The Quay and Harbour Gate
The earliest recorded commercial treaty made by the Republic is the one of 1169 with Pisa. In 1168 the Republic of Pisa sent three envoys to Constantinople to settle a contention with Manuel Comnenus. On the way they stopped at Ragusa, and on May 13, 1169, signed a commercial treaty with the city, guaranteeing mutual immunities and other privileges. The Pisan envoys then proceeded on their journey, accompanied by the newly appointed chief of the Ragusan colony in the Imperial capital.[92] There were political as well as commercial reasons for this agreement, in the hostility of both Republics to Venetian supremacy in the Adriatic. About this time the Ragusans obtained the right of citizenship at Constantinople, granted to them by Manuel, and confirmed by his son, Alexius II. The original documents have not been preserved, but the privilege is frequently alluded to by later writers.
Many treaties with the other towns of Dalmatia, Istria, and Italy are published in the Monumenta spectantia Historiam Slavorum Meridionalium. Thus in 1188 a perpetual peace was concluded with Rovigno;[93] in 1190 an agreement with the Cazichi or Narentans[94] (also called Dalmisiani, from the town of Almissa); in 1191 a treaty with Fano, and others to which we have already alluded. These agreements were all similar in character, and their object being to insure mutual and commercial privileges. Some contained special clauses exempting the citizens of the contracting cities from certain taxes and customs dues.
Traffic with the Slavonic states also began early, but the great trade highways from the coast to the interior were not fully developed until the next century.
Artistic and intellectual development, in which Byzantine influence is conspicuous, was still in its infancy, and of the few buildings of this period with any architectural pretensions only the smallest traces remain. The town was built chiefly of wood, save for the walls and a couple of small churches. The oldest edifice of which anything remains is the Church of San Stefano, mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus as the most important in the town. Four ruined walls in a court near the diocesan seminary are believed to have belonged to this very ancient building. The tradition is that it was erected by Stephen, Banus of Bosnia, or by his widow. Gelcich suggestively describes what the building must have been like: “In the church of St. Stephen at Ragusa we must picture to ourselves not a work of art, but a chapel capable of containing few beyond the ministers at the altar; low-vaulted, decorated internally, and perhaps externally, with frescoes; an apse just large enough for the altar, lit by such few rays of sunlight as could penetrate by an irregular number of holes piercing the stone slab which closed the single-arched window placed over the altar.”[95] On the outside wall there is a fragment of bas-relief of two arches, each containing a cross on a design of foliage. Close by is the area of a larger church, also in ruins, of a later date, to which Santo Stefano afterwards served as a sacristy.
Another church of the Byzantine period is that of San Giacomo in Peline,[96] on the slopes of the Monte Sergio, mentioned by documents of the thirteenth century as already very ancient. Seen from outside, there is nothing to tell one that it is a church at all, but internally it is in good repair, and it is still occasionally used for services. It is quite plain, and has round arches and vaultings. It consists of a nave, three bays, and an apse. The single window, which is a later addition, is to the left of the altar. A small painting of the fourteenth century is the only ornament. Two other churches—San Niccolò in Prijeki, and Santa Maria in Castello—although both of this epoch, were entirely rebuilt in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The best—one is tempted to say the only—piece of Byzantine sculpture in the town is a handsomely carved doorway in a chapel near the Duomo. The design, though simple, is elegant and graceful. On the island of Lacroma an inscription marks the burial-place of Vitalis, archbishop of Ragusa from 1023 to 1047.
This, then, is the sum of Byzantine remnants at Ragusa. The name of Monte Sergio, as Prof. Eitelberger says, is the only relic of the Oriental Church; while the name of the west gate, Porta Pile or Pille, is apparently derived from the Greek Πύλαι.
Of literary production it is as yet too early to speak, for Ragusan literature only begins with the Renaissance.