Sant'Antonio Nuovo

This is the largest confessional Catholic church in the Borgo Teresiano, the area of Trieste which backs onto the sea and which was restructured by the Austrian Empress Maria Teresa. It is the biggest in the city. Nine projects for this church were presented to the panel, and Pietro Nobile's project was chosen. Work on the church began in 1828, and it was finished in 1849. It is in a perfect location, not far from Piazza dell Unita d'Italia and the canal. This position was purposefully chosen by the Hapsburgs to faciltiate commercial trafficking. The church is built in a neoclassical style, and has a facade with six ionic columns which support a tympaneum and an attic decorated with statues of local martyrs. There is an eliptic cupola at the centre of the construction. The linear simplicity of the facade resembles Roman temples, and the Pantheon in particular. The icons inside the church were financed by local patrons Pietro Nobile and Domenico Rossetti, and were painted by German and Venetian artists. The semicircular apse is decorated by a fresco representing Christ's entrance into Jerusalem, and is by Sebastiano Santi. The six altarpieces are also interesting and are painted in a rather unusual way. They include "Saint Joseph" by Giuseppe Schonmann (which basically shows a view of the city), "The Crucifixion" by Ernesto Tunner, "The Education of the Virgin" by Michelangelo Grigoletti, "The Presentation at the Temple" by Felice Schiavoni, "Saint Anthony taken up into the Sky" by Odorico Politi, and the "Martyrdom of the Aquileian Saints Euphemia, Tecla, Erasma, and Dorothy" by Lodovico Lipparini. The Church can be visited before or after mass.

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• Attraction Type: Religious Buildings

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