triestines, whom he characterised as drunken swine, which we had not observed ourselves. He said that beer was too dear for the majority, so they got drunk on black wine and brandy—a statement which sounded strange to our English ears. The smaller boats, being for the use of the country people, are very inconvenient for tourists, since they generally start so as to arrive at Trieste early in the day, thus allowing of return the same night with the purchases made. Baedeker advises an excursion to Muggia and on to Capodistria and Isola and Pirano, "returning by boat in the evening "; but the last boat from Pirano leaves at 1.30 p.m., and the last one from Capodistria at 4.0 (by which, by-the-bye, we paid twice as much as we paid for the same journey in the morning), and after that the traveller is dependent upon the little railway, which lands him in Trieste after 10.0 p.m., at the S. Andrea Station, rather late to obtain a meal.

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This page compliments of Marisa Ciceran