Just north of Trieste on Italy’s eastern Adriatic Coast, the Castle of Miramare sits on a cliff at the edge of the ocean, looking almost like a fairy-tale castle.
Surrounded by lush gardens and with views out over the Gulf of Trieste, it was designed and built by one of the most enigmatic characters of 19th century royalty, the Austrian noble best-known for his brief and ill-fated reign as Emperor Maximillian of Mexico.
Maximillian was born in 1832, two years after his brother and constant childhood rival who became Emperor of Austria in 1848, when both were still teenagers. The two brothers were extensively educated in a variety of subjects by tutors, but it was Franz Joseph who was being prepared to succeed his uncle as ruler, and Maximillian who was the spare, in need of a plan for life. At 18, he became a navy lieutenant, and at 22, commander-in-chief of the Austrian navy.
It would be easy to laugh at that, but it turns out that Maximillian took his duties seriously, and modernized and expanded the then-small navy and led the creation of its two main ports: Trieste and Pola, both on the Adriatic coast that then belonged to the empire. He also traveled widely, including to Brazil and led a two-year scientific cruise in 1857 to 1859 that followed his long interests including botany.
Along the way, in 1856, he fell in love with Belgian princess Charlotte and with the area around Trieste. And he fell in love with the idea of being more or less independent of court life in Vienna. He bought land near Trieste and started construction of Miramare. 1856 was an eventful year for Maximillian.
During four years of construction of the big palace and its gardens, Maximillian and Charlotte lived in the ‘castelletto,’ a miniature castle that later served as a guesthouse. People with money have those options, after all!
The castle itself was even grander, a residence fit for a king, as it were; Maximillian even included a throne room, which was never used in his time but was used by visiting royals in the years after his execution in Mexico.
Among the first rooms visitors encounter is the oddly-cramped private bedroom Maximillian designed for himself; he modeled it on his quarters aboard the ship Novara, which made the 1857-59 scientific voyage. His study at Miramare is also modeled on his shipboard quarters. The carved pillars are shipboard references, not structural.
For a non-academic, he certainly had an impressive library. Unlike many other royals of the era, he and his brother’s education included generous helpings of science and multiple languages as well as the expectable political and military topics. The four busts below were commissioned by him, reflecting some of his favorites: Dante, Shakespeare, Homer and Goethe.
The tour continues into the rooms used by Charlotte.
The two portraits in the dressing room are of Charlotte as a child and as a young adult. In the next room, one of the paintings was done by Charlotte herself; training in watercolors was considered part of education for her future role in life.
The double bed was a wedding gift from the city of Milan; at the time it was part of the Austrian empire, and for a brief period ruled by Maximillian as Viceroy of Lombardy-Venezia, a job he lost when his brother decided he was being too liberal with restive Italian nationalists. The panel to the left of the bed leads to a small pantry; a matching one on the other side leads directly into the castle’s chapel.
Two more very red rooms: a formal dining space and the throne room.
On the throne room wall, a group portrait of Maximillian’s various family connections. His mother, Sophie, belonged to the Bavarian Wittelsbach royal family; on his father’s side the portrait shows connections to Habsburg rulers of Spain, Austria, Portugal, France, Romania and more. Maximillian, on visiting Brazil, wrote that he was the first descendant of Ferdinand and Isabella to visit the ‘new world.’
The next room, the so-called ‘Historical Hall,’ might almost be called a Hall or Ironies. When Maximillian and Charlotte left to become Emperor and Empress of Mexico, the collecting and documenting didn’t stop; the room contains not only paintings of Maximillian founding Miramare and of Charlotte’s arrival there, it also has paintings of a Mexican delegation offering him the crown and of their departure for Mexico. There’s also a small version of a statue of Maximillian modeled on one that was erected in Hietzing, Austria after his execution. The two portraits on the wall depict them in their imperial finery.
More heroic portraits and elaborate furniture in a room that’s listed as ‘the parlor.’
Miramare’s life after Maximillian is a complicated story in itself. Charlotte returned briefly to the Castelletto, before living out her life in Belgium in precarious mental health. Miramare was used by Austrian royals when visiting the Trieste area; Empress Elisabeth, known as Sissi, stayed there at least 14 times, and Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne lived there for several months shortly before his assassination in Sarajevo.
It’s been a museum since 1929, made possible when, after World War I, Austria sent back all the furnishings that had been shipped to Vienna during World War I; it’s a unique site in having essentially all of its original fittings; a set of phootographs commissioned by Maximillian made restoration possible.
It’s been accessible to the public except during the period from 1945 to 1954 when it was headquarters for successive units of the New Zealand, British and U.S. armies. Visitors were permitted even during the period from 1931 to 1943 when the Duke of Aosta, a senior royal and Italian general, and for a time Viceroy of Ethiopia. He and his family lived in only a few of the many rooms, and they have been left decorated as they used them—pure Art Deco!
The castle is surrounded by 22 acres of beautifully landscaped gardens, which I’ll write about later. The castle can be reached by regular public bus from Trieste, but there’s also a ferry from Trieste’s Molo Audace, and a railroad station, although the station involves a significantly longer walk to and from the castle.
