But the duomo is not all that Traü has to show in the way of churches. On the other side of the Venetian loggia stands, hidden among other buildings, a church which is in its way of equal interest with its greater neighbour, which certainly shows us a purer form of Romanesque. This is the little desecrated church of Saint Martin, now called Saint Barbara, one of those domical buildings on a small scale of which we have seen other varieties at Zara and at Spalato. Its height and the tall stilts on its columns would, if the building were cleared out, make it one of the most striking instances of its style and scale. Nearer to the water, south-east from the cathedral, is another small Romanesque church, almost as striking without as Saint Barbara is within. This is the small church of Saint John Baptist, which, except that it has a square east end, might pass for an almost typical Romanesque church on a small scale. Nearly opposite to Saint Barbara is the most striking house in Traü, with an open galleried court; and not very far off, hidden in the narrow streets, is the Benedictine monastery of Saint Nicolas, the foundation of the local saint John Orsini in 1064. The points to be noticed are not in the church but in the adjoining buildings. There, besides some pretty Venetian windows and doorways, is an arcade which looks as if it were of genuine Romanesque date, though perhaps hardly so old as the saint himself. A walk outside the walls in the direction of the Venetian castle leads to other churches, one of which, attached to a house of Dominican nuns, surprises the visitor, like the ruined chapel of the Gaetani by the tomb of Cæcilia Metella, by its almost English look. A few hours may well be spent in examining the antiquities of this strange little island city, and in taking in the varied views of land and sea which are to be had alike from the lofty bell-tower and from the higher ground on Bua. The journey back again shows us objects which have become familiar to us, but which are now seen in a reverse order. We mark the ever shifting outlines of the hills, the islands and the bay which they surround, the ruins of fallen Salona, Clissa on its peak, the stream of Giadro, the aqueduct of Diocletian, till we again mount and descend the little hill on the neck of the isthmus, and find ourselves once more under the shadow of the palace-walls of Spalato and of the bell-tower which soars so proudly over them.
SAINT JOHN BAPTIST, TRAÜ.
SPALATO TO CATTARO.
SPALATO TO CATTARO.
1875.
[I have not thought it needful to strike out of this paper a few allusions to the times when it was written, the early days of the revolt in Herzegovina with which the war of 1875-1878 began.]