Trieste
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Comune di Trieste | |
|---|---|
 Municipal coat of arms |
|
| Country |  Italy |
| Region | Friuli-Venezia Giulia |
| Province | Trieste (TS) |
| Mayor | Roberto Dipiazza (since 2001) |
| Elevation | 2 m |
| Area | 84 km² |
| Population | |
| - Total (as of December 31, 2004) | 207,069 |
| - Density | 2,480/km² |
| Time zone | CET, UTC+1 |
| Coordinates | |
| Gentilic | Triestini |
| Dialing code | 040 |
| Postal code | 34100 |
| Frazioni | See list |
| Patron | San Giusto |
| - Day | November 3 |
| Website: www.comune.trieste.it | |
Trieste (Italian: Trieste; Slovenian: Trst; German: 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 207,069 (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 1867 – 1918 when it was Central Europe's prosperous Mediterranean seaport and a capital of literature and music. However, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Trieste's annexation to Italy after World War I led to a decline in its economic and cultural importance.
Today, Trieste is a border town. The population is an ethnic mix of the neighboring regions; The dominant local Venetian dialect of Trieste is called Triestine ("Triestin" - pronounced /triˈɛstin/, 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 large number of German-speakers.
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.
Places of touristic interest 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 and the Trieste University.
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[edit] History
[edit] 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 agreement of cessation was signed in October 1372, at the St. Bartholomew's church "apud Sisciam", the village of Šiška, today one of the city quarters of Ljubljana.) The citizens, however, maintained a certain degree of autonomy well until the 17th century.
[edit] 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.
Trieste is also home to the important nuclear physics laboratory, INFN.
[edit] 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 annexation, however, brought a loss of importance for the city, with the new border depriving it 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.
[edit] 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 an 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.
[edit] 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. In May, 1 Yugoslav 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 at the city on the next day. The German forces eventually capitulated in the evening of May 2.
Intent on annexation, the Yugoslavs quickly began forming their own (Communist) military administration. They began to arrest members of the population, including the Italian democratic resistance force, the CLN (see Foibe massacres). On May 5, 1945 the Yugoslavs opened fire on a pro-Italian demonstration, killing at least five people. The Yugoslav troops were finally forced to withdraw from the city on June 12 under pressure from the New Zealand 2nd Division locally and from Churchill on a political level.
[edit] Italian city
In 1947, Trieste became an independent state as the Free Territory of Trieste and was governed for several years by the Allied Military Government, comprising American and (mainly) British forces headed by Sir Terence Airey. This state was de facto dissolved in 1954: the city of Trieste, dubbed Zone A, went to Italy, while the southern part of the territory (Zone B), comprising Istria and some parts of the Karst 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.
[edit] Main sights
[edit] Castles
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Churches
- The Cathedral of San Giusto.
- 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.
- Israelite Temple of Trieste (1912)
[edit] Archaeological remains
- Arch of Riccardo (33 BC). It is an Augustan gate built in the Roman walls in 33. It stands in Piazzetta Barbacan, in the narrow streets of the old town. It's called Arco di Riccardo ("Richard's Arch") because is believed to have been crossed by King Richard of England in the return jorney from the Crusades.
- Basilica Forense (2nd century)
- Palaeochristian basilica
[edit] Roman theatre
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.
[edit] Caves
In the whole Trieste province there are 10 speleological groups (24 in Friuli-Venezia Giulia). The Trieste plateau (Altopiano Triestino), called the Carso and covering an area of roughly 200 km² within Italy has approximately 1500 caves of various sizes (67 are more than 99 m deep). Among the most famous are the Grotta Gigante, the largest tourist cave in the world, with a single cavity large enough to contain St Peter's in Rome, and the Cave of Trebiciano (350 m deep) at the bottom of which flows the Timavo River. This river dives underground at Skocjan in Slovenia and flows about 30 km before emerging about 1 km from the sea in a series of springs near Duino reputed by the Romans to be an entrance to Hades.
[edit] Others
- The Risiera di San Sabba (Risiera di San Sabba Museum)', a national monument. It is a testimonial of the only Nazi extermination camp in Italy.
- The Trieste Joyce Museum
[edit] Literature
Many famous writers lived and created their major works in Trieste.
[edit] Italian writers
- Italo Svevo
- Umberto Saba
- Scipio Slataper
- Enzo Bettiza
- Fulvio Tomizza
- Claudio Magris
- Pino Roveredo
- Susanna Tamaro
[edit] German writers
- Julius Kugy
- Bobi Bazlen
- Robert Hamerling
- Rainer Maria Rilke
- Veit Heinichen
- Theodor Däubler
[edit] Slovenian writers
- Igo Gruden
- Vladimir Bartol
- Boris Pahor
- Alojz Rebula
[edit] Other writers
[edit] Other famous people
- Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist
- Margherita Hack, Italian astronomer
- Biaggio Chianese, Italian boxer
- Vittorio Vidali (aka Enea Sormenti, Jacobo Hurwitz Zender, Carlos Contreras), assassin.
- Denis Sciama, British physicist
- Abdus Salam, Pakistani theoretical physicist
- Boris Furlan, Slovenian jurist, translator and politician.
- Alex Staropoli, Heavy metal keyboardist for the band Rhapsody of Fire
- Alberto Randegger, composer
[edit] See also
- Jewish Community of Trieste
- Central European Initiative, located in Trieste.
- International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), located in Trieste.
- The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), located in Trieste.
- International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), located in Trieste.
- ELETTRA Synchrotron Light Laboratory, located in Trieste.
- TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world, located in Trieste.
- Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi, located in Trieste.
- Trieste Astronomical Observatory, located in Trieste.
- University of Trieste, located in Trieste.
- U.S. Triestina Calcio, Trieste's soccer club.
- Il Piccolo, Trieste's newspaper.
- ITS International Talent Support, International Fashion, Accessories and Photo competition located in Trieste.
- INFN, (National Institute of Nuclear Physics), the nuclear physics laboratory located in Trieste.
[edit] External links
- (Italian) Municipality of Trieste
- Welcome to Trieste
- Traveller's Guide to Trieste and its Riviera
- Trieste Tourism
- Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Crafts and Agricolture of Trieste
- ItalianVisits.com
- Trieste & Friuli Venezia Giulia 360° panoramas
- International School of Trieste
- A classic car rallye from Trieste to Vienna
- (Italian) Grotta Gigante official site time table
- Trieste's portal
| Duino-Aurisina | Monrupino | Muggia | San Dorligo della Valle | Sgonico | Trieste |
