Casting a shadow on the government building

Faces

Viale d'Annunzio

Skywatch Friday post

A thunderstorm is approaching.

See more Skywatch here.

Sunkissed bollard (2)

Bottle

Back in Contovello

Click on the "contovello" tag for more.

It's a hard life!

Out of rhythm

Virgin Mary and Child

Faro della Vittoria (3)

At the top stands the magnificent copper statue of Victory, by sculptor Giovanni Mayer. It weighs about 7 tonnes and is 8.6m tall.


The wings have holes in them to stop the Bora wind blowing the statue off.

Faro della Vittoria (2)

The lighthouse seen face on: you can make out the impressive figure of the sailor (7.2m tall) by Giovanni Mayer, which was created using 100 tonnes of Orsera stone. The anchor of the torpedo-boat destroyer Audace (the first Italian ship to sail into Trieste port on November 3rd 1918) hangs under the lighthouse. The only detail in focus is the anchor chain.

Tomorrow I'll show you what there is at the top.

Pink underpants

A photo of a photo.
Italian soldiers during the First World War (Museo del Risorgimento, Trieste).


..... times have changed. The photos are pretty much the same but soldiers are much more unconventional!

(David Guttenfelder/AP)

(here is the link to the TIMESONLINE article)

Sunkissed bollard

Back in Contovello

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Rooftops and Alabarda

Gossips

Skywatch Friday post

I simply can't resist a reflection.

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Sails

Water colours by Bruno Tommasini in the art gallery in Via Lazzaretto Vecchio, 19.

A Still from....

...The Italian Job!?

A great backside

A fiery red, custom-built Siata, made using the chassis of a ... Topolino!

The Giro

The 92nd edition of the tour of Italy came through Trieste yesterday.

The Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy), also simply known as The Giro, is a long distance road bicycle racing stage race for professional cyclists held over three weeks in May/early June in and around Italy. It is one of the three Grand Tours, and is part of the UCI World Ranking calendar.

The Giro was inspired by the Tour de France and, just as the French race was intended to boost circulation of L'Auto, so Emilio Camillo Costamagna, the editor of La Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper, aimed to increase his circulation.

The first Giro d'Italia started on May 13, 1909 in Milan.

Along with the Tour de France and the World Cycling Championship, the Giro d'Italia makes up the Triple Crown of Cycling. Along with the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España it is one of the three Grand Tours.

Whereas the overall leader of the Tour de France is awarded a yellow jersey (originally to correspond with L'Auto 's yellow pages), since 1931 the overall leader in the Giro sports the maglia rosa (pink jersey), which corresponds with newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport's pink newsprint. The "King of the Mountains" wears the maglia verde (green jersey). The leader of the points classification wears the maglia ciclamino (mauve jersey), the best young rider wears the maglia bianca (white jersey).

(wiki)

The importance of symbols (2)

The Victoria Lighthouse, built between 1923 and 1927 to the design of Triestine architect Arduino Berlan, (1880-1946), not only guides the boats during the night but is also a commemorative monument dedicated to the sailors who died in World War I.

The symbolic lighthouse was built on top of the Austrian fortification Kressich, using one of its bastions as its base. Once again symbols glorifying Trieste's Italianism have replaced Austrian ones.

The fortification. built in 1854, was an impregnable military structure, with cannon ports, a large moat and drawbridge, and invulnerable underground chambers, which, at fifty metres above sea level, could not be hit by naval artillery.

The importance of symbols

Piazza Oberdan, the square in which the museum of the Risorgimento is situated, underwent a vast architectural transformation in the early twentieth century. Until 1927 there was a huge Austrian military barracks in the area. The building was a symbol of the Austrian presence in the city, which came to an end in 1918 with the end of the First World War.
In December 1882, Guglielmo Oberdan was imprisoned and hanged in these barracks; the young Triestine had taken part in a failed attempt on Emperor Franz Joseph's life.

Between 1931 and 1935, the whole area of the square was renovated and symbols were turned completely upside down: where the Austrian military barracks had once been, a sacrarium dedicated to G.Oberdan was built, together with a museum designed by Umberto Nordio to display the evidence of the city's participation in the battle to unify Italy.

The building has a square tower soaring up higher than the other buildings around it where the Italian flag is always flying at full mast.

Today it is impossible to photograph the building face on, as a newer building blocks its view almost completely. And so here you have a slice of the museum as it is today and a photo taken in April 29 1934, during the opening ceremony.

Skywatch Friday post

Upside down

See more Skywatch here.

The Synagogue

The Synagogue in via San Francesco is one of the most significant buildings of the multi-religious nature of Trieste. Designed by the architects Ruggero and Arduino Berlam, the monumental Synagogue was unveiled in 1912, proving the great influence achieved by the Jewish Community in the economic and cultural life of the town.


The Temple, one of the biggest and most majestic in Europe, is characterized by oriental elements in the biforas, in the columns, in the intaglios and in the peculiar rose windows designing the star of David.

(read more here)

Letters to the fiance

Piazza Oberdan, M.Mascherini's statue, Cantico dei Cantici.

