The builder of the main part
of the cathedral was Bishop Treguanus, a Florentine who came from
Hungary, and was bishop from 1206 till about 1256. The south door bears
the date 1213, the great west door 1240, but the west gable has the arms
of Bishop Casotti (1362-1371) upon it, and the campanile was not
finished till 1598. The plan shows a nave and aisles five bays in
length, terminating in three apses, while to the west is a broad and
lofty porch, above one end of which the tower rises. This porch is
entered by an arch at the south end, but there is another opposite the
great west door; and at the further end is the fifteenth-century
baptistery. Round it runs a low seat with arcaded panelling, which
serves as base to all the shafts. It is vaulted in three bays, with
twisted colonnettes in the angles of the piers. The vaulting is
quadripartite, with ribs and two arches three feet broad repeating the
divisions of the nave, all the arches being round. The central
compartment rises like a dome upon the surface of the terrace above. In
the aisle walls are two pierced circular windows, Romanesque in design.
In one, two dragons are represented devouring a man; in the other are
two lions rearing against a twisted pillar on which is a cup. The bodies
are broken, and the tails, which remain, encroach upon the wall surface.

[Illustration: PLAN OF THE CATHEDRAL, TRAU]

The great west door is the pride of all Dalmatia, and is unsurpassed in
the elaborate richness of its carving. It is dated in the lintel
inscription 1240, and signed Raduanus, a Slav name Radovan latinised.
There are two orders and a tympanum with octagonal shafts in the angles,
those nearest the door apparently having fragments of highly carved work
inserted, since the plain octagonal shaft is visible both above and
below the carving. A flattish gable surmounts it, with a kind of
tabernacle work at each end above the figures of Adam and Eve, and a
cresting of crockets shaped like eighth-century crockets in a similar
situation. In the centre is a little niche with a later figure of S.
Laurence, the patron saint. The tympanum is occupied by the subject of
the Nativity, arranged in two stages. In the centre above is a curtained
recess, with the Virgin in bed, and the Child in a kind of cradle, above
which the heads of the ox and ass appear. Over them are two angels, one
of whom holds a star from which rays stream down on the Child, whilst
the other speaks to the she