Trieste

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Trieste

Trieste (Latin Tergeste, Italian Trieste, German Triest, Slovenian/Croatian Trst, and Friulian Triest) is a city and port in northeastern Italy right on the border with Slovenia. Trieste is located at the head of the Gulf of Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. With a population of 211,184 (2001) it is capital of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trieste province.

Trieste flourished as part of Austro-Hungarian Empire during the period 1857 – 1918 when it was Central Europe's prosperous mediterranean sea port and its capital of literature and music.

Today, Trieste is a border town par excellence. The population is an ethnic mix of the neighboring regions; The dominant local Venetian dialect of Trieste is called Triestine ("Triestin" - pronounced , in Italian "Triestino"). This dialect and Italian is spoken in the city center whilst Slovenian is spoken in several of the immediate suburbs. Italian and the Slovenian language are considered autochthonous to the area. There is also a Friulian and a Croatian speaking minority, with a fair number of German-speakers too.

The economy depends on the port and on trade with its neighboring regions. Throughout the Cold War Trieste was peripheral, but is rebuilding some of its former influence.

The sights in Trieste include numerous examples of Art Nouveau and neoclassical architecture from its Austrian past, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste University, and a beautiful coastline outside the city.

History

Ancient era and the Middle Ages

The area of what is now Trieste was settled by the Carni, an Indo-European tribe (whence the name Carso) since the 3rd millennium BC. Subsequently the area was populated by the Histri, an Illyrian people, who remained the main civilization until the 2000 BC, when the Palaeo-Veneti came.

By 177 BC, the city was under the governance of the Roman republic. Trieste was granted the status of a colony under Julius Caesar, who recorded its name as Tergeste in his Commentarii de bello Gallico (51 BC). After the end of the Western Roman Empire (in 476), Trieste remained a Byzantine military centre. In 788 it became part of the Frank kingdom, under the authority of their count-bishop. From the year 1081 the city came loosely under Aquileia's patriarchy, developing into a free commune at the end of the 12th century. After two centuries of war against the nearby major power, the Republic of Venice (who occupied it briefly from 1369 to 1372), the Triestins donated the city to Leopold III von Habsburg, duke of Austria. The citizens, however, mantained a certain degree of autonomy well until the 17th century.

Modern age

Trieste had grown into an important port and trade hub. It was constituted a free port by Emperor Charles VI and remained a free port from 1719 until July 1 1891. The reign of his successor, Maria Theresa of Austria, marked for Trieste in particular the beginning of a flourishing era.

The city was occupied by French troops three times during the Napoleonic Wars, in 1797, 1805 and 1809. In the latter occasion it was annexed to the Illyrian Provinces by Napoleon. In this period Trieste lost in a definitive way its autonomy (even when it was returned to the Austrian Empire in 1813), and status of free port was interrupted.

Following the Napoleonic Wars, Trieste continued to prosper as the Imperial Free City of Trieste (Reichsunmittelbare Stadt Triest) and it became capital of the Austrian Littoral region, the so-called Küstenland. Its role as the principal Austrian commercial port and shipbuilding center was later emphasized by the Foundation of the Austrian Lloyd in 1836 and the construction of the Vienna-Trieste Austrian Southern Railway, completed in 1857.

Annexation to Italy

In the beginning of the 20th century, Trieste was a buzzing cosmopolitan city frequented by artists such as James Joyce, Italo Svevo and Umberto Saba. The city was part of the so-called Austrian Riviera and a very real part of Mitteleuropa. The particular Friulian dialect, called Tergestino, spoken until the beginning of the 19th century, had been gradually supplanted by Triestine (i.e. a Venetian dialect) and other tongues, including Italian, German and Slovenian. While Triestine was the language of the major part of the population, German was the language of the Austrian bureaucracy and Slovenian was the language of the surrounding villages. Viennese architecture and coffeehouses still mark the streets of Trieste today.

Together with Trento, Trieste was the main seat of the irredendist movement, which aimed to the annexion to Italy of all the lands historically inhabited by culturally Italian people. After World War I ended and Austria-Hungary disintegregated, Trieste was transferred to Italy (1920) along with the whole Julian March (Venezia Giulia). The annexion, however, brought a loss of importance for the city, reduced to a border one deprived of a true hinterland. The Slovenian ethnic group (forming about the 25 % of the population) was also suppressed by the Fascist Regime. This led to a period of inner strain which culminated on April 13 1920, when a group of Italian nationalists burnt the Narodni Dom (National House), the cultural centre of Trieste's Slovenians and Slavs.

Second World War

After the constitution of the Italian Social Republic, on September 23 1943, Trieste was nominally absorbed into this entity. The Germans, however, annexed it to a Adriatic Littoral Operation Zone, which included also Gorizia and Ljubljana and was led by Austrian Friedrich Rainer. Under the Nazi occupation, the sole extermination camp on Italian soil was constructed near Trieste, at the Risiera di San Sabba, on April 4, 1944. The city also suffered from the partisan activity and from Allied bombardments.

Yugoslav and New Zealand involvement

On April 30, 1945 the Italian anti-fascist Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (CLN) of don Marzari and Fonda Savio, with 3500 volunteers, incited a revolt against the Nazis. On May, 1 Yugoslav (predominantly Slovene, with some Croat and Croatian Serb) partisans of Tito's army arrived and occupied most of Trieste. The 2nd New Zealand Division continued its advance along Route 14 around the north coast of the Adriatic to Trieste and arrived to the city on the very next day. The German forces eventually capitulated in the evening of May, 2.

