Caffè San Marco is a historic café in

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into prov ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

founded in 1914 that became famous as a rendezvous for intellectuals and writers including

Italo Svevo Aron Hector Schmitz (19 December 186113 September 1928), better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo (), was an Italian writer, businessman, novelist, playwright, and short story writer. A close friend of Irish novelist and poet James Joyce, Svevo ...

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

and

Umberto Saba Umberto Saba (9 March 1883 – 26 August 1957) was an Italian poet and novelist, born Umberto Poli in the cosmopolitan Mediterranean port of Trieste when it was the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Poli assumed the pen name ...

, a tradition that continues to date with

Claudio Magris Claudio Magris (born 10 April 1939) is an Italian scholar, translator and writer. He was a senator for Friuli-Venezia Giulia from 1994 to 1996. Life Magris graduated from the University of Turin, where he studied German studies, and has been a ...

. It is located in via Battisti 18. A meeting point for Trieste's irredentists, the café was destroyed by Austro-Hungarian troops during the first World War but was reopened when hostilities ended. The interiors reflect the

Vienna Secession The Vienna Secession (german: Wiener Secession; also known as ''the Union of Austrian Artists'', or ''Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs'') is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austr ...

style popular when the café was founded. Part of the frescos are attributed to Vito Timmel. The café is owned by Italy's largest insurance company (also based in Trieste),

Assicurazioni Generali Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A. ( , ; meaning 'general insurances') or simply Generali Group is an Italian insurance company based in Trieste. As of 2019, it is the largest of its kind in Italy and among the top ten largest insurance companies in ...

. Italians campaigned to save the historic café in 2013 and it has now been restored, incorporating a bookshop.

References

External links

Brief History of Caffè San Marco
(in Italian)
Youtube video detailing the cafè's history
(in Italian)
Caffé San Marco website
(in Italian and English) Coffeehouses and cafés in Italy Buildings and structures in Trieste Restaurants established in 1914 Italian companies established in 1914 Art Nouveau architecture in Italy Art Nouveau restaurants 1914 establishments in Austria-Hungary {{Coffee-stub