me
the hill has had the name of S. Eufemia. The relics were taken by the
Genoese in 1380 and carried to Chioggia. The Venetians rescued them,
but carried them to S. Canciano, Venice, where they stayed for thirty
years. On their return to Rovigno in 1410 a storm drove the ship to the
salt-works in the Canal di Leme, where certain cattle-boats were
sheltering. The cattle jumped into the water and danced round the ship!
So, at least, a manuscript in the capitular archives relates. Scenes
from this legend are painted on the walls of the chapel. In the sacristy
is a fourteenth or fifteenth-century picture on a gold ground--a figure
of S. John the Baptist, with incidents from his life. It came from a
church dedicated to him which was destroyed in 1839.

[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS OF S. EUFEMIA, ROVIGNO]

Rovigno and the neighbourhood have suffered much from piracy. In 965 the
Slavs sacked the city. Into the harbour the Uscocs entered one night at
the beginning of 1597, and sacked a galley and ten ships laden with rich
merchandise belonging to Venice. In the port of Vestre (the birthplace
of Maximian of Ravenna), about three miles from Rovigno, an Uscoc ship,
with 150 men, attacked a ship of Cattaro which carried letters from the
doge of Venice, 6,000 ducats of public money and 4,000 of private, with
valuable merchandise. They took everything and also stripped the other
Venetian ships in the harbour, leaving the sailors nothing but their
shirts!

The Canal of Fasana, between the Brioni Islands and the mainland, a
little to the south, was the scene of the crushing defeat of the
Venetians by the Genoese in 1379. The quarries in these islands,
together with those of Rovigno, provided stone for the ducal and other
palaces, the Procuratie at Venice, the _murazzi_ at Chioggia, and the
mole at Malamocco. It is but a short distance hence to the entrance to
the magnificent harbour of Pola.

Craftsmen of Rovigno have made the name of the town celebrated, such as
the sculptors Lorenzo and Antonio del Vescovo, who worked in 1468 at
the Camaldulan church of Murano, and Taddeo da Rovigno, who did much
decorative carving in Venetian palaces. A more distinguished man was Fra
Sebastiano da Rovigno, the lame Slavonian (il Zoppo Schiavone), the
teacher of the still more celebrated _intarsiatore_, Fra Damiano of
Bergamo. Some of his works are in the choir and sacristy of S. Mark's,
Venice. The name of Donato of Parenzo is also coupled with th