
Tartini Square (
Slovene: ''Tartinijev trg'',
Italian: ''Piazza Tartini'') is the largest and main square in the town of
Piran,
Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, and ...
. It was named after violinist and composer
Giuseppe Tartini
Giuseppe Tartini (8 April 1692 – 26 February 1770) was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque era born in the Republic of Venice. Tartini was a prolific composer, composing over a hundred of pieces for the violin with the majority of ...
, of whom a monument was made in 1896.
History
The square was once an inner dock for smaller vessels, such as fishing boats, and was located outside of the first city walls.
In the Middle Ages the dock became surrounded by important buildings and palaces, because of which it became an important site of the town. However, because of the sewage which ended up there, the officials decided to bury the dock and set up a ''real'' square there in 1894. Around the newly created platform various new buildings appeared, including the town hall. Of those buildings, the only one that still has the original exterior is the
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
house named Benečanka (''Venetian house''), dating to the 15th century.
The sculptor of the 1896 bronze monument to Tartini was
Antonio Dal Zòtto.
From 1909 to 1912, a
trolleybus
A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or trol ...
path was made which connected Piran to the train station in
Lucija, where the
Parenzana railway was made, which connected
Trieste and
Poreč with various other towns. After 1912, the trolleybus was replaced by the more efficient
tram, which was operational until 1953 when it was abolished. On the 300th anniversary of Tartini's birth a huge renovation of the square occurred, when an ellipse platform was formed out of white stone, designed by architect
Boris Podrecca.
Present
In recent years there have been some changes to reduce the number of personal vehicles within the square in favor of tourism, so during the main season (July 1 to September 1) no vehicles are allowed to park within the square; instead they have to park in the town's car park in Fornače. There is also a line of free mini-buses which drive from Piran to various other coastal towns in the main season.
Gallery
File:Tartini statue.jpg, Giuseppe Tartini statue
File:Piran19century.jpg, The docks before the platform
of the square was made
File:Cantina bar (1622993672).jpg, Cantina bar
See also
*
Slovenian Istria
*
Slovenian Littoral
References
External links
Municipality of Piran*
{{coord, 45, 31, 42.66, N, 13, 34, 6.22, E, type:landmark_region:SI, display=title
Piran
Squares in Slovenia