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At Barbana the Virgin's picture waits on the pier to greet that from Grado; and report says that it has been observed to nod at the moment the sister picture reached the shore! There is a small steamer which plies from Grado to Trieste, going one day and returning the next, but fine weather is very necessary for that mode of travel, as the sea can be very rough between Venice and Trieste.

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.

The ravages of the plague were fearful, and practically depopulated the province, returning again and again till 1631. In the fourteenth century it decimated the Brioni Islands; no less than five Benedictine convents were abandoned three in Pola and one near Barbana d'Arsia, as well as that on the Brioni Islands. In Muggia an inscription states that half the population died in 1347. In 1361 Ossero was so devastated that two years later the bishop abandoned it and went to live in Zara. In 1371 the country round Pola was so afflicted that of seventy-two towns only eleven preserved their names, the rest disappearing without leaving any trace. In Cittanova in 1643 there were only ten inhabitants left, the bishop abandoned it to live in Buie or Verteneglio, and in 1686, as there were not enough citizens to constitute a council, they had to add strangers to make a quorum. Angelo Morosini, podest