Palazzo del Tergesteo is a historic building of great importance in the center of Trieste, located near Piazza della Borsa and Piazza Unità. It was designed by the architect Francesco Bruyn (an aulico Belgian architect, assisted by A. Pizzola for the gallery) and built in just two years, with the inauguration taking place on the evening of August 24, 1842. The building was erected on the site of the ancient Dogana Vecchia at the initiative of the "Società del Tergesteo".
The Name
The palace was initially intended to be called simply "Palazzo di Trieste". It was the historian Pietro Kandler who suggested the Latin name "Tergesteo" — the Roman name of the city — in keeping with an Austrian fashion of the time that favored grand Latin titles in the manner of the Viennese Johannaeum or Augusteo.
The Seven Founders
The founding of the Tergesteo is owed to a group of seven influential Triestine businessmen, often compared to the "seven samurai":
- Pasquale Revoltella — a self-made banker who became Vice President of the Suez Canal Company, an emblematic figure of Trieste's financial aristocracy
- Carlo Lodovico de Bruck — German, founder and president of the Lloyd Austriaco, and multiple-time Minister of the Empire
- Nicolò Craigher — from Friuli, Belgian Consul General in Trieste, representative of the Viennese bank Arnstein & Eskeles
- Carlo Antonio Fontana — Triestine, financial backer of the patriotic newspaper La Favilla
- Giuseppe Brambilla — Milanese, originator of the internal gallery structure
- Pompeo de Panzera — president and director, portrayed in a caricatural manner by the writer Giuseppe Caprin
- Marco Pigazzi — oversaw the demolition of the Dogana Vecchia, an operation in which he also invested his own money
Architecture and Construction
The construction, costing about two million Austrian lire, represents one of the last testimonies of the neoclassical style in Trieste — described by the critic Silvio Benco as "the epigone of Triestine Neoclassicism". The floor plan is in the shape of a Greek cross, composed of four building bodies separated by a central gallery on the ground floor, covered by a sloping structure with a metal framework, inspired by the Galleria de Cristoforis in Milan.
A refined architectural detail, discovered by the historian Marco Pozzetto, is the presence of entasis on the building's corners: a slight convex swelling at about one-third of the height, inspired by the architect Nobile, applying the principles of spherical perspective to visually convey the load-bearing tension of the structure.
The aesthetic philosophy of the palace was dictated by the merchant-commissioners themselves, who with a kind of "Calvinist antipathy for ornamentation" imposed the elimination of friezes, balconies, columns and pediments. The result was an essentially functionalist architecture: a building where, as critic Benco put it, Mercury (god of commerce) prevailed over Apollo (god of the arts).
The main entrances are located on four sides of the building:
- Piazza della Borsa
- Piazza Verdi
- Via del Teatro
- Via Einaudi
During the Habsburg Period
During the Habsburg period, the Palazzo del Tergesteo became the heart of Trieste's financial activity. It housed:
- The Trieste Stock Exchange from 1844 to 1928
- Seat of the Lloyd Austriaco from 1857 to 1883
The ground floor was dedicated to commercial activity thanks to the gallery, while the upper floors housed offices and residential apartments.
Cultural Figures Linked to the Building
Notable is the presence of cultural figures linked to the building in this era:
- The writer Italo Svevo worked in the branch of the Unionbank on the first floor and set some parts of La coscienza di Zeno here
- The composer Ferruccio Busoni spent his childhood in the apartment overlooking Teatro Verdi
Curiosity: The Canalpiccolo and the Dogana Vecchia
Before the Tergesteo was built, those heading to the Teatro Nuovo were forced to pass through the ancient Dogana Vecchia simply to avoid the muddy and malodorous streets generated by the Canalpiccolo, which at the time was still open and collected sewage from the Cittavecchia. The construction of the Tergesteo marked not only an urban transformation, but the symbolic transition of Trieste toward a deeply bourgeois and entrepreneurial mentality — and the end of purely aesthetic Neoclassicism.
In the First Post-War Period and Beyond
In the first post-war period and beyond, the palace underwent various transformations and vicissitudes:
- During the Second World War it was occupied by German forces
- In the period of the Free Territory of Trieste it housed a recreational club for the British army
- After Trieste's return to Italy, the building underwent a significant restoration that ended in 1957: the iron and glass ceiling of the gallery was demolished, replaced by a glass-concrete structure
- The last restoration, completed in 2011, brought the gallery back to its original glass and iron covering, partially recovering the nineteenth-century appearance
Palazzo del Tergesteo continues to be a historical, architectural, and cultural symbol of Trieste, with a profound history that reflects the changes of the city from the times of the Habsburg empire through the turbulences of the 20th century.