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Against “Plebeian Ignorance” and for “Civilized Behavior”: Habsburg Trieste’s Società Zoofila as a Bourgeois Instrument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2025

Daša Ličen Open the ORCID record for Daša Ličen [Opens in a new window]
Daša Ličen*
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ISN ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana, Slovenia
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Abstract

During the nineteenth century, a growing sense of empathy toward non-human animals emerged within the Habsburg Empire. The new empathy toward animals took organizational form in voluntary associations that attracted men and women in urban settings. In 1852, one of the first such associations was born in the busy port city of Trieste (Trst/Triest), drawing members from the elite. These individuals criticized the animal care practices of the working class and rural population, repeatedly accusing them of “immorality” and even “inhumanity.”

As the article depicts, the guardians of the animal kingdom were not as compassionate as they might appear. In fact, the protectors of animals believed themselves far superior to the proletarians who supposedly whipped their horses. The way the growing bourgeoisie treated their animal friends ultimately served as a tool in the creation of the social distinction between the bourgeoisie on the one hand, and the workers and peasants on the other.

While Trieste’s animal protection society reflected a broader global trend, it also displayed unique characteristics shaped by the city’s distinctive social and cultural dynamics. The article sheds light on how these local traits influenced its development.

Keywords

animalsTriestevoluntary associationsbourgeoisieantivivisectionismsocial distinctionanimal welfareantislavism

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Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 56 , May 2025 , pp. 114 - 131
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Regents of the University of Minnesota

While cat spa treatments, dog bakeries, greyhound rescues, designer pet clothes, and other pet-centric practices may seem like a modern phenomenon, examples of loving bonds between humans and their animals date back to at least the nineteenth century. In the first half of the 1800s, and even more so in the second, members of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie began to develop new ethical concerns regarding animal welfare—just think of Dash, Fatima, Alma, Flora, and Queen Victoria’s other beloved pets, or of Friedrich Nietzsche’s severe mental breakdown in 1889 after witnessing a horse being whipped.Footnote 1

The new empathy toward animals took organizational form in voluntary associations that attracted men and women in urban settings. In 1852, one of the first such associations was born in the busy port city of Trieste (Trst/Triest), then part of the Habsburg Empire. Over the nineteenth century, Trieste had grown into one of Austria’s largest cities, serving as a major administrative hub, the largest port on the Adriatic, the world’s third-largest coffee warehouse, and a hotspot for national conflicts. This article examines a previously unexplored segment of Trieste’s past, the Animal Protection Association (Società Zoofila), one of the earliest and most influential voluntary associations against animal cruelty in the Habsburg Empire.

Its membership comprised individuals from the upper echelons of society, who dedicated their efforts to denouncing the animal care practices of both the working class and the rural population, who were repeatedly accused of “immorality” and even “inhumanity.”Footnote 2 As the article will depict, the nineteenth-century guardians of the animal kingdom were not as compassionate as they might at first glance appear. Across Europe, animals had often been protected before the abolition of slavery or serfdom and before the implementation of the first measures safeguarding children from the worst forms of factory exploitation.Footnote 3 Swedish ethnologists Jonas Frykman and Orvar Löfgren found that wealthy nineteenth-century industrialists shed tears over the troubles of small songbirds while being completely indifferent to the suffering of their workers.Footnote 4 The apparent paradox can be explained by Norbert Elias’s “civilizing process.” He argued that the internalization of emotional regulation and control over bodily functions gradually led to a deep-rooted acceptance of the social order.Footnote 5 Yet the process of self-control also mandated changes in physical behavior, including a reduction in violence toward animals.Footnote 6 Elias attributed a special role to the social elite in modeling the civilizing process, explaining that to the upper classes, adhering to the standards of civilized behavior and maintaining self-control were markers of social distinction. Similarly, Michel Foucault examined the emergence of what he termed “discipline.”Footnote 7 According to him, external control and physical violence were gradually replaced by a tool in the hands of the bourgeoisie, discipline. Foucault strongly emphasized the concept of “docile bodies” as objects manipulated by the bourgeoisie. His interpretation exposed discipline as the very foundation of the “freedoms” upheld by bourgeois values. In other words, the techniques for regulating bodies and behaviors were not innocent efforts to improve the conditions of human and animal life, but instead instruments for establishing and maintaining social power.

