Five miles along the coast, gleaming white in the sun, is the Castello di Miramare - built in the late 1850s for the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Josef Maria von Habsburg-Lothringen (presumably known as Max to his friends) - who became the first Emperor of Mexico for a few years in the 1860s, and was then executed by his Republican opponents in 1867 - it's a long and complicated episode in European intervention in South American politics, and I confess I chiefly knew about him as the subject of Manet's paintings of his execution. He never really got to live here after it was finished (he'd been a noted naval commander, and wanted a house overlooking the sea).
There are excellent gardens,
although the abandoned greenhouse is decidedly melancholy.
Then back on the bus to Trieste's old town, which stretches up the hill behind the grandiose part, all tangled up with Roman ruins and cat colonies, with a lovely old cathedral with C13th mosaics.
But I had forgotten - or not fully assimilated - that Winckelmann was murdered here! It seems as though it was likely to have been some complicated relationship gone (very) wrong with a guy who was staying in the same hotel - the version that Pater gives (and yes, I sat outside the mausoleum reading this, on my phone) is that he was robbed for a couple of medals that Maria Theresa had given him, but that only seems to be a part of it. His murderer (even though Winckelmann forgave him [why?] in pretty much his dying words was convicted, and (very Foucauldian) put to death on a wheel -
- just about where I (not in deliberate homage) sat and had a Spritz Hugo. Much classier than an Aperol Spritz, this is made with elderflower syrup and - because it was a posh cafe - came with Things.
Then - the sunset from the pier, again,
and the view of the Piazza Unità d'Italia, at night.
No comments:
Post a Comment