ntel of the door has an
inscription upon it with diamond-shaped O's, as used in the eighth
century. The ornamental carving also is consistent with that period in
its design, with crosses of interlaced work in the centre and at the
ends, two griffins with tails entwined in a circle, one on each side of
a central feature, with a rosette within a cable moulding, and rough
trefoils filling up gaps. The interior has nave and aisles, with four
stilted arches resting upon columns on each side, and three apses (of
which the central one is larger and longer than the others) with two
niches in the wall, covered by a semi-dome on squinches, the plan being
square. The caps and columns appear to be antique for the most part, and
just outside is a shallow cap of the same pattern as one at Kairouan.
The aisles are very narrow, and are vaulted with cross-vaulting without
ribs, but with strengthening arches thrown across to the wall. The nave
has a barrel vault with pilaster strips running up to the springing of
the strengthening arches, which are all round and unmoulded. A moulding
with three projecting corbels runs round the base of the apse vault. It
is said that there was once a central cupola. The east window still
retains a lattice-pierced slab. The church is now a store-house for odds
and ends, with a floor halfway up over the western part, but the podesta
told me that they hoped to clear it out and make it into a museum.

S. Domenico retains portions of Gothic work. The building was finished
in 1372. A rough relief in the tympanum shows a Virgin and Child, and on
the right a local saint, Augustino Cassioti, canonised by Pope John
XXII. (1313-1334), with mitre and pectoral, and on the left S. Mary
Magdalene. At the feet of the saint kneels the foundress, his sister
Bitcula. A Gothic inscription gives her name, and that of the sculptor,
"Maiste Nicolai de te dito cervo d Venecia fecit hoc opvs." Within are a
picture of the Circumcision by Palma Giovane, with a pretty Virgin, the
marble sarcophagus of the family Sobota, a grandiose Renaissance
production, and six panels of saints on gold ground, rather like the
Gubbio school in style, arranged in threes on the wall of the choir.

The cathedral, however, is the glory of Trau. It replaces an earlier
building, reported to have dated from the sixth century, but destroyed
by the Saracens in 1123. At this time the Traurines fled to Spalato, and
apparently did not venture back till 1152.