Building on Elias’s and Foucault’s classic analyses, this article investigates the situation on the ground in late nineteenth-century Trieste. This story of animal welfare sheds light on the development of human-animal relations within the Habsburg Empire, a subject that has largely been overlooked, especially in comparison to France and Great Britain. The article also points out the unique features of the animal rights movements in Trieste, where the protectors of animals believed themselves far superior to the proletarians who supposedly whipped their horses. In their eyes, kindness to animals was a mark of civilization. Yet the social structure and overall character of Trieste contributed to two particularities: first, a notably harsh criticism of the local Slavic populations, and second, an extraordinary stance on anti-vivisection. Animal protection in Trieste thus acquired a distinctive identity, even as it emerged and operated in a growing empire- and Europe-wide network of animal protection associations.

Donkeys, horses, thrushes, dogs, and other animals appear in the following pages, but they are not the main protagonists. The last few decades have seen an academic shift to studying nonhuman animals. This “animal turn” represents an increased focus on animals and particularly on their agency—not least in the discipline of history, which has witnessed prominent studies on the complex historical relationships between humans and animals, both as historical actors.Footnote 8 While this article examines the historical interaction between the two, the emphasis is not on animals as active agents but rather on the human perception of them. This study is primarily interested in members of an urban society and their specific understandings of the animal and human world.

First Steps

Compassion for animals—at least in the European context—is connected with the Christian faith, which defines caring for animals as a human duty. Already in the early modern era, “activists” began publicly appealing for kindness to animals, comparing the treatment of animals with that of fellow human beings.Footnote 9 Novel ideas about the moral and physical rejuvenation offered by nature and the indispensable role of the animals within it appeared at the end of the eighteenth century when the European aristocracy and artists began romanticizing rural life. The countryside was a new social space pleasing to their romantic eyes.Footnote 10

Over the course of the nineteenth century, interest in the beauty and majesty of nature only grew. To give one example: O. Kannegiesser’s book about animal protection, translated and printed by members of the Trieste society in 1881, extols the joys of nature meant to soothe the human soul. From the author’s perspective, a forest devoid of birdsong would appear lifeless, while the happiness of the “unfortunate townspeople” depended solely on the melodious chirping of swallows on rooftops.Footnote 11 In late nineteenth-century Trieste, one might encounter mules, stray cats, and cattle on the way to market, but could just as easily cross paths with well-dressed monkeys, peruse articles praising the elegance of songbirds, or photograph their child beside a meticulously groomed pedigree dog. Trieste’s upper classes were drawn to animals that did not serve productive purposes and were valued on aesthetic terms. They admired songbirds, pedigree dogs, and racehorses, while simultaneously turning their eyes away from livestock, rats, mice, and stray dogs and cats, thus quietly dividing the animal kingdom into the tamed and untamed, clean and dirty, and worthy and unworthy of protection.Footnote 12

Across Europe, the worship of romantic nature and the cult of domestic life, in which animals played an essential role, eventually led some to argue for animals’ legal protection. Already in the first half of the nineteenth century, the animal rights movement was no longer just an expression of the tenderness of a few ladies or a bizarre idea from nonconformist intellectuals. Animal rights emerged as a dynamic social movement and political agenda accepted by a growing part of the nobility and the bourgeois elite.Footnote 13 Over the course of the century, the constant exchange of ideas among the liberal-minded bourgeoisie led to a global network in which the geographical origins of the participants were often of secondary importance to the wider movement.Footnote 14

Voluntary associations founded in this era were microcosms in which citizens could shape and express critical ideas. In England, critics of animal cruelty formed a society for the protection of animals already in 1824. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals existed under the patronage of Queen Victoria. Shortly afterward the Parisian Society for the Protection of Animals (Société protectrice des animaux) was founded, and by the middle of the century, animal protection societies existed in Germany, Switzerland, and the Habsburg monarchy.Footnote 15 Laws facilitating the organization of independent civic associations made possible the establishment of these societies; however, their emergence was also linked to the processes of secularization and urbanization, the expansion of the middle classes, the romanticization of nature, and growing affection for animals.Footnote 16

Concern for animal cruelty also began to take root among the bourgeois residents of the rapidly expanding city of Trieste, whose population grew from 70,274 in 1869 to 229,510 in 1910.Footnote 17 The city’s mercantile character allowed Trieste’s merchant class to establish itself as the dominant group, a position aided by the city’s near absence of nobility.Footnote 18 Trieste became a bourgeois city par excellence, according to some even “Austria’s most bourgeois city.”Footnote 19 In this middle-class and multilingual environment, Italian speakers formed the majority, while the number of Slovenian speakers grew steadily, reaching around a third of the population by 1910.Footnote 20 As the imperial city with the highest concentration of foreigners, Trieste was also home to various other linguistic communities.Footnote 21 That said, class identity played a far more significant role in shaping the daily life of Trieste’s population than linguistic, ethnic, or religious affiliations.Footnote 22 In other words, Trieste’s diverse bourgeoisie was joined by a common mentality, culture, and way of life, commonly referred to as Bürgerlichkeit. The local bourgeoisie stood out from those in other Habsburg cities due to its pronounced liberalism, a strong inclination toward positivism, exceptionally high literacy rates, and a distinctly secular outlook; Marina Cattaruzza even labeled the port city of Trieste as a “liberal island.”Footnote 23

