Fountain of the Four Continents

Built between 1751 and 1754, it was intended to represent Trieste as a city favored by fortune thanks to the establishment of the free port by Charles VI and the development policies of Maria Theresa of Austria. The world is represented by four allegorical statues that evoke the features of the people who lived in the continents then known (Europe, Asia, Africa and America), a concept taken up by the four allegorical figures of rivers from which water flows. The representation of the Nile has a veiled face, as its sources were then unknown. At the top of the fountain, Trieste is represented by a winged female figure with open arms, resting on the rocks of the Karst and surrounded by bales, bales of cotton and rope, representing the image of a welcoming city where merchants from all over the world and, to a greater extent from the eastern area, are welcome.