In other parts of the Republic’s territory some few buildings of architectural interest survive. At Gravosa there are no churches of importance, but some fine villas, of which the most remarkable is that of Count Caboga; in the general style of its architecture it recalls the loggia of the Rector’s Palace. It was at Gravosa that the nobles of Ragusa had their _villeggiatura_, and all about among the pleasant groves of the Lapad promontory or on the banks of the Ombla rose many a stately pleasure-house, filled with works of art and books, and surrounded by lovely gardens. Most of them, alas! were plundered and burnt during the French wars and the Montenegrin invasion, and only a few now remain. Other more modern ones have sprung up, some inhabited by the descendants of these same noble families, others by wealthy merchants who have acquired fortunes in America. The villas among the hills at Giochetto and Bergato have nearly all been destroyed. On the Isola di Mezzo there are two castles, several churches and monasteries, and ruins of other edifices. The principal church is that of Santa Maria del Biscione, on the south side of the island; it is a fifteenth-century building, in the Venetian Gothic style, and contains, among other objects, an altar-piece of quaint design—a group of wooden, painted figures; according to the local tradition they were brought by a native of Mezzo from England, where he had bought them from Henry VIII.’s private chapel, as that monarch, having become a Protestant, was selling its effects by auction. But Professor Gelcich gives extracts from local records, proving it to be seventeenth-century work by one “Magister Urbanus Georgii de Tenum Derfort Banakus fabrolignarius.”[517] The chancel has a good waggon ceiling of blue panels, and some handsome stonework. The Dominican church, also in the Italian Pointed style, is dismantled; its campanile of the fifteenth century has the “midwall shafts” of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries.[518] In the Franciscan monastery, of the same period (1484), there are some beautiful Gothic choir-stalls, of which Mr. Graham Jackson remarks that it is interesting to find that even in this late work the leaves retain “the crisp Byzantine raffling, and are packed within one another and fluted quite in the ancient manner, while the little capitals of the elbow posts have still more thoroughly the look of Byzantine work.”[519] The two castles are little more than picturesque ruins, and scattered about the islands are the remains of some eighteen or twenty chapels; in the village several houses that once belonged to families of position bear traces of carving, Venetian balconies and windows, and coats-of-arms.