The city’s bourgeoisie loved (certain) animals, so much so that they invited them into their homes. Pet keeping was not entirely new in the nineteenth century, but pets became numerous and important to their caregivers.Footnote 24 In the 1870s, Isabel Burton (1831–96), wife of the scandalous British writer and explorer Richard Burton (1821–90), owned a dog called Nip. Nip had a nice-smelling cradle with a pillow, sheets, and a curtain, as well as a sealskin coat, which was, according to the countryside-loving Lady Burton, supposed to have angered the envious peasants from around Trieste. Nip accompanied her owner on many trips to England, India, and elsewhere. When she fell ill, Nip was given painkillers, and after her death, she received a tombstone.Footnote 25 Lady Burton’s dedication to Nip’s well-being was just a glimpse into the depth of her unwavering commitment to the welfare of animals. She became a committed member of Trieste’s Society for the Protection of Animals. And she was not alone in her advocacy of animals: for instance, in 1898, one of Trieste’s most important writers, Italo Svevo (1861–1928), described the protagonist’s dismay at the fate of poor animals in his novel Senilità or Senility.

The movement for animal protection reached the littoral region very early. The teacher and cathedral canon Valentin Stanič (also Stanig, 1774–1847) founded the Gorizian Society against Animal Torture (Goriška družba zoper terpinčenje živali) in 1845. In their regulations, the members of this society stated that their purpose was to protect powerless animals from unnecessary cruelty. Although short-lived, the association attracted several hundred members of the elite, among them many from Trieste,Footnote 26 and it was the first such society in the Austrian Empire.Footnote 27

A year later, in 1846, the Viennese Lower Austrian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Niederösterreichischer Verein gegen Mißhandlung der Tiere) was founded, and in the decades that followed it functioned as a central node connecting emerging branches and independent animal rights associations throughout the empire. By the 1850s, the network included inhabitants from the outskirts of Vienna (Floridsdorf) and Upper Austria (Linz), and it extended as far as Bohemia (Humpolec/Humpoletz), Transylvania (Brașov/Brassó/Kronstadt). Much remains unknown about the animal rights movement in the Habsburg Empire, as no extensive research on the topic has been undertaken. However, it is clear that its supporters engaged in safeguarding the welfare of animals, lobbying for animal protection laws, teaching children to be compassionate toward animals, and aiming to improve the conditions of working animals. The members of these various associations were no strangers to each other: they met at congresses, corresponded regularly, and read each other’s journals and reports. Launched in 1856, the journal Tierfreund: Zeitschrift des Wiener Tierschutzvereins (Animal Friend: Journal of the Vienna Animal Protection Association) was printed in as many as 3000 copies. Although the journal primarily covered events in Vienna and its immediate surroundings, it regularly reported on other imperial, European, and occasionally even American animal protection associations.Footnote 28

The Founding of the Society

Members of Trieste’s elite were known for their charitable work. By the middle of the nineteenth century, many charitable organizations had sprung up in the city.Footnote 29 As elsewhere, Trieste’s bourgeoisie developed a specific value system, with philanthropy as a core element.Footnote 30 Eduardo Pillepich, later the chairman of the Trieste Society for the Protection of Animals, wrote that Trieste was “a city guided at every step by a shining star called Progress.”Footnote 31 A logical result of bourgeois philanthropy, liberal culture, and the expanding belief in kindness toward animals was the creation of a civic association that took animals under its wing.

In 1852, the Society for the Protection of Animals was established under the name of the Società Triestina contro il maltrattamento degli animali (Trieste Society against Animal Abuse). The initiators sent out membership invitationsFootnote 32 and immediately attracted almost 500 members.Footnote 33 The association was originally a branch of the Viennese Lower Austrian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.Footnote 34 Although the initiative for the foundation had come from the secretary of the Viennese association, according to Pillepich it soon became clear that Triestines did not want to be mere members of a branch. Although the city elite was bilingual, communicating in German supposedly represented an obstacle.Footnote 35 Also, members were said to have wanted independence and rejected “foreign censorship.”Footnote 36 Pillepich believed the people of Trieste belonged to the Italian nation, so these statements do not come as a surprise. Given Pillepich’s national sentiments, the Society can be interpreted as the first Italian society for the protection of animals.Footnote 37 This claim is confirmed by the fact that for decades Trieste’s association remained a crucial reference point for the later animal rights movement across the Italian peninsula.Footnote 38 Due to the limited availability of sources, however, it is difficult to provide further insights into the Society’s national orientation. However, it appears that national influences were not particularly strong, as the Society remained firmly integrated into the imperial network, as we will explore further.

