St. Trons was the former seat of the Parliament of Grisons. Its chief ecclesiastical[{20}] monument is a memorial chapel dedicated to St. Anne.
On its porch one may read the following inscription:
"In libertatem vocati estis
Ubi spiritus domini, ibi libertas
In te speraverunt patres
Speraverunt et liberasti oes."
Coire was the ancient Curia Rhætiorum. It is the capital of the Canton of Grisons, and was the seat of a bishop as early as 562. The Emperor Constantine made the town his winter quarters in the fourth century.
The church of St. Martin, to-day belonging to the Reformed Church, is an unconvincing and in no way remarkable monument, but in what is known as the Episcopal Court, behind great walls, tower-flanked and with heavily barred gateways, one comes upon evidences of the ecclesiastical importance of the town in other days.
The walls of the ancient "ecclesiastical city" enclose a plat nearly triangular in form. On one side are the canons' residences and other domestic establishments, and on[{21}] the other the cathedral and the bishop's palace.
In the episcopal palace are a number of fine portraits, which are more a record of manners and customs in dress than they are of churchly history.
The small cathedral and all the other edifices date from an eighth-century foundation, and are in the manifest Romanesque style of a very early period.
Within the cathedral are a number of funeral monuments of not much artistic worth and a series of paintings by Holbein and Dürer. As an art centre Coire would appear to rank higher than it does as a city of architectural treasures, for it was also the birthplace of Angelica Kauffmann, who was born here in 1741.
Ragatz is more famous as a "watering-place"—for the baths of Pfeffers are truly celebrated—than as a treasure-house of religious art, though in former days the abbey of Pfeffers was of great renown. Its foundation dates from 720, but the building as it exists to-day was only erected in 1665. The church, in part of marble, contains some good pictures. The abbey was formerly very wealthy, and its abbot bore the title of[{22}] prince. The convent is to-day occupied by the Benedictines, to whom also the baths belong.