Tag: Chiesa di Sant’Antonio

MORPURGO MUSEUM – TRIESTE

It is the apartment of a rich family of the Trieste entrepreneurial bourgeoisie of the 1800s who collected works of art and precious furnishings with refined taste.
The house represents a wonderful example of the princely style and opulence that characterized the families of the Trieste upper middle class.
In 1870 the sisters Emma and Fanny Mondolfo, married to the Morpurgo brothers, bought the building with number 839, now via Imbriani 5, and the adjacent one number 840, now via Mazzini 42. These ancient buildings were demolished, in 1875 the architect Giovanni Berlam designed a palace of elegant and sober neo-Renaissance forms. Giacomo and Fanny Morpurgo with their children Mario and Matilde,
in 1878, went to occupy the apartment located on the entire second floor, while Carlo Marco and Emma Morpurgo chose the one corresponding to the first floor
On Emma’s death the house passed entirely to her sister, who in 1938 made a deed of donation in favor of the children. Upon their death, both left their respective properties to the Municipality of Trieste. Mario Morpurgo in his will, drawn up in 1941, assigned the Municipality of Trieste as the heir of all its substance, in addition to the art collections, all the furniture and furnishings and all his assets were destined to create an intangible fund with the name Mario Morpurgo de Nilma. The still existing foundation aims to help needy people, with preference for those who have fallen, born and resident in Trieste.
The apartment on the second floor, with its furniture almost intact, became the Morpurgo Civic Museum and the one on the first floor was in 1950 used as a Museum of the Risorgimento and that of the History of the Homeland. A precious collection of eighteenth-century majolica,
vases from Savona, majolica from Faenza and Castelli l’Abruzzo, Japanese tableware, Bohemian glass and complete table sets in French Pillivuit porcelain with monogram, woodcuts and engravings by great artists such as Jacques Callot, Gérard Edelink, Pierre Drevet, Giandomenico Tiepolo, Francesco Bartolozzi, Jean Balvay, Max Klinger and Félix Vallotton and the gallery of sixty pictures, drawings and paintings
among these the oldest ones executed by artists from Luca Giordano’s circle, make the visit an experience unique life of a bourgeois family of the 1800s

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.

On top of the dome there is the statue of Victory, 7.20 meters high, by the Trieste sculptor Giovanni Mayer, built in copper and weighing 7 quintals, forged in Giacomo Srebot’s workshop in Via Donato Bramante, a gift from the Trieste shipowners The peculiarity of the statue was that despite being made of metal it was able to be elastic under the gusts of the bora and that is to move its wings. In fact, its builder had inserted inside the statue a steel rod with a diameter of 20 centimeters equipped with a strong sleeve at the height of the chest and armed with spiral rotating metal arms and on the latter he fixed the statue which then came equipped with a support core with a long and sturdy foot fixed in the masonry.In this way the external pressure due to the strong wind was compensated by the movement of the internal tie rods.Srebot had established that every fifty years it was necessary to intervene inside the statue to regulate the wings and allow a balanced movement of the entire system. Trieste says that a few years ago an old man who claimed to be a collaborator of Srebot and who had come to regulate the internal system of the statue presented himself to the lighthouse keepers. The guardians thought he was crazy and turned him away …. Who knows …
At the base of the lighthouse, above the pedestal, is the statue of the unknown sailor (8.60 meters high) by Giovanni Mayer, made by master stonemason Regolo Salandini with the use of 100 tons of stone from Vrsar and, under the statue ,
the anchor of the destroyer Audace is posted, the first Italian warship that, on November 3, 1918, reached the port of Trieste, mooring at Molo San Carlo, since then called Molo Audace. The anchor was donated on February 3, 1924 by Admiral Thaon de Revel and the plaque reads “Made before any other sacred by the waters of the gem redeemed on November 3, 1918”. Next to the anchor were two shells from the guns of the Austrian battleship Viribus Unitis which are now placed alongside the entrance. In total, the Victory Lighthouse cost 5,265,000 Lire.
The monument is dedicated to the sailors who fell in the First World War, as testified by the sentence of the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio on the base “SHINE AND REMEMBER THE FALLEN ON THE SEA MCMXV – MCMXVIII”.

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.

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”).

THE GIRLS OF TRIESTE AND THE BERSAGLIERI

In 2004, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the return of the city of Trieste to Italy, it was inaugurated, near the Molo Audace, and in front of Piazza dell’Unità d’Italia, on the Royal Staircase of the Riva Caduti for the Italianness of Trieste ,

The monument of the Bersaglieri and the Girls of Trieste.

The work of the sculptor from Todi Fiorenzo Bacci recalls the landing of the Bersaglieri on November 3, 1918 and the Italian passion with which the Trieste girls (mules) had in sewing

the tricolor flag to be displayed upon Italy’s arrival in Trieste.

AUDACE PIER – TRIESTE

« Per me al mondo non v’ha un più caro e fido
luogo di questo. Dove mai più solo
mi sento e in buona compagnia che al molo
San Carlo, e più mi piace l’onda e il lido? » 

Umberto Saba

Trieste

With 246 meters in length, the Audace pier is one of the most evocative in Italy. In 1740, the “San Carlo” frigate of the Austrian navy with 70 guns sank on the Riva in front of “Piazza Grande” (the current Piazza Unità d’Italia) and recovery was impossible.

The authorities decided to use the wreck as a base for the construction of the pier which took the name in homage of the ship “San Carlo”. It originally measured 95 meters in length and a wooden bridge connected it to the mainland. In 1861 the pier was lengthened to the current size and the wooden bridge removed. In the second half of the 1700s it was extended and joined to the mainland. The San Carlo wharf became a docking site for passenger and merchant ships, performing a fundamental function for the logistics of transport and trade for the entire city.

At the end of the Great War, on November 3, 1918, the first Italian ship, the destroyer Audace, which gave the pier its name, docked at Molo San Carlo.

At the end of the Great War, on November 3, 1918, the first Italian ship, the destroyer Audace, which gave the name to the pier, docked at Molo San Carlo. One of its anchors is displayed at the base of the Victory Lighthouse.

In 1925, to commemorate the landing, a bronze Compass Rose was placed on top of the pier on the white stone column.

The epigraph in the center of the Rose reads: “Here landed the R. Audace ship first with the flag of Italy – III NOVEMBER MCMXVIII”.

Today the Molo Audace no longer has the functions of maritime and merchant traffic and is one of the most loved places by Trieste and tourists who, fascinated by the landscape and the spectacular sunsets over the sea, stroll along the pier “suspended over the water”.

FOUNTAIN OF “GIOVANNIN DEL PONTEROSSO” – TRIESTE

The fountain was built by Giovanni Mazzoleni in the mid-eighteenth century, creator of the fountain of the Four Continents in Piazza Unità d’Italia. The water of the large basin, used by the citizens, came from the San Giovanni aqueduct.In the second half of the eighteenth century, the sculptor Giovanni Carlo Wagner sculpted a statue of a puttino and placed it on top of the fountain.

The street vendors of fruit and vegetables in the market in Piazza Ponterosso confidentially called the puttino Giovanin and on St. John’s day the fountain was decorated with flowers by the flower shops of the market

Before reaching the central basin, the path of the water is articulated through various sculptures. Starting from a shell, the water flows from three large masks and then descends on smaller shells supported by figures of telamons resting on small columns. Coming out of the mouth of the telamons, the water finally arrives in the large basin.

In ancient times the square was a market place and the fountain was decorated by street vendors of flowers on St. John’s day. It is said that the putto was dressed in black cloths when King Umberto was killed.