The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 119, September, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 119, September, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Most of the inhabitants, indeed, are bi-lingual, and very many
tri-lingual, without counting French, which is understood and spoken
from infancy. Italian, German, and Greek are written, but the Slavonic
little, this having remained in the condition of a vulgar tongue. But it
would be idle to distinguish the population according to language, for
the son adopts a language different from the father's, and now prefers
one language and now another; the women generally incline to the
Italian; but many of the upper class prefer now German, now French, now
English, as, from one decade to another, affairs, fashions, and fancies
change. This in the salons; in the squares and streets, the Venetian
dialect is heard."
And with the introduction of the Venetian dialect, Venetian discontent
seems also to have crept in, and I once heard a Triestine declaim
against the Imperial government quite in the manner of Venice. It struck
me that this desire for union with Italy, which he declared prevalent in
Trieste, must be of very recent growth, since even so late as 1848
Trieste had refused to join Venice in the expulsion of the Austrians.
Indeed, the Triestines have fought the Venetians from the first; they
stole the Brides of Venice in one of their piratical cruises in the
lagoons; gave aid and comfort to those enemies of Venice, the Visconti,
the Carraras, and the Genoese; revolted from St. Mark whenever subjected
to his banner; and finally, rather than remain under his sway, gave
themselves five centuries ago to Austria.
The objects of interest in Trieste are not many. There are remains of an
attributive temple of Jupiter under the Duomo, and there is near at hand
the museum of classical antiquities founded in honor of Winckelmann,
murdered at Trieste by that ill-advised Pistojese, Ancangeli, who had
seen the medals bestowed on the antiquary by Maria Theresa and believed
him rich. There is also a scientific museum founded by the Archduke
Maximilian, and, above all, there is the beautiful residence of this
unhappy prince,--the Miramare, where the half-crazed Empress of the
Mexicans vainly waits her husband's return from the experiment of
paternal government in the New World. It would be hard to tell how art
has there charmed rock and wave, until the spur of one of those rugged
Triestine hills, jutting into the sea, has been made the seat of ease
and luxury; but the visitor is aware of the magic as soon as he passes
the gate of the palace grounds. These are in great part perpendicular,
and are overclambered with airy stairways climbing to pensile arbors.
Where horizontal, they are diversified with mimic seas for swans to sail
upon, and summer-houses for people to lounge in and look at the swans
from. On the point of land farthest from the acclivity stands the castle
of Miramare, half at sea, and half adrift in the clouds above.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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