CHURCH OF THE CONFRATERNITY OF THE ROSARY

In other parts of the Republic’s territory some few buildings of architectural interest survive. At Gravosa there are no churches of importance, but some fine villas, of which the most remarkable is that of Count Caboga; in the general style of its architecture it recalls the loggia of the Rector’s Palace. It was at Gravosa that the nobles of Ragusa had their villeggiatura, and all about among the pleasant groves of the Lapad promontory or on the banks of the Ombla rose many a stately pleasure-house, filled with works of art and books, and surrounded by lovely gardens. Most of them, alas! were plundered and burnt during the French wars and the Montenegrin invasion, and only a few now remain. Other more modern ones have sprung up, some inhabited by the descendants of these same noble families, others by wealthy merchants who have acquired fortunes in America. The villas among the hills at Giochetto and Bergato have nearly all been destroyed.

On the Isola di Mezzo there are two castles, several churches and monasteries, and ruins of other edifices. The principal church is that of Santa Maria del Biscione, on the south side of the island; it is a fifteenth-century building, in the Venetian Gothic style, and contains, among other objects, an altar-piece of quaint design—a group of wooden, painted figures; according to the local tradition they were brought by a native of Mezzo from England, where he had bought them from Henry VIII.’s private chapel, as that monarch, having become a Protestant, was selling its effects by auction. But Professor Gelcich gives extracts from local records, proving it to be seventeenth-century work by one “Magister Urbanus Georgii de Tenum Derfort Banakus fabrolignarius.”[517] The chancel has a good waggon ceiling of blue panels, and some handsome stonework. The Dominican church, also in the Italian Pointed style, is dismantled; its campanile of the fifteenth century has the “midwall shafts” of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries.[518] In the Franciscan monastery, of the same period (1484), there are some beautiful Gothic choir-stalls, of which Mr. Graham Jackson remarks that it is interesting to find that even in this late work the leaves retain “the crisp Byzantine raffling, and are packed within one another and fluted quite in the ancient manner, while the little capitals of the elbow posts have still more thoroughly the look of Byzantine work.”[519] The two castles are little more than picturesque ruins, and scattered about the islands are the remains of some eighteen or twenty chapels; in the village several houses that once belonged to families of position bear traces of carving, Venetian balconies and windows, and coats-of-arms.

At Stagno there are some interesting fortifications of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. This position was of great strategic value, as it is a narrow isthmus connecting the long peninsula of Sabbioncello with the mainland. A large square castle was erected at Stagno Grande, looking southwards towards Ragusa, another with a round tower at Stagno Piccolo, on the north side of the isthmus, and a third at the top of the hill between the two. Both towns were surrounded by walls;[520] a long wall goes right across the neck of land, and another clambers up the hill to the highest of the three castles and down the other side to Stagno Piccolo. The appearance of these battlemented walls, with towers at frequent intervals, is most impressive, and they were a most remarkable piece of work for their time. They secured Ragusa from attack, whether from the Venetians at the mouths of the Narenta, or from the Slavonic princelings of the hinterland, and later from the Turks. Both in Stagno Grande and in Stagno Piccolo there are some churches and private houses with architectural decorations. The Franciscan monastery at the former place has a cloister in the best Dalmatian style, and in a field near the salt-pans is a small church, which may be of the Romanesque period.

It is obvious that Ragusan architecture was strongly, indeed prevalently, inspired by Venetian example, both in the work which we have called Venetian Gothic and in that of the Renaissance period. Although, as a rule, the earlier artistic forms survived much longer in Dalmatia than in Italy, the Dalmatians showed what Graham Jackson calls “a natural and almost precocious liking for the Renaissance style.” Giorgi Orsini’s work at Sebenico actually preceded that of Leon Battista Alberti at Rimini by nine years. Another peculiarity of Ragusan architecture is that the names of so few of the artists themselves are preserved, and most of those who are remembered were foreigners. There were doubtless many native artists, but Ragusan talent seems to have been of a collective rather than an individual character, and much of the work was probably done by master-masons, stone-cutters, and similar craftsmen, and may have been the outcome of the general artistic feeling of the people rather than the conception of great masters.

In painting the Dalmatians were less conspicuous than in architecture, and if we except the tradition that Carpaccio was a native of Cattaro, we know of no great painter of that country. With regard to Ragusa there are a few specimens of native art, but hardly a record of the life of any painter. Appendini (ii. p. 170) does not know of any Ragusan painter earlier than the fifteenth century, but it is probable that some of the pictures in the Dominican monastery, which are of an earlier date, are by a native brush. Professor Gelcich mentions a guild of painters in the sixteenth century with nineteen members, all so poor that they had to be subsidised by the State. But there is one Ragusan artist whose works are preserved, and whose name at least is recorded. This is Niccolò Raguseo, or Nicolaus Ragusinus as he signs himself. Several of his paintings may be seen in the Dominican monastery and in the Chiesa alle Dance. In the latter he is represented by a triptych of very considerable merit, with a predella and a lunette. The middle panel is a group of the Virgin and Child surrounded by cherubs. The Madonna wears a red robe with a cloak of rich cloth-of-gold, on which an elaborate pattern is picked out in dark blue. This design is not adapted to the folds, but drawn as though on a flat surface. The Child is holding some fruit; the cherubs have scarlet wings, and in the background is a gilt nimbus. At the feet of the Virgin kneels the infant St. John, in whose hands is a scroll with the words:

VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO DIRIGITE VIAM DNI.

On the plinth of the throne is another inscription:

M. CCCCC.XVII—MENSIS FEBRVARII——
NICOLVAS—RHAGVSINVS—PINGEBAT.