Its greatest prosperity was between the time of the great wanderings of the peoples and the descent of the barbarians into Italy. Its patriarch took the lead in establishing the government of the islands from which the Venetian Republic sprang. In 460 Nicetas called all the bishops, clergy, and leading officials of the islands together to deliberate on the question of government, and, after discussion, they agreed to establish one under the directorship of Tribunes. The first tribune was to live at Grado, with three others, called "maggiori," but depending upon him, one for Rivoalto, one for Candeana, and one for Dorsea, living at Rialto, Eraclea, and Torcello respectively. They had charge of the administration of justice, presided over the execution of the laws, enforced discipline, and met at times in council to discuss propositions laid before them. Grado lost its supremacy in 696, when the assembly held at Eraclea gave it to that city, though the Patriarch of Grado, Cristoforo, was given equality with the three tribunes which Eraclea then had. The next year the first doge, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was elected. It was by means of Fortunatus of Trieste, Patriarch of Grado (803-825), that the cry of the Istrians, oppressed by the Frankish duke and his supporters, came to the ears of Charlemagne, with the result that after a strict inquiry held at Risano in 804, when the representatives of the cities and castella exposed the odious proceedings of the bishop, the duke, and their adherents, they obtained redress. In 875 the Saracens attacked Grado, but were repulsed. The next year a similar attack was made by the Slavs of Croatia and Dalmatia, but the Doge Orso met them, defeated them, and gave back to several Istrian towns objects of which they had been robbed.
Between Grado and Aquileia there was a constant struggle for supremacy, which was in reality a contest between Venice and the empire, Aquileia standing for the latter and Grado for the former. A formal peace was concluded between them during the Lateran Council of 1180, by which the Patriarch of Grado renounced all claims over the Istrian bishoprics, except as regards the hundred amphoras of wine sent by Capodistria from 1075, given as a personal honour to the Doge Pietro Candiano, and by him handed over to the Patriarch of Grado. In 452 the Patriarch of Aquileia fled to Grado from the Huns, returning after they had passed, and in 578, when Aquileia had become Lombard, Paulinus transferred his seat to Grado, thus putting himself under Byzantine protection. In 579 a synod was held in the church. From 607 there were two patriarchs—one in Grado and one in Aquileia—established for political reasons by the Lombards; they were schismatical, that is to say, adherents of the "three chapters." During the continuance of this schism, in 610, three Istrian bishops were taken from their very churches by the military, and carried off to Grado, where they were compelled to bend to the Imperial will in the matter. Gregory III. sanctioned the division of the two patriarchates in 731, both having become orthodox, Aquileia in 698 and Grado in 715. In 1451 the patriarchate of Grado was transferred to Venice, where the patriarch had been living for a long time.
The foundations of the cathedral were laid under Nicetas (456) by the architect Paulus, who was sent to him by Pope Leo I. The plan is Romanesque, a basilica with nave and aisles and no transept, the nave terminating in an apse eastward. It has two western doors, which open into a portico of almost the whole breadth of the church, part being cut off by the campanile, which is nearly 20 ft. square and over 160 ft. high. The clerestory and low-pitched wooden roof of the nave are supported by two piers and ten columns on each side. The columns are antique, but of varied material—cipollino, white and black and white-veined marble, and granite; and there is one of a rosy and white breccia. The caps vary both in design and size, and have been repaired with stucco. Some of them are decadent Roman and the rest Byzantine: the bases are hidden by a square wooden boxing. The eleven arches of the nave arcade are round. The round-headed windows of both nave and aisles had pierced slabs of stone in them, but in 1740 the openings were made lunette-shaped. One pierced slab of the ninth century has been found, and is now placed high up in the apse above the patriarch's throne. Under Fortunatus and John the Younger, about the beginning of the ninth century, the church appears to have been beautified; and again, in the second half of the tenth, under Vitalis. It is related that the relics were then provided with fresh receptacles and inscriptions. The choir occupies three bays of the nave, with a modern enclosure raised by several steps. Just outside the rail, by the fourth column on the left, stands the interesting pulpit, which has a later canopy, but itself appears to be of the ninth century, judging by the columns, two of which are twisted, and by the carving of the symbols of the Evangelists, which seems to be rather later. On the other hand, there is a square O in the inscription on S. John's book, of which other instances occur at Cattaro in an inscription of the ninth century, and in one of the seventh at Spalato. The pulpit is sexfoil in plan; one side is open, and one has a large cross carved upon it. The canopy has six fourteenth or fifteenth-century octagonal colonnettes, supporting ogee trefoiled arches with a domical termination, coloured in red and white chequers, and with scrolls and rosettes of red on the spandrils of the arches below. The shape and decoration show Arab influence strongly.
