RAGUSA,—MOUNT SERGIUS IN THE BACKGROUND.
Many conflicting accounts of its founding have been published, but the real history of Ragusa begins at the time of the victory of the Venetians over the Narentines in the struggle for the supremacy of the Adriatic. Policy compelled its citizens, descendants of the refugees from the fallen Illyrian capitals who have been accredited with the founding of Ragusa, to favour the Narentines, and with their fall Ragusa came under the yoke of the Venetians.
The original city corresponded to the southern portion or modern Ragusa, but later, the Romans absorbed a rival colony and included the whole within the walls which stood, approximately, on the line of the present fortifications.
In the year 1292 a series of periodical disasters commenced in Ragusa, the blighting results of which no city of to-day could possibly sustain.
On August 16th of that year, while the little territory was being pillaged by the Servians in alliance with the people of Cattaro, but a few miles down the coast, a fire broke out and destroyed a greater part of the city; at that time all the houses were built of wood gathered from the forests of Mount Sergius, all except the Rector’s castle and the churches. Fire was followed by famine and epidemic. Those of the heart-sick population who survived were finally persuaded not to abandon the city, public subscriptions were raised for the destitute and a new town was built on the same site.
When the great plague, or “Black Death,” swept across Europe in 1348 eleven thousand souls were said to have perished within the walls of Ragusa.
Exactly ten years later Ragusa, then included in the Dalmatian territory belonging to Venice, was ceded to Hungary and the payments of all tributes hitherto given to Venice were transferred with the country. In return, Lewis of Hungary pledged himself to protect Ragusa and to allow her to govern herself, as had Venice before him.
Under Hungarian protection Ragusa felt herself develop an extensive power. In this she was abetted by Lewis himself, who interceded for her with the Pope for permission to trade with the Turks. He even allowed her to elect her own Count and tended her many other unheard of privileges.
