Trieste's Castello di Miramare.
Lord Byron could have set Manfred on this steep crag. Basil Rathbone would be delirious about flicking a sword from its jutting white turrets. And one could almost smell the cigar smoke emanating from a grand mahogany room where dignitaries, wearing medal-studded sashes, redrew the map of Europe between sips of Armagnac. Castello di Miramare hugs the Adriatic Sea on the outskirts of Trieste, one of Italy's most multiethnic cities with a complex history. The large northeastern city, long part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, emits a Germanic-Slavic aura. The ghost of Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa of Austria looms heavy over its splendiferous squares. But the ghost of another Hapsburg -- Archduke Ferdinand Josef Maximilian - resides (figuratively, of course) inside the exquisite Castello di Miramare.
Emperor Maximilian and Charlotte.
Though warm weather would have allowed us to stroll through the castle's immense gardens, where botany aficionado Archduke Maximilian personally chose the plants, my husband Joe and I found ourselves in the midst of gale-force winds. Trieste is frequently pelted by a shutter-rattling weather confluence known as La Bora. The gusts are so strong, thick ropes are strung along the streets for people to grab hold of. We've experienced La Bora, and it's an exhausting phenomenon. I was reduced to tears at one point. Yet high winds were the perfect backdrop for a visit to a monument with a tumultuous past - a very real and tragic Gothic romance.
Execution of Maximilian.
The castle was commissioned by Archduke Maximilian, younger brother of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, around 1856. It was to be his and his wife Charlotte of Belgium's official residence, as Maximilian was the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Austrian Navy based in Trieste. By the time Castello di Miramare was completed in 1871, Maximilian had been executed by a firing squad in Mexico, where he unwisely accepted the post of Emperor during the republican reforms of Benito Juarez.
But for the time being, let's linger in Trieste and take a walk through a microcosm of European power and revolution - the era of Italian Unification and the slow decline of monarchic rule. The Adriatic slammed ferociously against the rocks as we made our way down an elegant tree-lined path and through wrought-iron gates into Castello di Miramare. Though he commissioned such an imposing estate, Maximilian was generally regarded as an unassuming, cultured man with liberal views - making his execution all the more puzzling. For the most part, historians consider him the main victim of a puppet regime set up in Mexico by recently deposed aristocratic landowners eager to regain their power over a revolting populace.
Before he and Charlotte sailed for Mexico City, however, they resided for a very short period in the nearby Castelletto, a smaller version of the main structure during its construction, and later were able to live briefly on the Castello's first floor. Being a naval commander, Maximilian had one of his guest rooms modeled after a ship's cabin, portholes and all. Since he sailed frequently to Latin America, he seemed to become obsessed with pineapples. The prickly-design motif shows itself in many ceiling, floor and fabric patterns. Even the wooden statues standing guard at the foot of an immense spiral staircase have pineapples carved on the tips of their spears. The red-and-gold Audience Hall forever links his ancestry and fate via ceiling frescoes of the Hapsburg coat of arms, Mexico's Chapultepec Castle and the Hapsburg Fortress in Vienna.
Maximilian, a world traveler, incorporated the 19th century penchant for collecting Orientalia into the rooms. The Chinese and Japanese salons are draped in hand-painted silk tapestries and screens. Porcelain figurines and a jade chess game rest on tables fashioned out of mother-of-pearl. Interestingly, Maximilian's and Charlotte's bedroom contains a four-poster bed given to them by Emperor Napoleon III and a black-marble table decorated with Roman landmarks, a wedding gift from Pope Pius IX. Both Napoleon III and Pius factored prominently in Maximilian's Mexico debacle. Another sad link is that Maximilian signed the document of his acceptance of the Mexican crown at this very table.
One of the most impressive areas is the sprawling Throne Room, with its blood-red walls and high-beamed ceilings. It's flanked by an enormous painting of the Hapsburg-Lorraine genealogical tree. The Hapsburgs and its many branches, after all, ruled Europe from the 12th through 19th centuries. We were surrounded by so much solemnity, I had to find humor somewhere. When I looked up at the genealogical tree and the portraits of Hapsburgs across the centuries, my mind drifted to the musical, Me and My Girl, about a cockney chap who learns he has inherited a noble estate. One scene has him arrive in a similar kind of Throne Room, where he meets his royal predecessors after they step out of their grim paintings and begin to sing and dance their historic fates. If only such fantasies could be real.
Maximilian was forced to face a harsh reality. The machinations that led to his execution are lengthy and complex. But, in short, he and Charlotte sailed for Mexico in 1864, three years after the European invasion of Mexico by France, England and Spain. By taking on this position, he also relinquished any rights to be the heir to the Austrian throne - a move instituted by his brother, Emperor Franz Josef of Austria. Various scholars also tend to blame his choice on the coaxings of his title-obsessed wife, Charlotte.
Nevertheless, Maximilian was convinced that his acceptance of the Mexican crown would serve as a key stabilizing force. But the nobles who sought his protection soon rejected his liberal policies; even the United States refused to help and chose instead to send military aid to the famed reformer Benito Juarez. Maximilian was truly caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place because, as much as he agreed with Juarez, he represented the monarchy - the very force Juarez was trying to eliminate. Charlotte even traveled back to Europe to plead his case to the monarchs and pope, but to no avail.
So whenever the name Emperor Maximilian comes up in numerous Zorro movies, one may not be so quick to condemn him as the enemy. He was the ultimate scapegoat. Anticipating a larger rebellion, the 34-year-old Maximilian fled to Queretero, where Juarez's men captured him. He was swiftly sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on June 19, 1867. He's buried in Vienna. His wife Charlotte, who later suffered a mental breakdown, remained for a time at Castello di Miramare before returning to Belgium. They had no children. But Maximilian wished that Castello di Miramare, which he never saw completed, be open to the public.
His wishes, at least in this case, were honored. Some have claimed that Castello di Miramare is haunted because certain nobles who stayed overnight here later died prematurely. But if it is haunted, it's not by a gruesome specter. I believe Castello di Miramare holds imprisoned inside its walls the shattered dreams of an ambitious but well-intentioned man.
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