The Cultural Pulse of Koper at the Time of Antonio Tarsia

Abstract

The position of Koper (Capodistria) - between the Venetian Republic and the Habsburgian Trieste - was in the context of the specific historical circumstances rather interesting and significant. The preserved cultural heritage indicates that Koper had been for centuries following the Venetian taste, while the town has to its credit not simply foreign masters and artists but also its own creative artists and achievements, above all from the time of its highest cultural efflorescence. The seventeeth century was one of the most productive ones both in the sphere of music and painting as well as of sculpture and architecture, which all is doubtlessly related to the spiritual reinvigoration following the Tridentine Council. In the cultural life of the town a marked role was played by educated people from all ranks of nobility and higher clergy. The most significant focal points were academies, in particular Academia dei Risorti, originating in 1647. Its membership comprised a series of notable physicians, men of letters, lawyers, theologians, and teachers giving instruction in Collegio dei Nobili, a kind of educational institution for aristocratic youth. Especially important among the teachers were "scolopi" or rather "piarists", who had their centre in Rome. At the turn of the 17th to the 18th century it was also the bishop of Koper, Paolo Naldini, who had with his work and activities entered his name into the ecclesiastical and cultural life of Koper; in 1700 he issued in Venice his monumental work "Corografia ecclesiastica".