Caffè Tommaseo

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View of the coffee house on the waterfront (to the right of the Church of San Nicolò dei Greci )

Caffè Tommaseo is the oldest coffee house still in operation in the northern Italian city of Trieste . Opened in 1830, the café was one of the centers of the irredentist movement in Trieste and is still a popular meeting place for Trieste merchants, artists and other intellectuals today. The coffee house is located in Piazza Tommaseo directly on the promenade of the Città Nuova .

history

The building in which today's Caffè Tommaseo is located was built in 1824 at the instigation of the two traders Felice and Vitale Vivante from Mantua . The brothers commissioned the Trieste architect Antonio Buttazzoni with the project on the Piazza dei Negozianti , today's Piazza Tommaseo .

In 1830, Tomaso Marcato from Padua opened the Caffè Tomaso coffee house on the ground floor of the building. Marcato furnished his restaurant with Thonet chairs and wall mirrors from Belgium and commissioned the Friulian painter Giuseppe Gatteri (1799–1878) with the wall decoration. The café quickly became a popular meeting place for merchants, artists and other intellectuals. Marcato organized numerous concerts and exhibitions by painters such as Giuseppe Bernardino Bison . He also introduced ice cream to Trieste in his coffeehouse .

Plaque

1848 the coffee house in honor of the Dalmatian writer and patriot was Niccolò Tommaseo in Caffè Tommaseo renamed. During this time, the café transformed into a meeting place for the Italian Risorgimento in Trieste. A plaque placed by the Institute for the Study of the History of the Risorgimento (Istituto Nazionale per la Storia del Risorgimento) testifies to the importance of the coffee house during the Italian unity movement. The board says:

Da questo Caffè Tommaseo, nel 1848, centro del movimento nazionale, si diffuse la fiamma degli entusiasmi per la libertà italiana.
(From this Caffè Tommaseo, center of the national movement, enthusiasm for the freedom of Italy spread in 1848.)

After the execution of the irredentist Guglielmo Oberdan in 1882, the climax of the irredentist movement in Trieste, the name of the coffee house was changed back to Caffè Tomaso for fear of the reaction of Austria-Hungary . It was not until the first Italian troops disembarked in Trieste on November 3, 1918 and the city was awarded to Italy that the coffee house was called Caffè Tommaseo again .

In 1997, at the instigation of the new owner, the rooms of the coffee house were completely renovated and operated in accordance with the original Viennese coffee house tradition. The original interior decoration has largely been preserved.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Enrico Lucchese (2000): Neoclassicismo a Trieste in: Trieste. I Musei del Territorio , ed. v. C. Furlan, G. Pavanello (Biblos), Padua, p. 100.
  2. ↑ Giuliapaola Ruaro (2005): Trieste , 3rd edition (Edizioni Italo Svevo), Trieste, S. 65th
  3. ↑ See Il Caffè Tommaseo .

Web links

Coordinates: 45 ° 39 ′ 5 ″  N , 13 ° 46 ′ 9 ″  E