Description
The palace is one of the most beautiful in Koper. It is classified as Mannerist, but it also features several Baroque elements and represents the first introduction of this style into the local environment. It was built around an older building shortly after 1600 and was renovated until the end of the 18th century. Since the late 19th century, this Baroque architectural gem has been dedicated to cultural activities, housing a library and, since 1911, the Koper City Museum of History and Art (later the Koper Regional Museum), which was initially located in the former monastery of St Clare. The building still houses a museum collection that covers the historical, ethnological, archaeological and art-historical heritage of Koper.
In the 19th century, a story circulated among the Koper elite that the Belgramoni family lost the palace in a game of chance, and that it thus passed into the ownership of the Counts of Tacco.
The palace is distinguished by a multitude of stonemasonry and sculptural decorative elements. The façade is adorned with a grand semicircular main portal around the door and four large windows with a Baroque balcony at floor level. The interior is enhanced by a high, spacious atrium on the ground floor, from which a staircase leads to the mezzanine. From there, a Mannerist staircase ascends to the ceremonial hall on the first floor. The former spacious garden with a fountain behind the building now houses a lapidarium, where the oldest preserved stone artefacts are displayed.
In addition to their city residence, the Tacco family also owned several rural estates in the immediate hinterland of Koper. The family’s property extended towards Trieste and into the Koper hinterland, providing them with a solid economic base. In Spodnje Škofije (Valmarin), a renovated villa known as the former Tacco Villa still stands today. Their second villa, with an outbuilding and garden, was located east of Sveti Anton, between the hamlets of Kocjančiči and Dvori.
