ROMEO DEPAOLI

He was born in Trieste on January 2nd. 1876 by Giuseppe, commercial agent, to Luigia Ionke. He attended the technical school of arts and crafts in his hometown, between 1891 and 1896, obtaining the title of technical designer. He later attended the Vienna Polytechnic.

From 1903 he carried out, for a local company (Picciolla and Benedettich), the duties of master builder, obtaining the appointment of master builder; later he practiced with the title of authorized building constructor and directed various buildings, all in Trieste, from 1904 to 1913, directly signing the plans. Also in 1904 he founded the Piccin & Depaoli construction company. The 12sett. 1901 he married Cecilia Giorgeri.

After a long illness, he died in Trieste on January 18. 1916 (cf. necrol. In Il Lavoratore, 18 January 1916).

The D. can be considered one of the main exponents of liberty in Trieste. Self-taught, he was affected by the Italian floral patterns, in particular Lombard, and the Viennese secession (especially by the works of Max Fabiani). In the individual buildings he introduced motifs typical of the different currents, albeit without detaching himself in the monumental structures from the architectural approach of the late 1800s: he thus succeeded in bringing together components of classical and liberty derivation, inventing a real "Depaolian lexicon" (Carboni Tonini, 1975). Already in his first projects (1903-1905) he proposed decorative motifs with a vegetal character and a typically floral taste, creating at the same time chiaroscuro games on the facades. A remarkable formal purity still appears in some villas built on the Trieste plateau, but with the planning of the Smolars house (1906) and the Polish house (1908) the D. showed his full expressive autonomy. The exuberant decoration, in some moments almost eclectic, imposed on the surface of the buildings, which however. in turn, they take on an almost scenographic aspect, typical of the specific Trieste architecture of the late nineteenth century.

We remember the buildings built in Trieste, with the date shown on the individual projects: viale Ippodromo 12 (June 2, 1903); via della Tesa 60 (September 16, 1903); via Piccardi 53 (July 3, 1903); via Pascoli 44 (14 ag. 1903); viale XX Settembre 87 (14 Dec. 1903); via dell'Istria 180 (January 2, 1904); via Galleria 4 (February 6, 1904); via dell'Industria 65 (May 6, 1904); via Nazionale 38 (30 Nov. 1904); via Udine 2 (April 26, 1905); via Bersezio 22 (December 2, 1905); via S. Nicolò 36 (April 20, 1906); via Madonnina 9 (April 25, 1906); via Marchesetti 16 (September 16, 1906); via Montecucco 5 (29 ag. 1907); via dell'Istria 43 (March 20, 1908); via Imbriani I (30 ag. 1908); via S. Giacomo in Monte 2 (29 May 1913).