The Greek merchant Demetrio Carciotti who had settled in Trieste in 1775 commissioned the architect Matteo Pertsch to build a grandiose building flanking the Grand Canal, 100 meters long and 40 meters wide, clearly visible from the sea. Originally, the building included the owner’s house on the main floor, sixteen apartments on the upper floors and stables, sheds and eighteen warehouses on the ground floor. The facade facing the sea has six Ionic columns, above a balustrade with six statues by the sculptor Antonio Bosa, a pupil of Canova, representing from the left: Portenus (the guardian of the Roman port), Thyke (protector of shopkeepers and sailors), Athena ( patron of weaving, she remembers that the owner was a cloth merchant), Fama (dispenser of good and bad news), Apollo (god of harmony and order), Abundantia (with allusion to the luxury of the merchant who, with risks and work, also benefits the city) – Del Bosa are also the statues of Hercules and Minerva placed in the main entrance.
The rear facade of the building is crowned by four statues and two stone amphorae on the sides, the work of the sculptor Bartolomeo Augustini. On the entablature appears the inscription in bronze letters: DEMETRIO CARCIOTTI MDCCC. Year of the end of the work on that facade.The dome is in copper and rests on a high drum, with a hemispherical cap covered in copper and is surmounted by the Napoleonic eagle. At the top of the staircase there are three female figures representing Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Inside, the round room of the dome is decorated with sixteen columns and bas-reliefs depicting scenes from Homer made by Antonio Bosa and completed by the paintings of Giuseppe Bernardino Bison, while the center of the room is decorated with the Glory on the chariot of Dawn, perhaps a work of a certain Scala. Palazzo Carciotti was the first headquarters of Assicurazioni Generali and until a few years ago it was the headquarters of the Harbor Master’s Office, which was then moved to the building at the end of the Canale Grande, the former Idroscxalo and also the headquarters of the Coast Guard.
