mira shows a pleasing
combination of late Gothic and Renaissance detail in pierced panels and
balustrading; and the _parroco_ lives in a house which has a good
doorway of the usual Venetian-Gothic type. The house in which Archbishop
De Dominis was born (for some time Dean of Windsor, and celebrated for
his scientific attainments), a palace of somewhat later date, is now a
kind of club and reading-room, in which the innkeeper apparently has the
right of serving his patrons with meals. The families of De Dominis and
De Hermolais gave many bishops to the see between the twelfth and
fifteenth centuries. The loggia is well preserved or has been well
restored. Overlooking it is a window from which a parrot screams
insulting remarks to passers-by.

Arbe was known to the ancients as part of Liburnia. Pliny mentions it,
and so does Porphyrogenitus. There was a second city in the island in
antiquity called Colento, of which every trace has disappeared. The
island belonged sometimes to the Croats, sometimes to Byzantium, and
sometimes to Hungary, but from 1115 was mainly under the influence of
Venice. The history of the Church goes back to the tenth century, but
the first bishops' names are uncertain. A Zaraitan record of 986
mentions a Bishop Petrus. In 1062 a Bishop Dragus is named as being at
the consecration of S. Pietro in Valle, the oldest Benedictine convent
in Arbe. In the communal archives are preserved the oldest MSS. of the
kings of Dalmatia and Croatia of the tenth century.

The cathedral is a basilica with nave and aisles. The main apse is
octagonal outside and semicircular within; the apse to the north aisle
also exists; that of the south aisle has been replaced by a square
chapel. The nave arcade consists of six bays of round arches, resting on
five pairs of columns which, though they are made up with plaster and
painted, are probably antique, since the caps differ enormously in
height and column and cap frequently do not fit. Some of the capitals
might be late Roman, but most of them are very rude imitations.
Super-abaci are used. The ciborium is hexagonal and rests on six columns
of Greek cipollino, with the top and bottom mouldings worked on them;
the caps are Byzantine of the sixth or seventh century, but without
super-abaci. The front arches have huge Renaissance swags in the
spandrils and a moulded cornice with classic enrichments; at the back
are three ninth-century panels with arch and spandril in one piece