Piazza della Borsa

Piazza della Borsa is one of the main squares of Trieste. Also known as the second good city living room, the square was the economic center of the city throughout the 19th century.

It is the square immediately adjacent to Piazza Unità d'Italia and, as it narrows, it continues to the beginning of Corso Italia, an important city artery. The place where the square stands was once just outside the city walls. In fact, in the point where the passage with Piazza Unità is located, there was the gate of Vienna and the houses that delimit the square towards the mountain follow the line of the ancient walls towards the Riborgo tower.

The square was initially called piazza della Dogana, from the name of the building that stood in the place of the current Tergesteo. Its current name derives from an evident toponym due to the palace built in 1806 by the Macerata architect Antonio Mollari to house the activities of the stock market traders. This building, which distinguishes the square and which is one of the most important examples of Trieste's neoclassical monuments, is currently the seat of the Trieste Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Crafts and Agriculture, and is also called the Old Stock Exchange, as the Stock Exchange has moved first in 1844 at the Tergesteo, and then in 1928 in an adjoining building (formerly Palazzo Dreher) which is therefore also called the New Stock Exchange.

Alongside this building there was once the Canal Piccolo, still remembered today by the name of the street, which through the Portizza and Via del Ponte reached the center of the old city. The canal was filled in in 1816.

Numerous other buildings overlook the square, today used mostly as bank offices or shops. Interesting is the Art Nouveau building built by architect Max Fabiani in 1905 (Bartoli house). Also in the square overlooks the ancient covered gallery of the Tergesteo palace (architect Buttazzoni - inaugurated in 1842), which creates a pedestrian connection to the square in front of the "Giuseppe Verdi" opera house. In the Tergesteo palace there are also some of Trieste's historic cafes.

In front of the Chamber of Commerce building, a stone column supports the figure of an emperor. It is the column of Leopold I of Austria whose son, Charles VI, established the free port in Trieste. The column had been erected in 1660 in piazza Pozzo del Mare and was moved to piazza della Borsa in 1808.

On 27 April 2011, the restored and redeveloped Piazza della Borsa was inaugurated, with the complete pedestrianization and the return of the Neptune fountain (1755) to its original location, from which it was removed in 1920. The fountain was present until the end of 2008 in Piazza Venezia, where, following a complete redevelopment, it was replaced by the statue of Maximilian of Austria.