The women wear a curious head-dress something like a turban with a long end hanging down the back; they generally have a loose sleeveless jacket over a white full-sleeved blouse and a skirt in many pleats and often of many colours, and an apron; sometimes a handkerchief is thrown over the head instead of the head-dress. They also wear elaborate earrings, a number of rings fastened together with a drop below, all of metal.
WEST DOOR OF THE COLLEGGIATA, OSSERO
From Lussin Piccolo we drove in the opposite direction to Ossero, the ancient Apsoros or Auxerrum, following a narrow road through olive-yards, along the shore or some way up the hill among a bewildering variety and luxuriance of vegetation. On the island, which is about eighteen miles long, though nowhere more than two in breadth and seldom more than one, there are three villages besides the two Lussins. They are Neresine, Chiunschi, and S. Giacomo. At Neresine we were told that there was an English-speaking landlady. So we looked her up at the "Gasthaus Amicorum." We found that she and her husband had been in America, and were told several strange stories of curious occurrences which she had known of while there, especially with regard to the drugging of drinks, which made one think she must find her life rather lacking in excitement in this little out-of-the-way place where she was apparently going to end her days. There is a Franciscan convent here with a handsome campanile looking much more ancient than its date (1590-1604), with double lights and a balustrade round the top. In the church are pictures attributed to Girolamo da Santa Croce and the younger Palma. The ascent of Monte Ossero may be made from here (1,900 ft.). The top is a bare, stony wilderness like the backbone of Veglia.
The weather was lovely, and we constantly came upon subjects which would tempt the artist to stop and sketch—a monk seated under an olive-tree in the shade; cattle and sheep tethered to the grey trunks, grouping themselves as they clustered for company; a boat under sail seen through the branches of the trees against a headland on the more distant hills of Arbe and the mainland; and so on. The hillside was clothed with bushes and plants in flower, among which we recognised the oleander, white rose, juniper, laurustinus, fig-trees, ilex, cypress, strawberry arbutus, a small-leaved myrtle, grape hyacinths thick on the ground, giant and quite small spurges, a euphorbia with thorny trailing stems and heart-shaped leaves, great ericas as high as a man, in some places cyclamen in clumps by the wayside like daisies, a bush trifolium something like cytisus but scentless, thyme, and a kind of sage, while the bay-trees were so fully in bloom that they looked a pale yellowish green instead of their usual colour. Just before we reached the bridge connecting the islands of Ossero and Cherso, which has to be crossed before the town of Ossero is reached, great banks of spurge made the roadside as yellow as fields full of charlock in England.
In a wall at the entrance of the town the S. Mark's lion still watches, though the two fortresses which report says were here are no longer traceable. The cathedral is Lombardesque in style, built by Bishop Antonio Palcić (1465-1474), and has a rather pretty doorway ascribed to George of Sebenico, who was certainly employed by him upon other works, and a massive campanile of 1675, which dominates the place. The nave is five bays long, the arcade is round-arched with pretty caps and ornamented archivolts, and the floor is paved with red and white marble in chequers. The holy-water basins are simple, and the columns of the ciborium rest on two red marble caps of the fourteenth century upside down, one base of the same and one of the Lombardi period, showing the use of older material. The church still retains a line monstrance, one or two other pieces of silver-work, and some embroidered vestments, though no longer the seat of a bishop, and over the high-altar is a picture of the school of Titian. The monstrance is late Gothic, with a foot added in the seventeenth century. It is decorated with many niches and figures, and a fine cresting round the domical top. The curved surfaces above and below the glass tube have scroll-work upon a blue enamel ground, part of which has come away. In these places there is no sign of pattern upon the silver, but only a general cross-patching showing that the arabesques and other patterns were not soldered to the ground beneath, but only arranged with the enamel flux before firing. The architectural details are gilded, the rest is silver.
MONSTRANCE IN COLLEGGIATA, OSSERO
There are some remains of Roman walls still traceable, between which and the mediæval walls is the site of a large seven-aisled church, perhaps a pair of twin basilicas. Upon the ruins of the seventh aisle the present church of S. Maria was erected, and within it the ancient bishop's throne, constructed of fragments of ninth-century carved slabs, was still preserved till a few years ago. It was only after persistent inquiries that we found it in a store-shed with other fragments of ninth-century carving and some Roman antiquities thought of little importance, though the inscriptions and other marble fragments and the stone funerary urns are in their company. In the show museum are Roman fragments, lamps, Pansiana pottery stamps, bronze vessels and utensils, iron fragments, glass phials, &c. On the hill, not far off, prehistoric tombs with interesting objects have been found; but the greater part of the finds have been sent to more important museums.