t now is, the Piazza
Tartini occupying the site of part of it. In 1320 the Venetians sent
three engineers to construct a port, but all that was done was to
strengthen the inner harbour as then existing. The chain which closed it
was replaced by a drawbridge in 1578, shown in a picture in the
cathedral, but this was demolished in 1894.

In 1379 the Genoese fleet of fifteen galleys demanded the surrender of
Pirano. Reply was made with cannon-shots which sank three large ships,
and the others sailed away. It was the only Istrian city which thus
repelled the Genoese attack, and the incident is also interesting as
showing that the Venetians used bombards before the war of Chioggia.

The statute is more ancient than those of most of the neighbouring
cities, and gives curious details as to pains and penalties and
municipal regulations. The penalty for mutilation was a corresponding
mutilation unless the fine prescribed was paid. The making of false
money was punished with death. The false witness, if insolvent, lost his
right nostril, and his name was published as a perjurer on the stair of
the communal palace. He who destroyed the property of another lost his
right hand. But there was no public executioner; and there are many
records of the flight of guilty persons, though an intention to make
"the punishment fit the crime" is evident. No one was allowed to build a
house close to the walls, and thatch was forbidden. A blasphemer was
pilloried for a day (a list of illegal words and phrases is attached to
this section). Workmen were forbidden to receive more than the wage
prescribed, butchers had to accept the price fixed for meat by the
justices, and the times and places for fishing were specified. The
commune had an inn "let to an honest man," with six good beds, which he
had to provide. No one else was allowed to let rooms till 1469, when the
payment of a tax of three ducats a year entitled the payer to a license.
In 1484 interest on loans was fixed at 20 per cent., and Jews were
allowed to charge no more. This people enjoyed considerable liberties,
as in Venice, and corresponding concessions were made to them. With the
establishment of a "Monte di Pieta" their occupation was gone, and they
migrated to Trieste. The commune paid a chief bombardier, a captain of
ordnance, a palace chaplain, two doctors and a surgeon, a canon of the
Community, a master of arithmetic, a professor of humanities and
rhetoric, and a preacher for L