154
RAGUSA
Notre Dame. The name of the master-builder is preserved in the cloister; he was M agister Mycha Petrarius Da Antivari. This beautiful, reposeful cloister is filled with orange trees, cactuses and evergreen shrubs, and in the centre is a graceful fountain, a column borne on an animal’s back and carrying a circular basin, from which rises a figure of the Saint. Above one side of the cloister, but at one time probably all round it, runs a terrace with a handsome balustrade of true Venetian type. The Franciscans’ cloister was near the Porta Pile gate, and they were expected to defend it. As we shall presently see, the Dominicans, at the other end of the city, were entrusted with the defence of their gate, the Porta Ploca ; nor was this the only bond between the two great rival orders in the city of Ragusa. By a custom which we must consider to be unique in the history of the orders, on the Feast of S. Francis the Dominicans celebrate and assist at the ceremonies in the Franciscan monastery, and on the Feast of S. Domenic the Franciscans do the like in the Dominican monastery. This demonstration of common brotherhood in the Western Church was probably brought about by the double pressure and threat, from the Orthodox Eastern Church—whose influence and power we