Tartini Square, the heart of Piran built over a harbour

What to see on Tartini Square

Tartini’s birthplace, restored through the tARTini project, is now a museum on his life and work, with his violin, wall paintings and manuscripts. Beside it stand the neo-Renaissance Municipal Palace and the grand Court Palace. On the corner is Piran’s most photographed building, the Venetian House, a 15th-century Gothic palace with a pinkish façade and the inscription «Lasa pur dir», «let them talk». Legend says the Venetian merchant Del Bello built it for love of Margareta, a woman from Piran, and that the phrase was his answer to the town’s gossip.

From the square it is a few minutes’ climb to St George’s church and the town walls. Piran’s tourist information centre is currently, on a temporary basis, on the square itself, in the former Intesa Sanpaolo bank premises.

The violinist of the Devil’s Trill

Tartini left Piran in 1708 to study in Padua. In 1715 he started as a teacher and concertmaster in Venice, and in 1721, with the backing of the Giustiniani family, he became first violinist and director of the orchestra at the Basilica of St Anthony in Padua, where he stayed for more than forty years. He wrote more than 150 violin concertos, cello sonatas and nearly 200 sonatas for solo violin, among them «The Devil’s Trill», one of the hardest pieces in the repertoire.

In 1888 preparations began for the bicentenary. Money for the statue was raised in Trieste, Istria and the Kingdom of Italy, and the commission went to the Venetian sculptor Antonio Dal Zotto. The statue arrived in Piran in 1896, to great celebration, and has looked towards the musician’s birthplace ever since.

From the mandrač to the square

When Giuseppe Tartini was born in 1692, the heart of Piran, home to salt workers, fishermen and merchants, still had an inner harbour, the mandrač. According to the tourist board, boats came and went constantly with fish, salt, olives, grapes, wine, fruit, vegetables, firewood, chickens and rabbits for market. Tartini’s family lived in a Gothic house right beside that harbour.

By the bicentenary of the violinist’s birth, the harbour had been filled in and turned into the central square, which was named after him. In the 1980s it was redesigned as an ellipse and paved with white stone. Today it is closed to traffic and is the town’s meeting place.

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Reaching the square without a car

The square is closed to cars. If you drive, leave the car at the Amfora garage at the entrance to town and take the electric minibus, which drops you in the square for €1. If you are staying the night, see hotels in Piran; several are a few steps from here. And for dinner near the square, I have a list in where to eat in Piran.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Piran for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.