The city's front parlour is what the great poet Biagio Marin called the section of Trieste that begins at the Chiozza porticos and climbs the Guardiella Valley, where a potok, or stream, used to flow and the ancient aqueduct descended.

The industrious new city, devoid of green spaces, ended at the Chiozza porticos, beyond which there was only open countryside with crops, fields and woods. This was where the patriot, philologist, historian and antiquarian Domenico Rossetti built his home, converting the banks of the aqueduct into a tree-lined avenue.

From that moment on, Viale XX Settembre became the "grand promenade", the preferred meeting place of Trieste's residents, a sitting room amid the trees, crowded with cafes, pubs, restaurants, places to dance and enjoy music, and ice cream shops.

This is where intellectuals of the era met, writers such Svevo and Saba, as well as musicians, painters, philosophers and professors. 

MeanwhileMeanwhile the city was expanding. The Rossetti Multi-purpose Theatre became the driving force for urban development in an area where houses were beginning to form "high, solid embankments", as Marin put it. 

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Muzio de Tommasini Public Garden opened at the centre of this "stone forest", offering the busy city a verdant refuge while also providing a place to commemorate the city's past through the gradual addition of busts of illustrious residents.

The itinerary of the "city's front parlour" explores green outdoor walkways, places where intellectuals and artists met, such as the San Marco cafe, the commemorative busts of important figures in the Public Garden, and the buildings of the expanding city.

Piero Ongaro - ScopriTrieste