ost hiding the
minarets of the town, while, to the north, Spizza is perched on red
rocks rising steeply from the water. There is a great waterfall, which
appears to fall sheer into the sea, with a mill just at its foot. Budua,
which is fifteen miles from Cattaro, is something like Arbe in
situation, crowning a projecting peninsula, and with grey mountains
towering above it. It was a Roman fortress, known as Buta, and one of
the keys to the interior. It was sacked by Saracen pirates in the ninth
century, and in 1571 the Turks fell on it and burnt it. In 1687 it was
defended against them by a Cornaro, but contains nothing of sufficient
importance to repay the trouble of a visit.

XXV

THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCES OF THE TWO SHORES

Between the Eastern and Western shores of the Adriatic there has been
constant communication, either peaceful or bellicose, from the earliest
times, for the sea was a highway traversed with equal ease by the
enterprising merchant or the daring pirate. While the resulting
influence of one coast on the other was considerable, more distant lands
from which the way was open by the same course can be shown to have also
affected the progress of art and craft on either side of the
sea--Byzantium, North Africa, and the countries between being the
strongest factors. The occurrence of Syrian _motifs_ at Ravenna and
Spalato is frequent, both in ornament and construction; peculiar
expedients which were used in Tunis and other parts of North Africa
appear in Lombard or Comacine work, while the influence of Alexandrian
and Antiochene art on the styles which preceded and prepared the genesis
of Romanesque ornament appears incontestable. The close relations
between the two coasts at the period when they were governed from one
centre, either Eastern or Western, make these influences probable.
Ecclesiastical controversies at times affected portions of both, while
their common Christianity necessarily produced community of interests
and sympathy for the woes which one side or the other suffered from the
incursions of heathen and barbarous hordes. Nor must the commercial
relations be forgotten, by which, in the earlier mediaeval period,
objects of luxury, which served as models for the local artists, were
spread to all points of the Mediterranean basin, and at the period of
the Renaissance the manufacture of such objects as the plaquettes of
bronze or lead which appear to have been produced in Italy especi