On the way to the church of Ognissanti the Palazzo Arneri is passed; it has a fine knocker in the manner of John of Bologna--Neptune standing and controlling two lions, a design of which there are examples in Padua and elsewhere. The church of All Saints was built in 1303. It has been modernised, but still retains a ciborium with quatrefoil piercings and angle pinnacles, bearing much resemblance to that in the cathedral. A stair leads to a Greek church, in which are several painted wood crucifixes and Byzantine pictures.
Some forty minutes away, on a small island to the east, is the Franciscan convent, La Badia, a building of the fifteenth century for the most part, containing a rather pretty cloister of white marble erected in 1477. The arches are stilted, pointed, and trefoiled, arranged in groups of three, with wider slightly segmental openings with cuspings for entrances. The spandrils are filled with Gothic leafage, the bases and caps to the columns are early Renaissance, and the frieze is quite plain, with a dentilled cornice. The church is not interesting architecturally; the western façade is imitated from the cathedral, but it contains a crucifix brought from Bosnia by refugees after the battle of Kossovo.
[Illustration: TRAVELLING AT EASE: AMONG THE ISLANDS
The plague of 1558 smote Curzola very heavily, and as years went by it sank lower and lower. The convenience of the neighbouring pine-woods, the two ports between which the town lies, and the existence of Porto Pedocchio caused the Venetians to move their arsenal hither from Lesina in 1776; and during the last century it has recovered to some extent, but the population remains poor.
The island of Lissa lies to the north-east of Curzola, much farther away from the mainland. The climate is very mild; palms, cactus, aloes, and myrtle flourish; and a wine known as Opollo is as much sought after as that made from Lissan grape-juice, praised in antiquity by Agatharchides. It is cut into by two large bays, to the west the Valle di Comisa, and to the north-east the harbour of Lissa. There are some small remains of antiquity. The foundations of the Roman theatre are partly in the sea, and other Roman ruins are round about the harbour, though the ancient Issa occupied the site of Gradina, 300 ft. above the sea. One statue at least which was found here has been taken to Vienna. Lago says that under the building of the Blessed Virgin "delle Graticelle" there are caverns said to contain the graves of Diomede and his companions. Apollonius of Rhodes says that the original colonists came from Issa in Lesbos, and were Pelasgic Liburnians; but Polybius tells of a Greek colonisation in 392 B.C. under Dionysios the Elder, of Syracuse. It is certain, from gems and inscriptions found, that a free state existed here about 340 B.C. It was through Issa seeking protection from Rome that the commencement of the conquest of Illyria sprang. Their being able to help the Romans with twenty ships in their war with Philip of Macedon, and their founding such cities as Tragurium and Epetium show their importance in antiquity. The Goths of Ravenna destroyed the town in 535 A.D., on their way to Salona. It was destroyed a second time by the Narentans, and a third time, in 1483, by the Aragonese. The great battle for which Lissa is celebrated took place on March 13, 1811, when the French were beaten by the English, who destroyed all their ships but three, the commander Dubourdieu being killed, after which Lissa was made a kind of Adriatic Malta. The Austrians strengthened the fortifications of the English, making it an arsenal, and in 1866 Tegethoff beat the Italian fleet here. Some interest attaches to the fortifications, monuments, and graveyards of the island, on account of the British occupation. The monument recording the English victory is in the English cemetery; in the other is a memorial to those who died in the Italo-Austrian fight. At Busi, a few miles away, is a blue grotto, discovered in 1884, claimed to be even more remarkable than the celebrated grotto at Capri.