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.
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.
JAMES JOYCE – TRIESTE
The statue of James Joyce was created by the Trieste sculptor Nino Spagnoli and placed in Ponterosso on the Grand Canal in 2004 to commemorate the centenary of the Irish writer’s arrival in Trieste.
Under the statue a plaque
recalls the writer’s deep bond with the city of Trieste. The 16th June of every year in Trieste since 2010 is Bloomsday the symbolic date in which James Joyce’s scholars and passionate readers all over the world celebrate the Irish writer. of the hero of the novel Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, through the streets of his Dublin.
James Joyce arrived in Trieste on October 20, 1904 with his partner Nora Barnacle to work as a teacher at the Berlitz School. Unfortunately the place was no longer available and was sent to Pula where there was a new school location. He returned to Trieste in 1905 at the birth of his first son Giorgio and in the meantime he was joined by his brother Stanislaus who began to work at the Berlitz School. In 1907, after a period in Rome where he worked as a clerk at Nast, Kolb & Schumacher Bank, he returned to Trieste. Here he lectured on behalf of the Popular University and published Chamber Music. He began to teach private students belonging to the Trieste high bourgeoisie, including Italo Svevo. Between the two began a deep relationship of friendship and mutual respect.
Italo Svevo had already published his first two books “Una Vita” and “Senilità”, but no one had dealt with them. Joyce read them and urged Svevo to keep writing. Meanwhile Joyce’s life was divided between private lessons, the chair at the Revoltella Higher School of Commerce, the conferences at the Popular University and his first publications Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners also arrived. He began to design the first parts of the Ulysses.
At the outbreak of the First World War he had to leave Trieste for Zurich to return in October 1919, remaining there until June 1920. During this period Joyce wrote Nausicaa and Oxen of the Sun, two episodes of Ulysses, and began the episode entitled Circe. He moved to Paris and never returned to Trieste. Ulysses was published in 1922.
PILONI PORTABANDIERA – PIAZZA UNITA’ D’ITALIA – TRIESTE
The flagpoles of Piazza Unità d’Italia are made up of 6 meter high piles that support the 25 meter antennas on which the two halberds, the city’s coat of arms, of duralumin are placed.
The sculptural part, commissioned to the Trieste sculptor Attilio Selva, is 4.25 meters high and represents the drivers, who fought in the First World War, while they stand guard over the banners of Trieste and Italy. They were inaugurated on 24 May 1933 in the presence of the Duke of Aosta Amedeo di Savoia.
COLONNA DELL’IMPERATORE CARLO VI – PIAZZA UNITA’ D’ITALIA – TRIESTE
In 1728, on the occasion of the visit of Emperor Charles VI of Habsburg, son of Emperor Leopold I of Austria, the statue in his honor was erected in the current Piazza Unità and was provisionally built in wood and gilded. In 1756 it was replaced by the current stone statue of the Venetian sculptor Lorenzo Fonoli.
The Emperor Charles VI had established the free port in Trieste in 1719, and the position of the statue’s index is facing the sea, while the gaze is towards Piazza della Borsa, the new center of the city’s economic activities.