PULPIT IN THE CATHEDRAL, GRADO
In the pavement is still preserved a great deal of that laid down by Elias in the sixth century. It filled the nave, being entirely worked in tesseræ of very few colours—black, a green-grey, red, yellow, and white. From the west door a pattern, surrounded by a border, stretches as far as the fifth pair of columns. It consists of a central band of a wavy pattern, interrupted by inscriptions and medallions; the easternmost one is blank and has a running border, with the corners of the square (cut off by the band of inscriptions) filled with scroll-work. The side portions are cut up into squares by bands of open interlacings, with ivy leaves in the interstices, and different designs within the squares, or with inscriptions, most of them in Latin, but one in Greek. They record the gift of so many feet of pavement, as at Parenzo; and one donor, Laurentius the Viscount Palatine, seems to have been generous to both cathedrals. A long inscription leaves no doubt as to the date, and that it was laid down under the Patriarch Elias (571-585); it runs: "Atria quae cernis vario formata decore squallida sub picto caelatur marmore tellus longa vetustatis senio fuscaverat ætas prisca en cesserunt magno novitatis honori praesulis Haeliae studio praestante beati haec sunt tecta pio semper devota timori."
THE PATRIARCH'S THRONE. CATHEDRAL, GRADO
The flat ceilings and the rococo stucco-work are due to the restorations of 1740. The apse contains remains of mediæval painting—a seated Christ of colossal size surrounded by the symbols of the four Evangelists, with raised right hand and a closed book in the left; on one side S. John the Baptist holding an open scroll, and on the other a saint in green, with gold-shot stole and nimbus, but no attribute—both larger than life. The corners are occupied by the patron saints, Hermagoras and Fortunatus. Round the apse, just above the patriarch's seat, runs a row of portraits of bishops of later date, half-lengths, beneath a round-arched arcade on a gold ground. On the left nave pier, near the door, are the remains of a painting of S. Helena, who has nimbus, cross, and book. In the centre of the apse is the ancient patriarch's seat, with an inscription upon the wall commemorating the ancient supremacy of the see: it is mainly composed of mutilated ninth-century carved slabs, probably portions of the chancel of that date. Other slabs with similar designs and portions of a ciborium are preserved in a little collection of marbles under a shed behind the apse, where are also several sarcophagi and other antique fragments.
In the treasury are two early reliquaries of silver, found beneath the high-altar in August, 1871. One is cylindrical, with a convex lid, upon which is represented in relief the Virgin enthroned, with the Babe at her breast. Her right hand holds a cross-headed sceptre, and behind her head is a nimbus with the usual monogram, MΗ ΘT. The cylinder has no decoration but two bands of names of saints in Roman capital letters. These are: "Sanc. Maria, Sanc. Vitvs, Scs. Cassianvs, Sanc. Pancrativs, Sanc. Ypolitvs, Sanc. Apollinaris, Sanc. Martinvs." Within is a central cylinder and six compartments radiating from it, which contained a small cylindrical vase of gold with rings round it, a little glass flask, closed up and containing water, a little gold box with crosses and a leaf pattern on the outside, and a cross of dark-green enamel on the cover, a small slab of chalk or cement with a Greek cross imprinted on it, and several thin gold plates with the names of saints upon them. Several of the printed accounts of the discovery of this treasure say that there were six of these plates in the casket; but the glass case which encloses it and its contents has eleven, with the names as follows: "Domna Maria, Scs. Cassianvs, Sc. Martinvs, Sc. Brancativs, Scs. Troteomvs, Sca. Agnes, Scs. Bitvs, Scs. Apolinnaris, Scs. Hyppolitvs, Scs. Sabastianvs, Scs. Severvs." Dr. Kandler thought that it came from the church of S. Niceta in Aquileia, and was brought to the island with other treasures in 452, for safety, from Attila. De Rossi thought that the appellative "Domna" distinguishing the Virgin was an argument against such high antiquity; but in a later number of his "Bullettino" he described an inscription of about 457 at Loja, in Spain, in which the title "Domnus" or "Domna" is applied to all the saints, including the Virgin. There is a legend that "When Paul was patriarch of Aquileia the priest Geminianus was told in a vision to go to the destroyed city of Trieste to find the bodies of 42 martyrs buried between the wall of the church dedicated to them and the city wall. Going thither with many other Venetians he found the holy bodies in the specified place, covered over with marble slabs, and, taking them, went to the destroyed city of Aquileia, where he added to the relics the bodies of Cantius, Cantianus, Cantianilla, and the virgins Euphemia, Dorothea, Thecla, and Erasma, and then took them all to Grado." Paul is Paulinus I. (557-569), and the occurrence took place after the Lombards had gone by in 568. The forty-two martyrs were laid side by side in the church of S. Vitale, and Paul died the next year.