itory of Vodizze was assigned for the
purpose, the bishop gave half of the tithes, fines inflicted were to go
to the fund, notaries were charged to remind testators to leave
something to the fabric, &c. If the community of Sebenico went back from
their promises they were to be fined 1,000 golden ducats. When the
towers protecting the mouth of the port were rebuilt in 1409 the
Venetians seized the stone prepared for the cathedral, but subsequently
paid 80 ducats of gold as compensation. The city became Venetian in
1412. In 1430, after some wavering, it was decided to add the bishop's
palace and the street between it and the church to the cathedral site.
The building was commenced in 1431, under Antonio, son of Pietro Paolo
Massegna, in the Gothic style as understood by the Venetians; but in
1441 he was superseded by Giorgio Orsini with a six years' engagement,
on the strength of a design which he had made showing how he proposed to
complete the building. The west door with its scroll-work of exaggerated
curvature, its pinnacled canopies supported on twisted columns, and
figures of various degrees of excellence, shows Antonio's capacity and
his limitations. The side door, which is rather simpler and in better
proportion, is in much the same style, but has foolish-looking lions on
brackets beneath the columns outside the door, with figures of Adam and
Eve interposed between the columns and the canopied tabernacles above,
which bear great resemblance to those in a similar position at Trau. The
pointed and cusped cornice of interlacing arches, surmounted by a cable
moulding, which continues to the end of the transept wall, seems to show
that the building had advanced as far as this point when Giorgio
appeared upon the scene in 1441. The arms of the Venetian rectors also
afford indications of the progress and intermissions of the work.

In the tracery of the windows of the central apse a modification of a
graceful Gothic pattern has been employed, resembling patterns used in
the campanile at Trau, combined with classic pilasters and colonnette
forms, but the greater part of the rest of the building is early
Renaissance. The aisles are roofed with a half-wagon vault above the
quadripartite pointed vaulting, forming a kind of triforium, which is,
however, inaccessible; the chapels at the sides of the choir have the
semicircular form of the roof of the nave and choir, perhaps suggested
by the temple at Spalato, now known as the b