by Alessandra Ressa
Once an exclusive area of town where the wealthiest Trieste families built their mansions, the quarter of San Vito still retains that aristocratic attractiveness.
Just take a stroll up and down the hill and you’ll notice fabulous villas, unusual houses and amazing apartment buildings.
One of the most remarkable buildings in San Vito is a hidden art nouveau jewel. Located in via Tigor 12, off the main roads of the area, Casa dei Mascheroni (House of Masks) is a true marvel that seems to have been forgotten by Triestini. The name derives from the huge masks on the main façade.
It lays in a state of semi-abandonment, with several of its apartments empty for decades, until just a few months ago when some partial renovation was finished. The building, mostly occupied by elderly people, did not seem appealing to younger tenants due to its lack of modern, comfortable features such as “proper” bathrooms and an elevator. Everything seemed to be frozen in time (and falling apart) until the recent renovations.
If you find the front of the building fascinating, you will be absolutely amazed by the hall past the cast iron gated entrance (best to wait for someone to enter or exit the building, but you can also ring one of the residents to let you in, they are quite used to that).
In the main entrance you can admire four pairs of statues decorating the hall on both sides and representing the four seasons. Rich frescos decorate the ceilings, while the floral ornaments and beautiful stone heads are waiting in the semi-darkness to be brought back to their original splendor.
At the end of the hall there is another gate, unfortunately locked, which opens up on a hidden garden, or what remains of it following the construction of the modern apartment blocks surrounding the building. The garden must have been quite a sight, but is currently overgrown and abandoned. Looking carefully, you can see statues of children among the vegetation.
While in the main hall, if you manage to avoid getting arrested for trespassing, try and climb the stairs (left or right) to the first floor and reach the balcony. This is the best spot to admire the whole architectural structure and take pictures.
Casa dei Mascheroni was built in 1908 and is one of the five buildings erected by Giovanni Mosco (they are called Mosco houses) in via Tigor between via San Vito and via Ciceria. Although he was no architect, Mosco had a great merit. Having been given the task of constructing apartment buildings for Trieste’s middle class at the margin of San Vito, he took the liberty to merge practical housing with esthetics, adding rich art nouveau and sometimes Renaissance decorations to his work to please the future resident’s eye. An abuse of eclecticism for sure, but for a good cause!
This beautiful building has also played a special role in the Italian cinema and literature. In 1961 the director Mauro Bologninishot his “Senilità” (“Senility”) in Trieste with young Claudia Cardinale and Philippe Leroy. The movie is a tragic love story based on the novel by Italo Svevo. The couple met in an apartment of Casa dei Mascheroni and you can clearly recognize the dark, melancholic entrance door and the decorated hall to the building.
Years later, Trieste’s living legend and writer Claudio Magris chose the same apartment building in via Tigor as the solitary home of Sara in the novel “Non luogo a procedere”.
