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It is Pirano on its headland, with the cathedral standing out against the sea, and with its crown of battlemented towers among cypresses and other trees which terminates the land as seen from the railway descending from Nabresina to Trieste; for, though the Point of Salvore stretches actually farther out, it is low, and does not catch the eye as Pirano does, especially when its characteristic silhouette is emphasised by the blue shadow of a passing cloud.
The town of Salvore seems to have been under the jurisdiction of Pirano, and the commune held a fair there on S. John the Baptist's Day, to celebrate the naval battle in 1177, in which Frederick Barbarossa was conquered in the deep bay between it and Pirano.
Dotting the western coast of Istria, between Trieste and Pola, are four small towns Parenzo, Pirano, Capodistria and Rovigno all purely and distinctively Italian, and, on the other side of the peninsula, the famous resort of Abbazia, popular with wealthy Hungarians and with the yachtsmen of all nations before the war.
Just as the Trentino and the Upper Adige have been added to the kingdom as the Province of Trent, so the redeemed regions of which Trieste is the center, including the towns of Gorizia, Monfalcone, Capodistria, Parenzo, Pirano, Rovigno and Pola, have been consolidated in the new province of Julian Venetia, with about a million inhabitants and an area of approximately 6,000 square miles.
And, in order that poor and talented young men should not be cut off from the possibility of learning, this town, and, after its example, Isola, Muggia, Parenzo, Pola, and Trieste established scholarships at the University of Padua, where Istrian professors became rectors. But, even in the fourteenth century, there were already school teachers in Pirano, Muggia, and Capodistria.
The jousts, boat-races, and hunts which were held then and on the feasts of Pentecost and S. Orligo were so sumptuous that the provveditore limited the expenditure. The last boat for Trieste left Pirano at 1.30 p.m., an hour so ridiculously early, that we determined to walk to Isola and proceed thence by train.
But intermediate times have little to show; if the duomo strikes the eye at all, it strikes it only by the extreme ugliness of its outside, nor is there anything very taking, nothing like the picturesque castle of Pirano, in the works which occupy the site of the colonial capitol.
The doge retaliated by prohibiting all commerce with Pirano, Trieste, Muggia, Capodistria, Cittanova, and Pola, and this soon brought them to their knees, finally resulting in the treaty of 933.
There are various sculptures discovered at Barcola, the finest of which is a male torso with the greater part of the legs, prehistoric objects, coins, a personification of Istria, things found at Pirano, and three splendid large Chinese bronzes. The copies of the mosaics of the Apostles from S. Giusto are on the ceiling of the upper room.
The name of Giuseppe Tartini will ever live as that of one of the greatest performers on, and composers for, the violin. Born at Pirano, in 1692, his career may be said to have commenced with the eighteenth century.
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