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The mouth is known as Porto Torre, from a little place on the Parenzo side of the river. The city was a Roman colony with the name Æmonia, and the seat of an early Istrian bishop. A few years ago some seventy carved slabs of the eighth or ninth century were discovered face downwards in the pavement of the crypt of the basilica, which appear to have belonged to the font and choir enclosure.
In 1632 the Venetian Senate ordered the provveditore of the castle, Pola, to inform himself as to the number and quantity of the columns of "noble architecture" which were in one of the ruinous churches, and on August 21, 1638, praised the diligence of Bragadin in sending marbles for S. Maria della Salute. He had sent fourteen columns in April, and information of others at Parenzo.
On the Porta della Campana the length of the dagger which was allowed is marked, and the town still preserves one of the "Bocche de' leoni" which were used for secret denunciations. The communal palace was built in 1270, one year before Parenzo gave herself to Venice. Games of cards and dice were allowed under its portico and in the loggia, where the players were under the eyes of the guards.
And, in order that poor and talented young men should not be cut off from the possibility of learning, this town, and, after its example, Isola, Muggia, Parenzo, Pola, and Trieste established scholarships at the University of Padua, where Istrian professors became rectors. But, even in the fourteenth century, there were already school teachers in Pirano, Muggia, and Capodistria.
It seems certain that it is an Oriental importation, especially in connection with the fact that the free-standing apse, as in the earlier church at Parenzo and at Salona, occurs quite frequently in Cilicia and Lycaonia, as Miss Lowthian Bell shows. Between Grado and Aquileia is a little island with a celebrated church, S. Maria di Barbana.
Tartini's father, who was an elected Nobile of Parenzo, being a pious Church benefactor, intended his son for the Church, and sent him to an ecclesiastical school at Capo d'Istria, where he received his first instruction in music. Finding himself very much averse to an ecclesiastical career, Tartini entered the University of Padua to study law, but this also proved distasteful to him.
By the road we passed every now and then farmers' houses, such as the one illustrated, and met groups of peasants going into Parenzo to the festa. As we got further from the city the men were collected in groups, talking, smoking, or playing bowls; whilst the women also by themselves, in knots of as many as twenty, were seated together enjoying a gossip.
The next town along the coast, Parenzo, is celebrated for its fine sixth-century cathedral, the pride of the whole of Istria "the land of basilicas," and is the headquarters of the Istrian Archæological Society, several of whose members have devoted much time and money to the elucidation of the history, construction, and decoration of the building.
It was Easter Eve on the occasion of our first visit to Parenzo, and while we were studying the architecture women were constantly bringing their Easter cakes and other food to be blessed at the altar of S. Maurus in the north aisle. Later there was a Resurrection service with a fine procession, with many men and boys robed in scarlet carrying long candles.
Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno were all outposts of the Venetian Republic, forming an outer line of defense against the Slav barbarians of the interior. Everything about them speaks of Venice: the snarling Lion of St.
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