But as in the Franciscan monastery, the cloister is almost untouched. It is an irregular square, with five bays on each side, each bay being divided by three lights, the head pierced by two irregular lights above. The style is a curious medley “of Gothic and Renaissance, of forms understood and otherwise, as indeed could only occur in a land which, being on the borders of Eastern and Western culture, did not possess the power to create and execute the various styles correctly.”[267] The arches of the bays are round, but the inside work has more the character of Venetian Gothic, especially in the foliage. The shield of the semicircular head is pierced by quatrefoil lights encircled alternately with an ornament of interlacing circles almost Byzantine in character. The Dalmatian architect had doubtless seen Gothic work in Italy, but “had failed to grasp the idea of receding orders in the arch, or consistent mouldings in his tracery.”[268] The columns with their caps and bases are of a severely antique character. But in spite of all deviations from architectural orthodoxy this cloister, set off by cherry and orange trees and evergreen shrubs, is, after the Franciscan cloister, one of the loveliest monastic buildings in Dalmatia. The secular buildings, with one notable exception, belong to a later period. The exception is the Sponza[269] or custom house, a large part of which was built in the early fourteenth century. It stands at the end of the Stradone, opposite the Piazza and the church of San Biagio, and consists of three stories built round a courtyard. The ground floor and first floor were probably built in the first years of the thirteenth century.[270] The top story, the façade, and the portico belong to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The oblong courtyard is surrounded on the lower story by vaulted arcades of round arches with square soffits supported on short plain solid octagonal columns, without bases (like those of the Ducal Palace at Venice), and short capitals opening out into square abaci. The second story is also arcaded, and has twice as many window openings as the lower story has arches, round at the two ends and pointed on the sides, with square piers over the columns below and round columns over the centres of the arches; their capitals are adorned with foliage, some _à crochet_, and some with deflected leaves at the angles. According to Jackson, all this part is of the same period, in spite of the fact that some of the openings are round and some pointed. The general effect is one of extreme simplicity and sobriety; it is, as Jackson says truly, “an admirable piece of plain, useful, and not ungraceful architecture, not too showy for the commonplace purposes of the building, and yet well proportioned and carefully built.”[271] Round the courtyard are the various warehouses, over the doors of which are the names of different saints. Above the end arch is the inscription:— ___