Maria Theresa Thaler in Trieste, Italy

Before the city of Trieste was annexed by Italy following World War I, it had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for several centuries, and it was during this earlier time period when Trieste became one of Europe’s notable commercial centers. In 1719, when Trieste was only a small coastal town, Emperor Charles VI designated Trieste an imperial free port, which helped to raise the city’s profile. However, Charles VI’s successor, the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria played a key role in the advancement of Trieste by providing funding and administrative oversight for the development of the port facilities and the city as a whole, and by the time of the empress’s death in 1780, the city had become the empire’s principal port. In the 2010s, the city of Trieste decided to fund a memorial to commemorate Maria Theresa’s contribution to the city by commissioning a monument honoring her. The winning design, which was unveiled in 2023, was a giant copy of the Maria Theresa Thaler, one of the most famous coins in all of history. This coin was first minted in 1741 just after Maria Theresa had started her reign, and its design has not changed since. Over time, the Maria Theresa Thaler was used as currency not only throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire but also across other parts of Europe as well as in parts of Africa and Asia, and it was still in use as a form of currency in some locations in the mid-twentieth century. Commemorative versions of the coin are even still minted today by the Münze Österreich (Austrian Mint). Given that the Maria Theresa Thaler was, in effect, the most popular portrait of Maria Theresa ever produced, and given Trieste’s history specifically as a city of commerce, it made sense to create a giant version of the Maria Theresa Thaler to honor the empress. The giant stainless-steel coin, which is 16 tons and has a diameter of 4 meters, now stands partly buried in the ground in the historic Piazza del Ponterosso next to Trieste’s historic waterfront where it is widely beloved by the local people and where it also attracts the bemused looks of tourists passing through the area.