Jackson opens his 1908 travelogue with a frank admission: this volume complements his earlier work on the Italian side of the Adriatic, but here he dwells more on the picturesque, abandoning meticulous building descriptions except where needed for deductions. The preface sets a temporal urgency—the Croat majority's push to stamp out Italian in schools means visitors should come soon, before Italian culture is forgotten. This practical, almost elegiac tone pervades the book, which balances architectural detail with observations on costume, folk-lore, and the Morlacchi.

The narrative voice is that of a seasoned antiquarian, precise yet unhurried. In describing the church of S. Lorenzo in Zara, Jackson moves from a Roman inscription to a ninth-century carved lintel showing Christ in a mandorla, then notes the building's later use as a military magazine and wine-store. Such shifts—from ancient temple to medieval church to modern museum—typify his method: layering time periods within a single structure, letting the stones tell a story of continuous reuse.

Architectural Description as Detective Work

Jackson's descriptions are not mere inventories; they are reconstructions of lost forms. At S. Lorenzo, he notes that the piers of the upper story once supported a cupola drum that no longer exists, and that the floor level was lowered in 1888, revealing Roman inscriptions and carved friezes used as foundation material. He pieces together the original temple to Augusta Livia from a single inscription on a pilaster, then traces the church's later incarnations: a military magazine in 1649, a wine-store until 1888, then a museum. The ancient entrance door, found behind eighteenth-century additions, is described with forensic care—a square-headed door with consecration-crosses sunk in the lintel, its cill two feet below ground level.

This method extends to small finds. Among the museum's holdings, Jackson singles out two curious slabs with figures under arches, one showing the Flight into Egypt and the Massacre of the Innocents, the other the Nativity and Adoration of the Kings. He identifies them as likely parts of a chancel enclosure, dating them to the ninth century. The reader is left with a sense of fragments being reassembled, each carving a clue to a larger, vanished whole.

The Pressure of Language and Time

Jackson's preface is unusually direct about the political context: the Croat majority's determination to stamp out Italian in schools will, within a generation, make Italian a foreign language understood by few. He urges travelers to visit Dalmatia soon, while Italian is still spoken and Italian culture not yet forgotten. This warning colors the entire book, lending a documentary urgency to his descriptions of Venetian-era buildings and inscriptions.

Yet the body of the text rarely editorializes. Instead, Jackson lets the evidence speak. At S. Lorenzo, he notes a Roman inscription on the fourth pilaster that seems to indicate a great temple to Augusta Livia. The reuse of Roman material in a Christian church, the later conversion to military and storage uses, the eventual museum—all illustrate a layering of cultures that the Croat-Italian conflict threatens to erase. Jackson's tone remains scholarly, but his choice of details—the consecration-crosses on a Roman lintel, the Venetian ensigns in the museum—implicitly argues for the value of these hybrid remains.

Voice and Pace: From the Technical to the Evocative

Jackson's prose shifts between two registers. In architectural passages, he is technical and precise: the piers of the upper story sustained the drum of a cupola; the central apse is larger and deeper with four windows; the caps are composite like the arch of Septimius Severus. Sentences are long, packed with measurements and structural relationships. But when he turns to the museum's contents, the pace quickens. He lists Roman and pre-Roman antiquities, medieval fragments, carved and gilded panels, lanterns and ensigns from Venetian galleys, a crozier of Limoges work. The catalog-like rhythm conveys abundance, even clutter.

Occasionally, a detail breaks through the technical surface. The description of the early stair as a possible Scala Santa, ascended by the faithful on their knees for indulgences, adds a human dimension. The carved lintel with Christ in a mandorla, supported by angels with a sacred tree and a griffin beyond, is described with a rough astragal moulding—the word 'rough' hinting at the carver's hand. These moments of texture relieve the density of architectural analysis, revealing Jackson as a writer attentive to both structure and atmosphere.

Jackson's book rewards readers who appreciate patient, evidence-based reconstruction. His willingness to acknowledge gaps—the cupola that no longer exists, the buildings that have been destroyed or altered—makes his deductions all the more credible. The work is best approached not as a continuous narrative but as a series of site-specific investigations, each building a palimpsest of Roman, medieval, and modern uses. Readers interested in the material culture of the Adriatic's eastern shore will find a meticulous guide, one that preserves a moment before linguistic change reshaped the region's identity.