Casa Duma was a neoclassical palace located in the area of today's Piazza della Repubblica in Trieste, at number 816 of Città Nuova. Demolished between 1905 and 1907 to make way for the Banca Commerciale Triestina, its history spans almost the entire Habsburg period and weaves together some of the most extraordinary figures of the Trieste of the time.
Origins and the Name
The building was constructed in 1780 by a wealthy merchant, Ignazio Gadola, from whom the original name derived. During the eighteenth century the house passed to another affluent merchant named Duma — and it was this second owner who gave it the name by which it would remain known throughout the nineteenth century. The building was later also known as Casa Antonopulo.
Illustrious Figures
Casa Duma was the residence and commercial headquarters of some of the most prominent families in Habsburg Trieste, and was frequented by key figures of European history:
1790 — Antonio Cassis Pharaon, known as the Arab Croesus, one of the wealthiest men in Trieste, lived here.
1815 — Jérôme Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother and former King of Westphalia, purchased the house to accommodate the 54 members of his entourage during his Triestine exile. He resold it in 1818 to his sister Elisa, Grand Duchess of Tuscany.
1824–1825 — Carolina Murat, Napoleon's sister and former Queen of Naples, lived here for several months before moving permanently to Villa Murat.
1826 — The house was purchased by Karl Christian Schwachhofer, a German merchant who had arrived in Trieste in 1798 together with the French banker Joseph Labrosse, Count of Pontgibaud.
1828 — The house was renovated by architect Antonio Buttazzoni, who added a third floor with seven windows and a grand entrance surrounded by four Doric columns.
1833 — Giuseppe Wessely, one of the six deputies to the Trieste Stock Exchange and a prominent figure in city commerce, moved into the house together with his partner Gustav Adolf Fesch, founding the firm Wessely & Fesch, active in the wholesale trade of colonial goods. That same year, Wessely's daughter Clarissa married Fesch; in 1842 Adolfo Schwachhofer married Marietta Guglielmina, the youngest of the Wessely children.
The End
The building was demolished between 1905 and 1907 to make way for the new Banca Commerciale Triestina (today Banca Commerciale Italiana), which still occupies the area of Piazza della Repubblica. With its demolition, one of the most history-rich buildings of Habsburg Trieste disappeared.