Damian and broke the chain of the
port. The Venetian trenches consisted of a bastion 200 yards long and
100 yards broad built of wood on three sides. On the east it had ten
towers, as many on the west, and fourteen on the north, being open on
the south towards the fleet. They now controlled 25,000 men. On June 2,
Ladislas of Hungary came to help the besieged, and encamped at Zemonico,
seven miles away, with 100,000 cavalry. On July 10 he advanced close to
the city with 2,000 of his best men. The citizens welcomed him with much
joy, and the next day sent legates with great solemnity to offer him the
keys of the city. On the 16th he attacked the bastion. On the 20th,
Bernardo, patriarch of Aquileia, entered the city; but the king held
aloof. The Venetians tried in vain to make terms, and the Zaratines
attacked the bastion with good heart, burning one of the towers; but the
Hungarians only looked on while the Venetians repelled the assault. The
king's behaviour is mysterious. On July 30 he returned to Vrana, and so
to Hungary; and, although his promised envoys went to Venice, they went
for other purposes. He appears to have been using Zara as a pawn in some
great game. Famine obliged the Zaratines to surrender, and the
Venetians entered the city on December 21, 1347, the war having lasted
two years and six months, and having cost the Republic from 40,000 to
60,000 ducats a month for soldiers' pay alone, without counting the
shipping. Eleven years later Zara again became Hungarian, but was
finally ceded to Venice in 1413 by the peace of Trieste.

The dialect spoken in the city is pure Venetian, and the municipality is
the only Italian one in Dalmatia. Zara is still the capital, and the
diet meets in the city. Here, too, are the only Italian schools in the
province, the Slav majority in most places exercising its power to veto
everything Italian. The only flourishing industry is the manufacture of
maraschino, of which 300,000 bottles are exported annually. The
cherries, which are the raw material, are imported from Sebenico,
Almissa, and Poljica, near Spalato. The streets are narrow and
impossible for carriage traffic; merchandise is put upon long narrow
carts, with long poles projecting in front and cross-pieces at the end;
the cart is then pushed and pulled by several men. The population is
13,000, and is increased by many country people in the mornings, who
come to market, so that the streets and piazzas are crowded with a