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RAGUSA
Britain and the North Sea,—though occasionally interrupted by internal troubles in Bosnia or Serbia, nevertheless now reached its apogee. The great buildings of the city, the Rector’s Palace, the enlarged Dogana, or Custom House, the aqueduct, date from this period.
  But even as far back as 1459 a new and dreaded power, the Turks, had begun to make their presence felt. They had entered Serbia, and between 1468 and 1482 Bosnia, Herzegovina and Sutorina, with Castelnuovo on the Bocche di Cattaro, had fallen into their hands. The Turkish menace was closing round Ragusa; nor was it, indeed, the first time that Ragusans had been brought into contact with the Crescent. As early as 1397 the Republic entered into treaty with Sultan Bajazet, and, as usual, had arranged matters by agreeing to a tribute which continued to be exacted by the Porte as late as the year 1804. The battle of Mohacs (1572) put an end to the brief and shadowy Hungarian supremacy. But with the Turkish domination over the Ragusan hinterland and the misrule and confusion which, as usual, went with it, Ragusan commerce gradually and slowly began to dwindle; the stream of traffic was hampered in its course through Turkish-governed