Bernardo Benussi between Rovinj, Koper and Trieste
The first event of 2026 in the lecture series promoted by the cultural association “Società internazionale di divulgazione Manlio Cecovini per gli studi storici sociali ed etici” will take place on Tuesday 20 January 2026 at 6.00 p.m. at the Antico Caffè San Marco in Trieste.
The lecture, delivered by the historian Kristjan Knez, will be dedicated to the figure of Bernardo Benussi (Rovinj, 1846 – Trieste, 1929), one of the foremost scholars of Istria between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Educated at the universities of Vienna and Graz, where he absorbed a rigorous philological and critical approach, Benussi taught first in Koper and later at the Higher Municipal Gymnasium of Trieste, where he also served as director of the Women’s Teacher Training Institute until 1909. Alongside his educational work, he devoted more than fifty years to the systematic study of Istrian history and geography, firmly convinced of the need to collect and publish a substantial body of sources to ensure an accurate reconstruction of the region’s past.
A prolific author, Benussi published several fundamental works, including Storia documentata di Rovigno (1888), Manuale di geografia, storia e statistica della regione Giulia (1903), and the monumental L’Istria nei suoi due millenni di storia (1924), regarded as the mature synthesis of his decades of research. His studies form part of the broader historiographical tradition initiated by Rossetti, Kandler and Luciani, characterised by constant attention to the Latin and Venetian-Italian identity of Istria and to the cultural, institutional and political transformations of the eastern Adriatic.
THE SPEAKER – Kristjan Knez (born 1981), who graduated in modern history at the University of Trieste, is director of the Italian Centre “Carlo Combi” in Koper and president of the Society for Historical and Geographical Studies of Piran. He specialises in the history of the eastern Adriatic between the early modern age and the contemporary period, and has edited numerous volumes and documentary exhibitions devoted to the institutional, social and cultural history of Istria. Among his most recent works are the edited proceedings of the International Conference on Trieste and Istria at the decline of Austria-Hungary (2020), Istria religiosa e civile (2021), and several studies on the patriciate and educational institutions of Koper.
Admission is free until capacity is reached.
For further information: manliocecovini@studysociety.it