The statue, also known as the statue of the fiances, depicts a hug and a kiss between two figures.

In the book "Trieste Sottosopra" (Trieste upside down) the writer Mauro Covacich imagines that Marcello Mascherini was thinking about the story of Pino Robusti when he made the statue.

Pino Robusti, a 22-year-old student of architecture from Trieste, was waiting for his fiance Laura in Oberdan Square on March 19 1945, during the German occupation. He was stopped by the SS and then arrested, suspected of having infringed his duty to do compulsory work in the Todt Organisation. He was sent to jail and then to the "Risiera di San Sabba" prison camp where he was murdered on April 6, 1945.

The letters to his beloved were later found in the prison camp and the statue of Mascherini remembers that broken date.

Laura mia
Mi decido a scrivere queste pagine in
previsione di un epilogo fatale ed impre-
veduto. Da due giorni partono a decine
uomini e donne per ignota destinazione.
Può anche essere la mia ora.
In tale eventualità io trovo il dovere
di lasciarti come mio unico ricordo
queste righe.
Tu sai, Laura mia, se mi è stato
doloroso il distaccarmi, sia pure
forzatamente da te, tu mi conosci
e mi puoi con i miei genitori, voi
soli, giustamente giudicare.
Se quanto temo dovrà accadere
sarò una delle centinaia di migliaia
di vittime che con sommaria giusti-
zia in un campo e nell’altro
sono state mietute.

Per voi sarà cosa tremenda per
la massa sarà il nulla, un’unità
in più ad una cifra seguita da
molti zeri. Ormai l’umanità s’è
abituata a vivere nel sangue.

[Pagina 2]

Io credo che tutto ciò che tra noi
v’è stato, non sia altro che normale
e conseguente alla nostra età, e son
certo che con me non avrai imparato
nulla che possa nuocerti né dal lato morale
né da quello fisico.
Ti raccomando perciò, come mio ultimo
desiderio, che tu non voglia o per
debolezza, o per dolore, sbandarti e
uscire da quella via che con tanto
amore, cura, e passione ti ho modesta-
mente insegnato.
Mi pare strano, mentre ti scrivo,
che tra poche ore una scarica potrebbe
stendermi per sempre, mi sento calmo
direi quasi sereno, solo l’animo
mi duole di non avere voluto cogliere
degnamente, come avrei voluto, il
fiore della tua giovinezza, l’unico
ed il più ambito premio di questa
mia esistenza.
Credimi, Laura mia, anche se io
non dovessi esserci più, ti seguirò
sempre, e quando andrai a trovare
i tuoi genitori io sarò là, presso
la loro tomba, a consigliarti, ad
aiutarti.

[Pagina 3]

L’esperienza che sto provando, credimi
è terribile.
Sapere che da un’ora all’altra tutto può
finire, essere salvo, e vedermi
purtroppo avvinghiato, senza scampo
dall’immane polipo che cala nel
baratro.
E’ come divenire ciechi poco per volta.
Ora, con te sono stato in dovere
di mandarti un ultimo saluto,
ma con i miei, me ne manca
l’animo, quello che dovrei dire
loro è troppo atroce perché io
possa avere la forza di dar loro
un dolore di tale misura.
Comprenderanno, è l’unica cosa
che io spero.
Comprenderanno.

Addio, Laura adorata, io vado verso
l’ignoto, la gloria o l’oblio, sii forte
onesta, generosa, inflessibile.
Laura santa.

Il mio ultimo bacio a te che comprendi tutti gli affetti miei, la famiglia, la casa,
la patria, i figli.

Addio
Pino

(Lettera a Laura Mulli, scritta in data 5-04-1945, Risiera di San Sabba)

S.Antonio Vecchio

The bell tower of the S.Antonio Vecchio Church seen from Cornelia Romana Square.

No parking

Two chimneys

Iris

Labour day

Workers of the world, awaken!
Break your chains, demand your rights.
All the wealth you make is taken
By exploiting parasites.
Shall you kneel in deep submission
From your cradles to your graves?
Is the height of your ambition
To be good and willing slaves?

Arise, ye prisoners of starvation!
Fight for your own emancipation;
Arise, ye slaves of ev'ry nation, in One Union Grand.
Our little ones for bread are crying;
And millions are from hunger dying;
The end the means is justifying,
'Tis the final stand.

If the workers take a notion,
They can stop all speeding trains;
Every ship upon the ocean
They can tie with mighty chains;
Every wheel in the creation,
Every mine and every mill,
Fleets and armies of the nation,
Will at their command stand still.

Chorus

Join the union, fellow workers,
Men and women, side by side;
We will crush the greedy shirkers
Like a sweeping, surging tide;
For united we are standing,
But divided we will fall;
Let this be our understanding
"All for one and one for all."

Chorus

Workers of the world, awaken!
Rise in all your splendid might;
Take the wealth that you are making
It belongs to you by right.
No one for bread will be crying,
We'll have freedom, love and health,
When the grand red flag is flying
In the Worker's commonwealth.

Chorus

(Joe Hill)

Happy Labour Day!