later additions. The material is silver, parcel-gilt.

[Illustration: PLAN AND ELEVATION OF ONE BAY OF CLOISTER, DOMINICAN
CONVENT, RAGUSA]

The treasury contains reliquaries and chalices, and a Gothic monstrance,
but nothing of great interest. The south door has round arches beneath
an ogee hood, the jambs are ornamented with damaged scrolled leafage,
and in the tympanum is a figure of S. Dominic. The apse of the chapel
close by is Romanesque, and, with the flight of steps to the door and
the foliage of a tree which overhangs them, makes a picturesque
background to the groups of Herzegovinians who pass on their way from
the Porta Ploce to the Stradone. The cloister is, however, the most
picturesque part of the convent. Beneath round arches smaller cusped
round arches with shafts and caps are grouped in threes, the head having
two circles within it, sometimes pierced as quatrefoils, sometimes with
an interlacing pattern with Oriental suggestion, and reminding one of
the patterns in a similar situation in the cloister at Tarragona. The
same mixture of ornamental _motifs_ may be noticed in the richly carved
moulding which terminates the wall beneath the parapet. The well in the
centre is of 1623, but takes its place among the trees, flowers, and
warm-toned stone quite pleasantly. Above towers the campanile containing
two old bells, one cast by Battista of Arbe in 1516, and one by
Bartolommeo of Cremona, in 1363. It was built by a Ragusan, Fra Stefano,
in 1424, and has three stories of two-light windows, with mid-wall
shafts under round arches, and a crowning octagonal stage. The
enlargement of the church and convent was executed by the architect
Pasqualis Michaelis, just referred to.

[Illustration: LAVABO IN SACRISTY OF FRANCISCAN CONVENT, RAGUSA

_To face page 353_]

The Franciscan convent is at the other end of the Stradone, just inside
the Porta Pile. The Order was at first established outside; but the
convent founded in 1235 was destroyed by the Republic to prevent the
Servians from using it as shelter, and in 1315 the monks came within the
walls. It is said that S. Francis himself came to Ragusa in 1220, and
several of the Franciscan convents in Dalmatia claim to have been
founded by him. The church has a late Gothic doorway on the south, with
an ogee tympanum bearing a Pieta, and flanked by pinnacled niches which
have statues of SS. John the Baptist and Jerome; above is a figure of a
bearded saint holding a b