Ragusa

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

a city of Dalmatia; on the E. shore of the Adriatic, 100 miles S. E. of Spalato and opposite the Gulf of Manfredonia in Italy. It is surrounded with strong walls, and contains several striking and interesting buildings, chief among them being the palace of the rectors in the Gothic and Classic Renaissance styles between 1435 and 1464; the custom house and mint, dating from before 1312; the Dominican church (1306) and monastery (1348), the former containing a picture by Titian, the Franciscan church and monastery (1317); the Church of St. Biagio (Blaise), the patron saint of the town, built in 1348- 1352, rebuilt in 1715; and the churches of San Salvatore and Alle Dancé. The city seems to have been colonized by refugees from Epidaurus, Salona, and other Græco-Roman towns destroyed by the Slav invaders of the Balkan peninsula. For some centuries Ragusa was Roman outpost on the edge of the Slav states, and flourished greatly under the suzerain protection of Byzantium. Toward the end of the 12th century Ragusa was made to acknowledge the supremacy of Venice. In 1358 Venice ceded her Dalmatian possessions to Hungary, and from that time down to the era of the Napoleonic wars Ragusa was generally accustomed to look to Hungary (i. e., the German empire) for help against her enemies, though from the beginning of the 15th century she was a free and independent republic. Ragusa took a prominent place among the trading states of the Mediterranean, due to her and the empire of the Turks, and the RAY. privileges she enjoyed of trading freely with the subjects of the Sultan. Her Her "argosies" (i. e., "vessels of Ragusa": see ARGOSY) traded as far as the Baltic. Ragusa was the home from the middle of the 15th century of a remarkable literary movement, stimulated by the Renaissance (see SERBIA). During the course of the Napoleonic wars the French entered the city in 1805; this led the Russians to bombard the place. But in 1808 Napoleon declared the republic of Ragusa to be at an end, and in the following year incorporated it in the kingdom of Illyria. Since 1814, like the rest of the Dalmatian seaboard, it has belonged to Austria. Ragusa had, however, long before this declined from her former greatness. Pop. about 15,000.