MUSEUM OF ORIENTAL ART – TRIESTE
porcelain from the Song period,
MORPURGO MUSEUM – TRIESTE
PALAZZO TERGESTEO -TRIESTE
DUINO CASTLE – TRIESTE
Duino Castle is located in the municipality of Duino-Aurisina, a few kilometers from Trieste. In 1389, to replace the Castelvecchio dating back to the 10th century still visible on the spur of the rock overlooking the sea, Ugone di Duino, captain of Trieste, ordered the construction of a Castle which was built on the ruins of a Roman outpost incorporating a tower of the 16th century.
Owned for over 420 years by the Della Torre di Valsassina family first and then by the princes della Torre and Tasso, the history of the family is linked to the management of postal services which was exercised by the family, from 1400 onwards, for more than 350 years. in several European countries, including Italy, Austria, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands.
The Castle during the First World War suffered extensive damage and was largely rebuilt. Since 1600, many important personalities both in the political and artistic worlds have been hosted in the castle of the princes including: Gabriele D’Annunzio, Franz Listz, Paul Valery, the empress Sissi and the archduke Francesco Ferdinando.
The Prague poet Reiner Maria Rilke, in a period of his life, was a guest of Princess Maria della Torre and Tasso to whom he dedicated the “Duino Elegies” that had been conceived and started during the long walks that the poet used to take around the Castle . In homage to the poet it was inaugurated in 1987 ”
The Rilke path “, a 2-kilometer panoramic walk at the edge of the karst ridge overlooking the sea that connects the towns of Duino and Sistiana. During the route there are some war posts open to the sea. From the manor you can enjoy a wonderful view on the steep rocky walls overlooking the sea.
The Castle has a magnificent park with 21,000 flowers in regular rotation. romantic avenues full of statues and archaeological finds,
and from the wonderful terraces and from the terraces you can enjoy a wonderful view of the sea.
LIGHTHOUSE OF VICTORY – TRIESTE
The Victory Lighthouse was born from an idea of the Trieste architect Arduino Berlam who, after the defeat of Caporetto and the battle of the Piave, wanted to design an imposing work whose functions included the commemoration of the sailors who fell in the First World War and the guide for the night navigation in the Gulf of Trieste.
The works began in 1923 and the inauguration took place on May 24, 1927 in the presence of King Vittorio Emanuele III.
The Lighthouse was built on the Poggio di Gretta site, 60 meters above sea level and with a large base that incorporates the round
bastion of the former Austrian Fort Kressich, completed in 1854. One of the most important defense structures in the gulf and in the city, built by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1854, remained efficient for almost thirty years. 12 long 48-pound, 5 short 48-pound, 10 24-pound, and 20 8-pound guns, a gallery with musket slots, a moat, a drawbridge, wide and deep dungeons and the connection to Barcola, all this constituted the Kressich Fort. The 68.85 meters high structure is clad in Orsera stone in the upper part and in Gabria karst stone in the lower part.
At the top of the column, the coffa, decorated with scales, supported by a capital and built in Naples, contains the bronze and crystal cage of the lantern.
MERIDIANA -PIAZZA DELLA BORSA – TRIESTE
In 1820, a 12-meter-long sundial was built on the floor in front of the ground floor of the Palazzo della Borsa, which was used to synchronize the marine clocks of the large ocean-going ships arriving in Trieste.
Through a hole made in a slit on the main facade of the Palazzo della Borsa, the sun’s rays penetrate until they reach the Sundial and thus the elliptical image of the Sun is formed at noon. it is recalled by a circle in white Aurisina stone bearing the name of the manufacturer of the Sundial, the Friulian watchmaker Antonio Sebastianutti and the date of the autumn equinox of 1820, 23 September.
PIAZZA DELLA BORSA -TRIESTE
the second good city living room
The economic center of the city throughout the 19th century. Its current architectural form dates back to mid-1749, when the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria gave impetus to the urban development of the territory by burying the salt pans to the west of the ancient walls and favoring the construction of squares and buildings. The irregular shape of the square testifies that this space represents more than others the point of contact between the medieval city and the Borgo Teresiano (Grand Canal).
