o foreigners to induce them to re-people the
city. At the downfall of the Venetian Republic the population barely
amounted to 600 souls.

The popular tradition of the destruction of the Castropola (who had made
themselves lords of Pola) runs thus: Andrea di Tonata, the head of the
popular faction, arranged a conspiracy to free the city. The moment
chosen was the evening of Good Friday, during the annual procession
called "of the wood of the Holy Cross," which went round the city,
starting from the cathedral. Near the church of S. Stefano (which was
within the walls at the foot of the castle hill) the conspirators,
disguised in the dress of members of the Confraternity of S. Stephen,
drawing their daggers at a given signal, threw themselves upon the
Castropola, who were in a separate group in the procession, not thinking
of danger, and killed them. Then, calling on the people to rise, the
conspirators led them to the assault of the neighbouring castle, which
they took by surprise, killing any of the family or their adherents whom
they met. Only one child escaped, owing his life to the devotion of a
servant who hid him when the crowd had actually entered the castle, and
let him down by a cord into the Franciscan convent just below, from
which a monk took him secretly out of the city to one of the country
places belonging to the family. This tradition is not historical, for
the family continued in Pola till the fall of the Signory, and
flourished afterwards in Venice and Treviso; but there was certainly a
rising then in which the houses of certain of their adherents were
sacked. Two members of the aristocracy were appointed captains of the
people, but after a month they decided to give themselves to Venice; by
the Act of Dedition the Castropola were banished from Pola, Istria,
Friuli, and Schiavonia, though they were allowed to retain their
property. Their principal adherents were also banished. In 1334 an
attempt to regain the Signory caused the Polese to ask the Senate to
dismantle the castle, which was done, and the houses of the two heads of
the family were also destroyed. So Pola became a mere appanage of
Venice.

XIII

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ISTRIAN COAST

Istria is in great part a dry and stony land, but there are valleys with
streams and woods. It slopes to the west and south with a tolerably
continuous declivity, so that the base of the triangular peninsula is on
the whole the highest part. Much of th