View over the Gulf of Trieste from the Late 19th Century

The photograph, taken from the height of San Giusto or from its slopes, embraces the entire urban front up to the sea. Below, the closely packed roofs of the historic city, with courtyards and gardens, soon give way to the dense grid of the Borgo Teresiano; in the center stands out the large dome and the smaller cupolas of the Serbo-Orthodox church of San Spiridione, while further on rise bell towers and nineteenth-century facades. In the background, along the Rive, a forest of masts of sailing ships and steamers moored signals the intense activity of the imperial port: warehouses, sheds, trestle cranes and the piers protruding into the sea can be distinguished. Beyond the water line, the coast runs westward and then northward, with the undulating profile of the Karst plateau and the small coastal localities immersed in the haze.