United States or Armenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is Pirano on its headland, with the cathedral standing out against the sea, and with its crown of battlemented towers among cypresses and other trees which terminates the land as seen from the railway descending from Nabresina to Trieste; for, though the Point of Salvore stretches actually farther out, it is low, and does not catch the eye as Pirano does, especially when its characteristic silhouette is emphasised by the blue shadow of a passing cloud.
The town of Salvore seems to have been under the jurisdiction of Pirano, and the commune held a fair there on S. John the Baptist's Day, to celebrate the naval battle in 1177, in which Frederick Barbarossa was conquered in the deep bay between it and Pirano.
The next place along the coast, after passing the Promontory of Salvore and turning south, is Umago. It is sheltered behind a shoal, upon which the Chronicles say that the ship laden with the relics of S. Mark struck during a storm on its way to Venice. It was given as a feud to the bishop of Trieste in 929, at Pavia, by Ugo of Provence, king of Italy, and to the bishop of Cittanova in 1029 or 1038 by the Emperor Conrad. It had been sacked by the Slavs of Croatia and Dalmatia in 876, at the same time with Cittanova, Rovigno, and Sipar (at which last place very early wall-paintings are said to exist). It swore fealty to Venice in 1269; but very little is known of its history, the English apparently having burnt the archives in the piazza early in the nineteenth century. At that period no one seems to have thought that such things could be of any value; indeed at Portole, about 1850, the podest
The descent from the high land to the coast level is very fine, the eye ranging far over the blue water, headland projecting beyond headland, paler and more diaphanous, till the historic point of Salvore fades into the distance scarcely distinguishable.
Word Of The Day