Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/390

 366 P A S P A ensis and took him to Wittenberg. In 1505 Spalatin went to Erfurt to study jurisprudence, was recommended to Mutianus, and was welcomed by the little band of German humanists of whom Mutianus was chief. His friend got him the post of teacher of young monks in a convent in the Georgenthal and pastor in the high church there. In 1 508 he was ordained priest by Bishop John von Laasphe, who had ordained Luther. He had no great love for convent or pastoral work, and in 1509 Mutianus recommended him to Frederick the Wise, the elector of Saxony, who employed him to act as tutor to his son, the future elector, John Frederick. This appointment really determined Spalatin's life and work. He speedily gained the confidence of the famous elector, who employed him in many affairs. He sent him to Wittenberg in 1511 to act as tutor to his nephews, and procured for him a canon's stall in Altenberg. In 1512 the elector made him his librarian. This brought him into correspondence with a large number of literary men, and he began to collect all kinds of literary and espe- cially of historical information, of which he made extensive use later in his chronicles. He was promoted to be court chaplain and confidential secretary to the elector, and took charge of all his private and public correspondence. He thus became one of the most important men at the elec- toral court, which then was the centre of German life. Spalatin had never cared for theology, and, although a priest and a preacher, had been a mere humanist. It was to Luther that he owed his awakening to the reality of a spiritual life. How he first became acquainted with the reformer it is impossible to say probably at Wittenberg ; but Luther from the first exercised a great power over him, and became his chief counsellor in all moral and religious matters. His letters to Luther have been lost, but Luther's answers remain, and are extremely interest- ing. Spalatin was Luther's devoted friend during the stormiest days of the Reformation, and was the means of bringing the great elector to take the side of the out- spoken professor in his university of Wittenberg. He read Luther's writings to the elector, and translated for his benefit those in Latin into German. He accompanied Frederick to the diet of Augsburg, and shared in the negotiations with the papal legates, Cajetan and Miltitz. He was with the elector when Charles was chosen emperor and when he was crowned. He was with his master at the diet of Worms. In short, he stood beside Frederick as his confidential adviser in all the troubled diplomacy of the earlier years of the Reformation. Singularly cautious, perhaps timid, before the crisis came and while it could be averted, Spalatin found courage when the crisis had come. He would have dissuaded Luther again and again from publishing books or engaging in overt acts against the papacy, but, when the thing was done, none was so ready to translate the book, or to justify the act. On the death of Frederick the Wise, Spalatin was as much engaged in diplomatic service as before, but he no longer lived at court. He went into residence as canon at Altenberg, and incited the chapter to institute reforms some- what unsuccessfully. He married in the same year. During the later portion of his life, from 1526 onwards, he was chiefly engaged in the visitation of churches and schools in electoral Saxony, reporting on the confiscation and applica- tion of ecclesiastical revenues. His practical experience in German affairs made him very successful in his delicate task, and he was asked to undertake the same work for Albertine Saxony. He was also permanent visitor of Wittenberg uni- versity, and made an annual report of its condition to the elector. Shortly before his death he fell into a state of pro- found melancholy, and died January 16, 1545, at Altenberg. Spalatin left behind him a largo number of literary remains, both published and unpublished. His original writings are almost all historical. A list of them may be found in Seelheim's George Spalatin als sacks. Historiograph, 1878. There is no good lifo of Spalatin, nor can there be until his letters have been collected and edited, a work still to be done. SPALATO (Slav. Split), a city of Dalmatia, at the head of one of the thirteen departments (area 730 square miles; population in 1880 31,003), is situated on the seaward side of a peninsula lying between the Gulf of Braza and the Gulf of Salona. Though not the capital, it is the most important city in the principality, is the see of a bishop, has a valuable museum of antiquities, and carries on an extensive trade in wine and oil. 'Since' 1879 it has been the terminus of a railway running northwards to Sebenico and Siveric. Built on the low ground at the head of a beautiful bay, and thrown into relief by a back- ground of picturesque hills rising close behind, Spalato has a striking sea-front, in which the leading feature is still the ruined facade of the great palace of Diocletian, erected in 303 A.D., to which the city owes its origin. In ground plan this is almost a square, with a quadrangular tower at each of the four corners. " Its faces correspond nearly with the four points of the compass. The south front (towards the harbour) measures 521 feet, or, with the towers, 598 feet 8 inches, and the eastern and western sides are each 705 feet 8 inches" (Wilkinson). The area included is 348,175 square feet, or, comprising the towers, 352,614 square feet, a little more than eight acres, or rather less than the area of the Escorial. There were four principal gates, with four streets meeting in the middle of the quadrangle, after the style of a Roman camp. The eastern gate (Porta Aenea) is destroyed ; but, though the side towers are gone, the main entrance of the building, the beautiful Porta Aurea, in the west front, is still in fairly good preservation. The streets were lined with massive arcades. The vestibule now forms the Piazza del Duomo or public square ; to the north-east of this lies the mausoleum (not, as the older antiquaries had it, the temple of Jupiter), which has long been the smallest and darkest of cathedrals; and to the south-east is the temple of ^Esculapius, which served originally as a kind of court chapel and has long been transformed into a baptistery. Architecturally the most important of all the many striking features of the palace is the arrangement in the vestibule by which the supporting arches spring directly from the capitals of the large granite Corinthian columns. This, as far as the known remains of ancient art are concerned, is the first instance of such a method ; and thus, in Mr Freeman's words, " all Gothic and Romanesque architecture was in embryo in the brain of Jovius or his architect." The name Spalato, or Spalatro (a very old spelling), which used to be explained as a corruption of Salonee Palatium, is pretty cer- tainly of different origin the oldest form extant being Aspalathum (Constantine Porphyrogenitus) and early variants Spalathon, Spa- lathron, Spalatrum (Geogr. Rav. ). Dr Evans suggests a connexion with Aspalathus (the name of a prickly shrub) or perhaps with Asphaltus. Not long after Diocletian's death the buildings seem to have been turned into an imperial cloth factory, and as most of the workers were women we find it called a gyn&cium (Notitia). About 4 miles from the palace lay the ancient city of Salona (SaAcSva or SaX&Jj/oj), which consisted of two parts, the earlier Eoman city to the west and a later portion incorporated previous to the time of the Antonines. There are still remains at Salona of ancient city walls, an amphitheatre, &c. , and a long line of walls extending " from the western side of the city for a mile and more nearly along the present road to Tran (Tragurium)." The purpose of this line of walls is not evident, and the date of its construction has been the subject of much discussion. Mr Freeman is disposed to consider them Roman workmanship. Salona in its best days was one of the chief ports of the Adriatic, on one of the most central sites in the Roman world. Made a Roman colony after its second capture by the Romans (B.C. 78), it appears as Colonia Martia Julia and Colonia Claudia Augusta Pia Veteranorum, and bears at different periods the titles of respublica, conventus, metropolis, preefcctura, and prretorium. In Christian times it became a bishop's see ; and St Doimo or Domnius, its first bishop, still gives his name to the cathedral of Spalato. The city