RELIQUARY OF THE HEAD OF S. TRIFONE, CATTARO
The treasury contains a good many rather uninteresting objects, such as arm and leg reliquaries of the fourteenth century, or later rather, decorated with nielli and bosses in relief, and a few others shaped like vases borne on stems; on some of them the date 1483 can be traced. The reliquary of the body of S. Trifone is of silver, and rather rough sixteenth-century work, but encloses a wooden coffer, upon which remains of ninth-century paintings have been discovered. The head reliquary is of gold and enamel, the stem and an arcade round the upper part of fourteenth-century work (the upper portion re-made in the seventeenth), and the foot apparently of an intermediate period, with early Renaissance details upon a Gothic plan, medallions in relief, and rough scroll-work. The knop has eight roundels with niello crosses crossleted; on the stem are saints in niello in vesicas. The arches of the canopied arcade are filled with figures in relief in couples and enamels in basse-taille, red and blue alternately. The nielli have had a ground of blue enamel. These two reliquaries and a crystal cross in a very graceful setting, early Renaissance in style, are kept in a receptacle lined with cut velvet, upon which are embroideries of half-figures of saints beneath niches raised in gold; above the niches are domes, and between them twisted columns, probably originally part of a vestment. A globe-shaped ciborium, with cresting and knop of the fourteenth century, is interesting. Upon the globe a pattern with beasts and leaves is chased; the foot is conical and sexfoil in plan, with little niello medallions and piercings on the perpendicular parts of two steps. The knop has pinnacles and pierced gables. A half-length figure of Christ in silver, upon a seventeenth-century pierced hemispherical base, is well modelled and designed, and a reliquary cross of wood used by the Capuchin monk Marcus Avianus, on September 12, 1683, to bless the allied hosts on the Leopoldsberg before the relief of Vienna from the Turks, deserves mention. In the treasury is also a great Romanesque crucifix of painted wood, over life-size, with the feet crossed. According to tradition it belonged to the church of the Franciscans outside the walls, built in 1288 by Elena, wife of Orosius I. The church was pulled down when there was war between Venice and the Turks, and moved within the Porta Gordicchio, which was therefore called the Porta S. Francesco. Most of the convents are now used by the military authorities.
La Colleggiata is the ancient church of S. Maria Infunara, which Andreacci Saracenis founded, but was rebuilt in 1221, during the Servian period. It has a nave two bays in length, the first cross-vaulted, and the second with a dome enclosed within an octagonal drum, and with a barrel-vaulted presbytery before the apse. An aisle to the north, continued to the tower as a sacristy, is later. The apse has shallow pilasters dividing the exterior surface into three, in the centre of which is a walled-up east window of two lights, with a cross within a circle in the tympanum beneath the enclosing arch. The arch of the south door is perhaps a fragment of the original building, and the west door also looks early. In the aisle is a Virgin and Child, with painted faces, and the hands and feet added in relief and painted. The draperies are silver and silver-gilt, patterned, and each figure has a nimbus formed of a gilded patterned roll. The background is of silver, with little angels supporting the Virgin's nimbus, and there is a curious frame of filigree arabesques of tinsel set in wire and standing free.
S. LUKA, CATTARO
S. Luka, the Greek church, of nearly the same period and plan as the cathedral, was built in 1195 by Marco di Andrea Casa Franci, and Bona, daughter of Basilio, prior of Cattaro, The dome is pointed, and rests on four pointed Romanesque arches with rough pendentives. The apse is divided by pilaster strips into three portions externally, and in the central one is a two-light round-headed window with central colonnette. The roof is continued over the chapel of S. Spiridion to the north (which has an apse, but no window, except the little rose over the external door), and this makes the church look square from the south-east. The west side has one clerestory window beneath a great unmoulded arch, and a circular-headed door below, the jambs of which are made of earlier fragments; the late belfry is of three arches, two and one; beneath is an unusual curved ornamentation, a curious presage of the "New Art" of a few years ago. The church appears to have been restored in the fourteenth century, since a consecration by Bishop Doimo II. is recorded in 1368; but it has been a Greek church since 1689, was enlarged in 1747, and the structure shows signs of considerable rebuilding. The iconostasis is of the seventeenth century; the paintings are covered with silver plates. There is a huge cross with wings at the base and paintings. Through the central arch the arca and a little cross are seen. The chapel of S. Spiridion also has its iconostasis. At Easter time two processional crosses of silver and a Resurrection banner decorate the church outside the iconostasis. The Cattarine silversmiths have also executed work away from their own shores. It will be remembered that Stephen IV. of Servia gave a silver altar to the church of S. Nicola, Bari, in 1322, the work of Abrado of Cattaro.
THE SCUOLA NAUTICA, CATTARO