The Stock Exchange Palace. Designed by architect Antonio Mollari, it was inaugurated in 1806 to house the activities of the stock market traders. In 1844 the stock exchange was moved to the Tergesteo palace and, subsequently, to the adjacent building (formerly the Dreher palace) called the new stock exchange.
It is currently the seat of the Trieste Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Crafts and Agriculture. The main façade looks like a Greek Doric temple with four large columns, a tympanum at the top and, on the ground floor, a spacious portico overlooked by four aedicules where the statues are housed: “Europe” and “Africa” sculpted by Bartolomeo Ferrari, “Asia” by Domenico Banti and “America” by Antonio Bosa, the sculptor pupil of Canova. In the niches on the first floor, two statues representing Vulcan and Mercury, respectively by Banti and Ferrari, decorate the facade.
Above, on the balustrade, the four statues by Bosa depict from left to right the “Danube” (a waterway already considered fundamental for the development of traffic at the time), the “Genius of Trieste” (resting on a shield with the emblem of the city carved), “Minerva” (helmet on her head, Medusa’s head on her chest, owl on her foot, holding a shield with a medallion of Francis II in one hand and pointing to the Genius of Trieste image of the sovereign) and “Neptune”, symbol of maritime trade. Danube and Neptune, respectively at the two extreme sides of the balustrade, hold out their hands to each other with their eyes turned to the two central statues. On the tympanum, two winged figures depicting Fame and Fortune flank the central clock. Prestigious internal rooms, furnished in neoclassical style, host official ceremonies and economic conferences. In the center of the domed ceiling of the Sala Maggiore, a large fresco by Giuseppe Bernardino Bison evokes the proclamation of the Free Port of Trieste by Emperor Charles VI in 1719.
Inside the square are located: the Fountain of Neptune built in 1750 by the Bergamo sculptor Giovanni Mazzoleni and again in 1887 used by the women of the village to wash clothes, and
the column of Emperor Leopold I of Austria erected in 1660 on the occasion of the visit to the city by Emperor Leopold I of Austria, founder of the Jewish Ghetto in 1696 and father of Charles VI, promulgator of the Free Port. The column bears the inscription: “Leopoldo I Avgvsto tergestinos invisenti statvtaqve patria approbanti devota vrbis gratitvdo erexit” (A Leopoldo I Augusto, on the occasion of his visit to Trieste and the approval of the patri statutes, the devout gratitude of the city erected).
Palazzo della Borsa Nuova. Dreher Palace. It was designed in the years 1909-1910 by the Viennese architect Emil Bressler on commission from Theodor Dreher, son of the Bohemian brewer Anton. The building with 19 dining rooms, with a winter garden and a lift could accommodate 2000 people. The Grand Restaurant Dreher was considered one of the most luxurious restaurants in Europe and reported in all the guides of the early 1900s. Due to the high cost of management, Dreher sold the building to the Chamber of Commerce, which in 1926 decided to transform it into the new stock exchange, entrusting the project to the Trieste architect Gustavo Pulitzer Finali. The conversion was completed in 1928 and until the 1990s the activities of the stock exchange functioned.
Rusconi house. Eighteenth-century palace in Venetian Neo-Renaissance style on the corner between Via Cassa di Risparmio and Piazza della Borsa, also known as Casa Rusconi, a family of pharmacists based in Trieste who had commissioned it in 1860 to Giovanni Scalmanini. In 1810 in the Geistinger Library, housed in the building, Domenico Rossetti founded the Society of Minerva, one of the oldest cultural associations in Italy. In memory of the event, the statue of the artist in toga was placed in a niche in the central part of the building. The bust visible above the entrance, according to some sources, represents Alessandro Volta, according to others it is Ambrogio Rusconi, one of the founders of the Trieste Stock Exchange in 1755, portrayed while looking at it.
Steinfeld Palace (next to Casa Rusconi). Built in 1903 on a pre-existing house of the eighteenth century where, on the ground floor, there was the “International Panorama”, a room where you could use, for a fee, optical devices for the projection of moving images. In 1905, in the new building, the room called “American Cineographer” was opened, the first cinema in Trieste owned by the German Karl Böcher.