The Yugoslavs quickly began forming their own (Communist) military administration. They began to execute arrests against the population, also against the Italian democratic resistance force, the CLN (see Foibe massacres). On May 5, 1945 the Yugoslavs fired on a pro-Italian demonstration, killing at least five people. Yugoslav troops had to leave the city on June 12 under pressure from the New Zealanders.

Italian city

In 1947, Trieste became an independent state as the Free Territory of Trieste. This state was de facto dissolved in 1954: the city of Trieste went to Italy, while the southern part of the territory went to Yugoslavia. The annexation to Italy was officially proclaimed on October 26 of that year.

The border questions with Yugoslavia and the status of the ethnic minorities were settled definitively in 1975 with the Treaty of Osimo.

Places of interest

Castles

Castle of Miramare

The Castle was built from 1856 to 1860 to a design by Carl Junker on the orders of Archduke Maximilian.

The Castle gardens provide a setting of outstanding beauty with a variety of trees, chosen by and planted on the orders of Maximilian, that today make a remarkable collection.

Features of particular attraction in the gardens include two ponds, one noted for its swans and the other for lotus flowers, the Castle annexe ("Castelletto"), a nearby a bronze statue of Maximilian, and a small chapel in which is kept a cross made from the remains of the "Novara", the flagship on which Maximilian, brother of Emperor Franz Josef, set sail to become Emperor of Mexico.

Castle of San Giusto

Designed on the remains of previous castles on the site, it took almost two centuries to build. The stages of the development of the Castle's defensive structures are marked by the central part built under Frederick III (1470-1), the round Venetian bastion (1508-9), the Hoyos-Lalio bastion and the Pomis, or "Bastione fiorito" dated 1630.

The Castle - in which several rooms, including the Sala Caprin, are open to the public - houses a Museum displaying historical weapons and is regularly used for the staging of exhibitions, events and, in the summer, open-air shows. A walk on the Castle ramparts and bastions gives a complete panorama of the city of Trieste, its hills and the sea.

Churches

The Serb-Orthodox Temple of Holy Trinity and St. Spiridio (1869)
The building adopts the Greek-Cross plan with five cupolas in the Byzantine tradition.
Basilica of San Silvestro (11th century)
Church of Santa Maria Maggiore (1682)
Church of San Nicolò dei Greci (1787)
This church by the architect Matteo Pertsch (1818), with bell-towers on both sides of the facade, follows the Austrian late baroque style.

Cathedral of San Giusto

In the 6th century a great hall of worship of the Cathedral of San Giusto was built on Roman propylaca, using part of the existing structure. Perhaps the entrance to a monument, this was commonly known as the Capitoline Temple, as a pyramidal altar with the symbols of the capitoline triad (Jove, Juno and Minerva) had been found inside it.

Of the hall there remains part of the mosaic floor, integrated into the present-day floor, which contains markings of the outer walls of the early Christian building. Soon after it was opened for worship, the church was destroyed in the Lombard invasion.

From the 9th to the 11th centuries two basilicas were erected on the ruins of the old church, the first dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption and the second to St. Just (San Giusto). The original design of the latter building was subsequently lengthened. In the 14th century the two basilicas were joined by means of the demolition of one nave of either basilica and the construction of a simple asymmetrical façade, dominated by a delicately-worked Gothic rosette, as ornate as the new bell-tower, using the Romanesque stones found on the site and friezes of arms.

Among the works of historical interest in the basilica are the apsidal mosaics depicting Our Lady of the Assumption and San Giusto, laid by master craftsmen from Veneto in the 12th-13th centuries. The small 14th-century church of San Giovanni (the old baptistry) on the left and San Michele al Carnale on the right, by the entrance to the Museum, complete a fine Medieval churchyard.

Archaeological remains

Arch of Riccardo (33 BC)
The "Arco di Riccardo" is an Augustan gate built in the Roman walls in 33 A.D. It stands in Piazzetta Barbacan, in the narrow streets of the old town.
Basilica Forense (2nd century)
Palaeochristian basilica

Roman Theatre (1st century)

Trieste or Tergeste, which probably dates back to the protohistoric period, was enclosed by walls built in 33-32 BC on Emperor Octavius’s orders. The city developed greatly during the 1st and 2nd centuries.

The Roman Theatre lies at the foot of the San Giusto hill, and faces the sea. The construction partially exploits the gentle slope of the hill, and most of the construction work is in stone. The topmost portion of the amphitheatre steps and the stage were presumably made of wood.

The statues that adorned the theatre (which was brought to light in the '30s) are now preserved at the Town Museum. Three inscriptions from the Trajan period mention a certain Q. Petronius Modestus, a person who was closely connected with the development of the theatre, which was erected during the second half of the 1st century.

Caves

In the whole Trieste province there are 10 speleological groups (24 in Friuli-Venezia Giulia). The Trieste uphill (Altopiano Triestino), the geographical area of the Carso placed in the Italian territory (an area of roughly 200 sq km), guess approximately 1500 caves of different size (67 more than 99 m deep). Among the most famous there is the Cave of Trebiciano (350 m deep) where at the bottom flow the Timavo River and the Grotta gigante the world biggest tourist cave.

Others

The Risiera di San Sabba (Risiera di San Sabba Museum)
A national monument - a testimonial of the only Nazi extermination camp in Italy.
The Trieste Joyce Museum

Literature

Many famous writers lived and created their major works in Trieste.

Italian writers

German writers

Slovenian writers

Other writers

Other famous people

Vittorio Vidali (aka Enea Sormenti, Jacobo Hurwitz Zender, Carlos Contreras), assassin.

External links

Roman sites of Friuli Venezia Giulia | Towns in Friuli-Venezia Giulia | Coastal cities in Italy | Port cities

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