368 THE REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA
covered by the plaques is filled in with the most delicate enamels of flowers, fruit, leaves, pearls, insects, and scroll work. This reliquary is said by Resti to have been brought to Ragusa in 1026, but Graham Jackson proves it to belong to two widely different periods. The medallions are Byzantine work of the eleventh or twelfth century, whereas the intervening scrolls of flowers, &c., are of a much later date, and, in fact, Jackson discovered the inscription in a corner of the lower edge: “Franco. Ferro Venet0. F. A. 1694.” 1
    Another treasure is the curious silver-gilt basin and ewer attributed to Giovanni Progonovic, a jeweller of the fifteenth century, but more probably foreign work, as the plate mark—an N within a circle—is not that of Ragusa.2 The ewer contains imitations of bunches of dried leaves and grasses in silver, and the basin is strewn with ferns and leaves, in the midst of which creep lizards, eels, snakes, and other animals, all wrought in silver, and enamelled and tinted so as to deceive one into believing them real. It is an extraordinary piece of work, but more strange than beautiful. It is probably not older than the early seventeenth century. There are many other specimens of the jeweller’s art in this collection, reliquaries, chalices, cups, &c., mostly by natives, and some of them very handsome.
    The little silver statuette of St. Blaize in the church of that saint is interesting historically as well as artistically, because the figure bears a model of the town before the great earthquake. The head is excellent both in expression and workmanship, and the exquisitely chased
1 For a more detailed description, see Graham Jackson, vol. ii. p. 354.
2	Ibid., ii. p. 356.