Overview
Twenty-two hectares of splendid greenery surround Miramare Castle, built in the mid-19th century by Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg-Lorraine, brother of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph and, for a few years, governor of Lombardy-Veneto. The manor house was known on the school benches of past generations for the ode Miramar by Giosue Carducci. Since the mid-20th century, the military servitude that bound it has lapsed, and it is open to the public.
Eclectic in style, with extensive use of Istrian stone, it constitutes one of the most complete and interesting examples of a princely residence that the second half of the 19th century has left, in terms of its sumptuous wealth of furnishings, paintings and pieces of applied art. On the estate, the Castelletto is the building where Maximilian and his wife Charlotte of Belgium had occasionally lived while the castle proper was being built, and which from 1866 onwards saw her first silent madness at the tragedy of her consort, shot in Mexico, who had unwisely agreed to be imposed as king.
The waters of Miramare have extremely interesting hydrobiological characteristics, and since 1973 they have been protected as a marine park, the first to be established in Italy, managed by the World Wildlife Fund Italy.
