The Cultural Landscape of Trieste at the Beginning of the 20th Century — an Essay

In this paper, we explore the cultural and economic landscape of the city of Trieste at the beginning of the 20th century. Our aim is to study whether and to what extent it might have influenced and inspired Vinzenz Bronzin’s Theorie der Prämiengeschäfte (Theory of Premium Contracts) and the other related works by the Austrian economist and mathematician. We establish the deep reciprocal links existing between the — at that time rising — cultural identity of Trieste as it appears in the works of its literary elite and the tumultuous economic development the city was experiencing. It is not indeed a mere coincidence that Trieste has been one of the birthplaces of the literature of the crisis of the bourgeoisie and that its writers took inspiration — although without being always aware of it — from the great intuitions in fields such as the natural sciences, mathematics and economics. At the same time, it seems to us unlikely that Vinzenz Bronzin did not take advantage in his groundbreaking contribution to the Theory of Premium Contracts from the widespread literary engagement, as well as from the effervescent economic environment characterizing the city of Trieste at that time. We therefore argue that besides its contribution to the literature, Trieste has also been a great intellectual laboratory in economics and other sciences, although sometimes neglected, and the case of Bronzin — maybe the most significant — is nevertheless not the only one.1