REGIONAL MUSEUM OF KOPER

The museum is housed in the former Belgramoni-Tacco palace built in 1600, a beautiful building with showrooms. On the first floor you will see two Romanesque windows dating from the 9th and 12th centuries, with interlacing. On the second floor, the hall is dedicated to the church of Hrastovlje with its famous Dance of Death. Paintings of the Italian school are exhibited here. One painting depicts Koper/Capodistria in 1604, at that time still an island. The Empire furniture comes from the Maggiolini workshop. Sedan chairs are also exhibited as well as documents from the French period, one of which is signed by Bonaparte. The visit continues in an annex building with a historical presentation of the events in Istria after the attachment to Italy: Mussolini, fascism, oppression, the Second World War, deportations, the partisan struggle, all punctuated by Italian and Slovenian songs. The tragedy of a bicultural region is immediately revealed to us. However, we regret the relatively fresh reception, the overall lack of technical explanations and contextual elements which may jeopardize the general understanding of the permanent exhibition, as well as the great chronological and thematic mix which somewhat distorts the legibility and distribution of the rooms. The ethnographic collection is, on the other hand, very interesting to discover and reminds the visitor of all the influences - sometimes contradictory, sometimes concordant - of the city of Koper.