The story
Welcome to the heart of Trieste’s Città Vecchia, the Old Town. As you stand here on Via dei Cavazzeni, take a moment to look up at the elegant, understated facade of the building before you. Constructed in 1770, this structure has watched the city transform from a bustling Austro-Hungarian port into the modern Italian crossroads it is today.
But its most fascinating chapter began in the early 20th century, when a young, penniless Irishman stepped off a train and made these narrow, labyrinthine streets his home. That man was James Joyce. Between 1904 and 1915, Joyce spent what he called his "decennio triestino," or Triestine decade, right here.
While the building now serves as a refined hotel, over a century ago, it echoed with the sounds of a growing family and the scratch of a fountain pen. To the neighbors, Joyce wasn't a literary titan; he was "Giacomo," a tall, thin English teacher with a penchant for white waistcoats and an even greater penchant for the city’s many taverns. By day, Joyce walked from these doors to the nearby Berlitz School or to the homes of wealthy merchants to teach English.
He was a man of many languages, often blending Italian, Triestine dialect, and Irish-inflected English into a unique linguistic stew. But it was by night, perhaps by the glow of a single lamp in a room much like the ones above you, that he did his most vital work. It was here in Trieste that he completed his short story collection, Dubliners, and where he began to craft the revolutionary prose of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Trieste was more than just a place to live; it was Joyce’s second country. He loved the salty breeze blowing off the Adriatic and the cosmopolitan chaos of a city where Greek, Jewish, German, and Italian cultures collided. It is said that the character of Leopold Bloom in his masterpiece, Ulysses, was inspired by the Triestine people he met in the cafes and markets just a few blocks from where you are standing.
As you continue your walk through the Old Town, imagine Joyce navigating these same cobblestones, perhaps humming an operatic aria or rushing home to his wife, Nora, with a bundle of papers under his arm. This 1770 building remains a silent witness to those years of struggle and genius. Though Joyce eventually left Trieste as the clouds of the First World War gathered, a piece of his soul stayed behind in the shadows of Via dei Cavazzeni, woven forever into the fabric of this ancient, beautiful city.