Oberdan Square

20 min.

Oberdan Square (Piazza Oberdan) is named after the irredentist of Slovenian roots Wilhelm Oberdanko, who assumed the name of Guglielmo Oberdan. The Austrian authorities arrested him for planning to assassinate Emperor Franz Joseph in 1882, and after pleading guilty he was sentenced to death by hanging.
At the time of Austria-Hungary, a large barracks stood on the Kasernenplatz (Piazza della Caserma), as the square was then called. After Trieste came under the rule of the Kingdom of Italy (1918), a series of buildings emerged on the site of the barracks in the 1930s and 1940s, built in the rationalist style. One of these buildings is also housing the Risorgimento Museum (Museo del Risorgimento), where the preserved prison cell of Guglielmo Oberdan can also be seen.

Source: Bezin Erika, Dolhar Poljanka: Kako lep je Trst, Grafica Goriziana, Trst, 2012, pp. 88–89.
Photo: Massimo Crivellari, PromoTurismoFVG