e commencement of
Giorgio's work in that part; the same moulding occurs in the same
relative position in the ambos to which he assigns the date of 1547: and
one does not quite understand why the same detail should not have the
same origin in both places. The only contract of 1547, quoted by Mgr.
Fosco, is one with "Checcus" of Padua for 350 squared paving-stones and
for laying them.

[Illustration: SOUTH-EAST PORTION OF CHOIR, CATHEDRAL, SEBENICO

_To face page 254_]

Whatever part George of Sebenico had in the construction he must be
classed with the great architectural designers. Leo Battista Alberti
commenced the recasing of S. Francesco, Rimini, which is generally
quoted as the earliest Renaissance work in Italy, in 1446, and the stone
for the work was imported from Istria. In that year Giorgio's first
contract was renewed for ten years. The Lombardi were then only
commencing their work. S. Zaccaria at Venice was built by Martino in
1456, and the Scuola di S. Marco in 1485. Pietro was engaged on the
Madonna dei Miracoli in 1483. So that Giorgio's work antedates theirs by
some years. He had numerous pupils, whose names have been recorded; the
other workmen came from Durazzo, Curzola, and Spalato. The best known of
them, Andrea Alexis, the Albanian of Durazzo, was much employed in
Spalato, Arbe, and Trau.

The votive church of S. Salvatore, just inside the Porta Pile, Ragusa,
built in 1522 after the earthquake of 1520, and designed by Bartolommeo
da Mestre, master mason at Sebenico in 1528, bears considerable
resemblance to the cathedral.

The door of Giorgio's house is beyond that of the sacristan, in a
narrow street, the Contrada S. Gregorio. To reach it, one leaves the
piazza by a slope beyond the Loggia, the ancient palace of the council
of the Nobles, a building of 1522, now a social club. The slope affords
a view of the enclosure in which the "vere" of the communal wells still
remain, four circular well-heads, with the symbols of the Evangelists
and coats of arms in roundels upon them, surrounded by cable mouldings,
four on each. Sebenico now has a fine water-supply brought from the
Kerka, twelve miles away, and they are no longer in use. The
aqueduct--the first constructed in Dalmatia in modern times--is named
the Lott-Brunnen, in commemoration of the clever engineer who designed
it.

Near the cathedral is the little church of S. Barbara; the bell-turret
on the wall is used as its campanile. In the nort