The Republic of Ragusa. By Luigi Villari. (J. M. Dent
and Co. 10s. 6d. net.)—Signor Villari explores this bypath of history very carefully and thoroughly. Ragusa, according to the more generally received opinion, occupies approximately the site of Epidaurus. (To speak more exactly, the actual successor of the colony is Ragusavecchia.) It came into being, or reached the dignity of a town, some time in the seventh century of our era, after the invasion of the Tartar tribe of the Avars. It bears a certain resemblance, magnis componere parva, to Venice, though their physical characteristics are very different. "It is built partly on a precipitous rocky ridge jutting out into the Adriatic, -nd partly on the mainland, ascending the steep slopes of the Monte Sergio." Its external history shows us what we might expect : a state of varying dependence on one or another more powerful neighbour,—the Eastern Empire, Venice, or Hungary. Hungary was the easiest suzerain ; it was satisfied with a tribute ; Venice wanted commercial advantages. One might find a parallel in the case of a shopkeeper who would sooner pay rent to a squire living in the country than to a rival in the same street. Signor Villari carefully follows the changes in Ragusa's foreign relations. In its internal politics there was little variation. The town had a fair approach to autonomy, its constitution being oligarchical, "essentially copied from that of Venice, and designed above all to make personal government im- possible." Another resemblance presents itself as we follow the
history,—Tyre. The place lived by its trade, and imported almost all its food. In the fifteenth century a new power, the Turk, makes its appearance. The fall of Constantinople was followed by a long period of peril to Ragusa. Somehow, by force of arms or of money, it managed to survive, and even to prosper. After the first quarter of the sixteenth century the city seems to have reached its acme. Then began the decline; the end came in 1816, when the Republic passed under the dominion of Austria. Art is represented chiefly by the architecture, of which the city shows some fine examples. In letters it cannot be said to have produced any one of more than local fame.
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