When the Queen returned to her home she communicated with certain nobles in Zara with regard to the casket, and in 1377 her agents commissioned one Francesco d’Antonio di Milano, a goldsmith, to proceed with the work. By the time he had completed his task, three years later, he had used nearly a thousand pounds of silver metal, and he received twenty-eight thousand ducats as pay from Elizabeth.
Nearly two hundred years passed before any attempt was made to raise funds for the erection of a suitable temple in which to place permanently the silver sarcophagus containing the body of so famous a saint; money was slow in coming in, and in 1600, after the façade of the building was half finished, the work was abandoned.
In 1543 the old church of St. Maria was demolished to make room for new fortifications. The silver casket was then given to the nuns for safe-keeping, while the body of the Saint had been transferred to its original ark of cypress wood and left in a little chapel near by.
At length Archbishop Garzadori proposed that the body be replaced in the silver casket and taken to the church of St. Stefano which stood in the immediate vicinity. About this time an outbreak of the plague tended to remind the superstitious of their neglect of the body of St. Simeon and a new chancel was hurriedly placed in the church, the silver ark, which had been found stained and tarnished in the nunnery, was repaired by a goldsmith of the name of Benedetto Libani, and on May 16th, 1632, the translation of the body took place amid public rejoicing. Since that date St. Simeon has reigned as the patron saint of Zara.
Among the historical landmarks in the town of Zara, the Cinque Pozzi, or Five Fountains, constitute one of the most prominent. They stand in a row in front of a broad flight of stone steps, which lead up to a shady park overlooking the docks and part of the city. These fountains are more like cisterns and from them the poorer inhabitants still draw their water, carrying it away in great jars upon their heads. They were designed by Sammichieli, an architect of Verona, and built in 1574. To them the water is conducted from sources outside the city, first passing through a rather elaborate system of subterranean filtration. An architect living in Zara has in his possession a copy of a plan of these filters as designed by Sammichieli himself.
THE FIVE FOUNTAINS, ZARA.
Included in the manifestations of the Roman occupancy of Zara are the fragments of an ancient temple dedicated to Juno Augusta, the consort of Emperor Augustus. These fragments had been built into the old church of St. Donato, erected in the ninth century.
And you will be loth to leave Zara, for at every turn you discover something that seems to be more interesting than that which you saw before. The streets are clean and although the rays of the sun are uncomfortably hot, the narrow thoroughfares are always shady and invite you to wander aimlessly up and down, lingering here and there before the shop windows. In the evening, while the band plays, the scene along the quay is one of gayety, and you will be inspired to make the resolution, that, if ever again you happen along the eastern coast of the Adriatic, Zara will be sure to receive from you a more lengthy visit.