154 THE REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA
rebuilt since the earthquake, although here and there a few interesting details remain. Thus on the south side, opening on to the Stradone, there is a handsome doorway in the Venetian Gothic style, surmounted by a Pietà, a very fair piece of sculpture ; the date is probably the end of the fifteenth century. In the sacristy we find a Renaissance lavabo of carved stone. The campanile marks the transition from the Romanesque to the Gothic. The east window of the lower story and those on the second story are Venetian Gothic, while the south window of the lower story is round-arched. The top story with the cupola was rebuilt after the earthquake. But it is in the cloister that the chief interest of the building lies, a cloister which Mr. T. G. Jackson calls “ one of the most singular pieces of architecture I have ever seen.”1 Here we observe the most notable feature of Dalmatian architecture in all its force, for although its date is later than 1319 it is thoroughly Romanesque in character, and all the arches are round. It consists of a courtyard with three bays opening out into it on each side ; the openings are divided into six round-headed lights, each head being pierced by a large circular light. A series of coupled octagonal shafts standing one behind the other, with a common base and common abacus, but separate capitals, serve as mullions to the arches. The capitals are extremely quaint and curious. Each one is different from its fellows, and the architect seems to have let his fancy run riot in designing them, “ recalling the wildest and most grotesque fancies of early Romanesque work.”2 Some are adorned with simple
1 T. G. Jackson, Dalmatia, the Quarnero, and Tstria, ii. p. 372.
2	Jackson, ibid.