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 mediæval "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 cortège 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 with four saints on each side of a broader central panel, on which are the Virgin and Child enthroned. The figures have small heads and meagre limbs. There is also a Crucifixion, which, from its shape, was probably the top panel of a large picture in compartments. These are of the fourteenth century. A later example shows four saints in trefoil-headed panels, with a cornice above, composed of a series of shell-headed tops of niches. These originally formed the doors of a cupboard. There are also said to be a psalter and antiphonary of the fourteenth century, and a Bull of Urban V. relating to the Crusades of 1365. The ancient baptistery stood opposite the cathedral, if one may trust the views in Carpaccio's picture, and in one by Domenico Tintoretto in the town-hall. The modern one is on the slope of the hill, just below the campanile. It contains an early rectangular font. On the side facing the door is a carving similar to that on the font at Venzone—a naked youth astride of a sea-monster, said to typify the control of the bodily appetites by the reason. The other sides are much damaged.
The other important church is that of S. Francesco, which has a good early Renaissance doorway and a cloister, some seventeenth-century carved chairs, several Venetian pictures, and an early altar-piece. On the façade a curious inscription is set in the wall, which states that the church was dedicated on S. Mark's Eve, 1344, and that seven altars were then consecrated by seven bishops—nine being mentioned, however—Justinoplensis (Capodistria), Enonensis (Cittanova), Parentinus, Polensis, Petenesinus (Pisino), Capiolensis, Evelinensis (Buie), Domatensis, Soaralensis. The lion of the church is, however, the fine Carpaccio in the chapel to the left at the bottom of the nave, dated 1518, and signed "Victoris Charpatii Veneti opus," considered by some his best work. It represents the Virgin seated, 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.
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 salt-pans. 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's hand to the driver in order to be taken up! A stony path led us to the summit—another short cut, which happily called for less exertion than our previous jaunt along the shore—and a charming view amply 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 be 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 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.