hich is the date of the first certain
mention of the church; but in Istria and Dalmatia styles lingered late.
It is said to have been built by the Castropola in 1285, and a
half-obliterated inscription by the door records the date of 1406, when
a provincial Franciscan council was held in the church. On each side
of the door is a window of two trefoiled lights with slender shafts, and
above it a rose with Gothic tracery. The interior has a simple unvaulted
nave, a choir of one bay with cross vaulting, and a small chapel,
probably the sepulchral chapel of the Castropola, since their arms are
on the windows. The only remaining piece of the cloister serves as
entrance portico. The little garden outside the principal door has a
bowling-alley beneath a vine pergola, from which there is a beautiful
view over the bay; and in it grow trees of euonymus and oleander with
thick trunks, and an aloe, besides the usual roses, peaches, and
mulberries.

[Illustration: WEST DOORWAY, S. FRANCESCO, POLA

_To face page 154_]

The communal palace was built in 1296; the back portion is part of the
second temple. Some portions of the ancient building remain on the right
flank. It was the palace of the Margrave of Istria, and later of the
Venetian rectors or counts of Pola. According to Kandler, the figure of
a knight upon it represents Albert II., Count of Istria. The Genoese
damaged the palace in 1390, but it was restored the next year. After the
facade fell in 1651, it was rebuilt in its present form, with material
from S. Maria Formosa, but it was not finished till 1703. During the
last years of the Republic the count lived in the back portion, had his
stables in the temple of Augustus and his kitchen in the other temple.

The castle was built on the ruins of the Capitol, probably about 1200.
Within was the habitation of the count, a three-naved chapel, arsenal,
lodging for two hundred soldiers, &c. The Sergii seized it in 1271 and
became known as Castropolae. Here the captains of the people lived, who
ruled Pola for the sixty-three years before 1328. The count was a civil
governor, and after 1331, when the Polese gave themselves to Venice, had
authority in the lower city; but a _provveditore_ was appointed for the
castle, who had a captain, a sergeant, two lieutenants, and eighty
soldiers under his command. In 1638 the two offices were united. The new
castle was commenced after the plague of 1632 from the designs of the
Frenchman Devil