Bartoli House (Green House). The most famous liberty style house in the city of Trieste. Built by architect Max Fabiani between 1905-1906, it is also known as the Green House for the color of the cascading floral decorations on the main facade and imposed on the designer to embellish the building considered excessively avant-garde. Initially the building housed the Antonio Bartoli & Son manufacturing warehouse from which it took its name. The architecture of the building satisfied both the needs of space and visibility of the commercial activities located on the ground floor and on the first floors, and those of the residents on the upper floors. On the third floor, a large veranda housed the winter garden of the “Restaurant Golberger”, a café-restaurant frequented by strictly observant Jews who remained in the commercial area even during their lunch break. The café was closed in the 1930s.
Casa della Portizza (named after the androna that connects piazza della Borsa with via Beccherie, former Jewish ghetto). The Empire-style house could date back to the late eighteenth century or the early nineteenth century. The Portizza underpass in Piazza della Borsa corresponds to one of the gates in the city walls, which opened onto the “Piccolo” or “del Vino” Canal, the smaller of the two navigable canals that served the salt pans and where they proceeded cargo boats. The Canal Piccolo has been completely buried.On the Portizza you can see an almost omnipresent architectural element in the city: a stone face placed in the key of the arch of the door, with features often similar to the building’s client and with the function, perhaps, discourage the bad guys. The “panduri”, named after fearsome Hungarian warriors who for centuries defended the territory from the Turks. Panduri were also called the Croatian border soldiers, enlisted in the Habsburg army starting in 1740.
ARCH OF RICCARDO -TRIESTE
The construction of the Arch of Riccardo probably dates back to the middle of the 1st century BC. and it has a height of 7.20 meters, width of 5.30 meters, depth of 2 meters and a plant motif in the archway.
The Arch is located on an ancient Roman road and it is assumed that it was a gate of the city walls of Tergeste, the Roman Trieste founded by Octavian Augustus, or the entrance to a sacred area dedicated to the Magna Mater. Even during the Middle Ages, the Arco di Riccardo retains the function of a door within a wider defense wall system.
There are several legends about the origin of the name. According to some, the choice was made in honor of King Richard the Lionheart held prisoner in Trieste on his return from the Holy Land. According to others, it derives from the deformation of the name King Charlemagne at the time of Frankish domination in Trieste between 787 and 788 or from the dialectal deformation of the Latin word “cardo maximus”, the name of one of the two main streets of Roman cities (the another is the “decumano maximus”).
ROMAN AMPHITHEATER – TRIESTE
At the foot of the San Giusto hill, by the sea, the Romans between the 1st-2nd century AD. built a large theater capable of holding between 3500 and 6000 spectators who, on the gratins built using the natural slope of the hill, attended outdoor entertainment shows: tragedies, comedies and some finds of helmets, it also seems to fights between gladiators.
The theater dates back to the 1st-2nd century AD. The act of foundation of the theater is documented by two tombstones, where word was made of the gift and dedication by the Tergestino knight Quinto Petronio Modesto, procurator of the Emperor Trajan and a character linked to the theater of the time.
With the passing of the centuries the theater was devastated, together with the Capitoline basilica and other public buildings, by the Lombard hordes and was gradually stripped of its architecture and buried by residential buildings.
In 1814 the architect Pietro Nobile, also guided by the name of the place “Rena vecia” (Old Arena), had drawn up a report on the hidden theater which was then proved to be correct during the excavations of 1937-38, years of the demolition of a part of the old city, where the amphitheater was unearthed.
During the excavation of the pit of the proscenium some statues came to light: one of a female figure 111 cm high, missing the head and other parts of the body, identified as a statue of Hygieia due to the presence of a snake descending from the left shoulder;
a bearded statue of Asclepius (118 cm), wrapped in the mantle and uncovered the upper part of the bust; the statue of the goddess Athena, 125 cm high, headless like that of Apollo, 102 cm high and Silenus (98 cm long), lying on a panther skin and resting on a stylized rock base and fragmentary pieces of the statue of Aphrodite including the head and cloak. Many other finds of archaeological interest came to light that are now visible at the Civic Museum of History and Art and at the Tergestino Lapidarium.