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[ Aetat. 23 ] J O Y C E x 1 1190 5And trieste, ah trieste ate I my liver!—Finnegans Wake (301)Joyce had now an opportunity of appraising Trieste. The city slopes backin terraces from the gulf towards the Carso hills. The old section, theCitta Vecchia, with its crooked, narrow wafs7 is dominated by the Cathedralof San Giusto (whose saint's day, November 2, Joyce never forgot),which "dates—bade to the sixth century and earlier, and by theseventeenth-century castle which shares the~cfest oTtne hill. The newsection, where Joyce lived and worked, was developed by Joseph II latein the eighteenth century; land was reclaimed from the gulf for largesquares and wide streets. At the time that Joyce arrived, the Austrianswere carrying out their ambitious plans for developing the city further.Ships crowded into the harbor, some at port, some waiting impatientlyto put in. The sailing vessels had prows elaborately carved with saints'figures, a medieval touch that interested Joyce. He was curious also aboutthe eastern influence that showed in the Greek, Turkish, and Albaniancostumes in the streets; he often went to the Greek Orthodox Church tocompare its ritual, which he considered amateurish, with the Roman. 1Though today Trieste's significance for western Europe consists mostlyin being its terminus, in Joyce's day it was a leading port of southernEurope, with a distinguishftd-past^ There is a legend that Dante paid avisit to the nearby castle ofuDuino, t;he ruins of which still stand; and theDuineser Elegien are the product of RilkeJs gproIonged sojourn, part of itcontemporary with Joyce's residence nearby, in the modern castle whichadjoins the ancient ruins. Closer than Duino is another castle, Miramare,built in the Norman style by the Archduke Maximilian in 1854-56. It was from the dock in front of this preposterous but fetching building,where two sphinxes still stare dubiously, that Maximilian departedin 1864 on his journey to Mexico. Joyce came to share the sentimental195