Café San Marco

The café was established in 1914 and became right from the beginning a favourite meeting place for Trieste people, foreigners, Jewish and genteel people, intellectuals, newspaper readers and young irredentists.

The café even housed a factory for forged passports needed by anti-Austrian patriots to flee to Italy. For this reason in May 1915 an Austrian squad destroyed the coffee shop.

The café was restored several times and  maintains its original fascinating aspect. The bare medallion paintings on the walls depict the rivers of Friaul, Istria and Dalmatia which empty into the Adriatic Sea, the sea of Venice and therefore of Saint Mark. The small marble topped tables stand on lions’ feet, the lion of Saint Mark, made especially by the first owner as a symbol for Italianism and irredentism.

Among famous visitors of the San Marco is the writer Claudio Magris who dedicated the first chapter of his Microcosms to his favourite café.

Magris recalls the names of the many intellectuals who stopped here to discuss, to write, to live for an hour or so in this café; to mention just one of them: Giorgio Voghera is still remembered for his studies on Judaism and psychoanalysis.