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.
LA FONTANA DEI QUATTRO CONTINENTI – PIAZZA UNITA’ D’ITALIA – TRIESTE
The Fountain of the Four Continents, located in front of the Town Hall in Piazza Unità d’Italia, was created between 1751 and 1754 by the Bergamo sculptor Giovanni Battista Mazzoleni, also author of the Giovanin Fountain in Piazza Ponterosso and of the Neptune Fountain in Piazza of the Stock Exchange.
The intention was to present Trieste to the world as a city aided by Fortuna through the establishment of the Portofranco and the liberal policy of Charles VI and Maria Teresa.
The four statues at the corner of the basin represent the four continents with an animal and each represents one of the four continents then known: Europe with the horse, Asia with the camel, Africa with the lion and America with the crocodile. Oceania-Australia had not yet been discovered. Allegorical figures of Rivers pour water from their jars into the shells below; below the water gushes from the mouths of four dolphins, falling back into the large pools.
On the top, the Angel of Fame with spread wings overlooks the young figure of Trieste, lying on the rocks of the Carso, and surrounded by bundles, barrels, bales of cotton and ropes, in the act of addressing a merchant in oriental clothing. In 1938 the fountain was removed from the square to make way for the stage for the meeting of Benito Mussolini visiting the city. It returned to the square in the seventies after being restored.
IL PALAZZO DEL GOVERNO – PIAZZA UNITA’ D’ITALIA – TRIESTE
Built between 1901 and 1905, inspired by the architecture of the Renaissance and the style of the Viennese Secession, designed by the Viennese architect Immanuel Artmann, it was the seat of the Austrian Lieutenancy.
It is a wonderful building embellished by a Florentine loggia with a decoration of Murano glass mosaics.
In the upper part of the external facade, facing the square, there are drawings, allegorical heads and medallions with the coat of arms of the House of Savoy made after the First World War, replacing the original mosaics, designed by Giuseppe Straka of Vienna, which featured elements of Austrian derivation . Today the building houses the offices of the Government Commissariat in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region as well as those of the Prefecture. High personalities of the State and of Foreign States, on an official visit to the city and the region, are welcomed by the large and majestic halls of national government representation.