One of the founding members of the Society for the Protection of Animals, alongside Pillepich, was the writer Adalberto Thiergen (1822–58).Footnote 39 He wrote several novels about animals, including Tofano (1841), in which he referred to the torture of cats, and La Marinella (1844), which featured a dog. He had recently become the editor of the Trieste newspaper Diavoletto, and it was no coincidence that the paper published news regarding the newly founded association. While little is known about the association’s founders, they, like most of the other members, undoubtedly belonged to the upper social classes.

In 1853, the association consisted of about 600 members,Footnote 40 and two years later that number had risen to about 950.Footnote 41 We also have data for 1884, when there were considerably fewer members—only 270, still a relatively large number.Footnote 42 Although many people joined the association, its first newsletter stated that “the project was met with coldness and indifference.” Members believed that the public lack of understanding of their intentions stemmed from a lack of “cultural development.” Aware that animal protection associations in other places had also faced initial ridicule but gradually earned respect and recognition, they paid little attention to the criticism.Footnote 43 However, they hoped that a new name for the society would inspire less contempt and more “scientific thinking.”Footnote 44 Thus, in 1853, the Società Triestina contro il maltrattamento degli animali became the Società Zoofila,Footnote 45 the name it would retain until at least 1905 when it was mentioned for the last time in the records of the Statthalterei. Footnote 46

Aims and Activities

The rules of the Society for the Protection of Animals of Trieste stated its primary purpose was “to reduce the amount of unnecessary and unreasonable cruelty to animals.”Footnote 47 This included working to improve the conditions in which animals lived and actively persuading people to treat animals more gently. All animal protection associations agreed that kindness to animals was the quality of a good and “civilized” human being, so their ultimate purpose was always the general advancement of mankind, whatever they meant by that. In practice, however, the members of the Society for the Protection of Animals of Trieste fought predominantly against the “cretinism” and “plebeian ignorance” they saw in the treatment of animals.Footnote 48

The most committed animal rights activists tried to influence the other members at the regular meetings held at the society’s headquarters in Trieste’s central Piazza della Borsa.Footnote 49 Like other associations, the group attempted to reach a wider audience, mainly through the various publications it produced, financially supported, and disseminated. Animal rights campaigners in Trieste also had a continuous presence and a visible impact on public opinion thanks to the local media.Footnote 50 In the early years, the Society was represented by the previously mentioned Diavoletto. Footnote 51 The newspaper’s supplemental issues were sometimes entirely devoted to the activities of the association.

In 1863, the members of the Society for the Protection of Animals founded their publication, the Bollettino mensile della Società Zoofila Triestina (Monthly Bulletin of the Society for the Protection of Animals of Trieste). Initially a monthly, then later published every three months, the bulletin was intended to publicize the group’s general aims.Footnote 52 It contained up-to-date society records, a list of members, the treasurer’s report, and correspondence with other societies. It also featured stories such as “The Dog’s Intelligence” or “The Cat and the Canary,” in which authors extolled the loyalty, ingenuity, kindness, intelligence, and endurance of the animal kingdom. The members of the association, like those of many similar organizations, also attached great importance to exerting a positive influence on children’s behavior. To that end, they dedicated several publications to young readers and tried to “educate” all those who were in regular contact with them: teachers, parents, and priests.

Interestingly, the Bollettino always listed the names and surnames of individuals who had been fined for maltreatment of animals. The specific offense and form of the penalty were also briefly mentioned. For example, in 1880, a certain “Francesconi Teresa, 80 years old, hen seller, was fined 1 gulden for mistreating hens,”Footnote 53 while in 1881, the wheelwright Simone Cossiak had to spend six hours in prison for mistreating an ox.Footnote 54 In 1908, as many as sixty-six drivers (probably carriage drivers), twenty-seven poultry carriers, eight bird sellers, and three cat abusers were fined in Trieste for offenses involving the maltreatment of animals.Footnote 55

Following the example of other European societies, animal rights campaigners also used positive incentives to change established practices in the treatment of animals. For example, from 1853 onward, the Society gave awards to good livestock keepers.Footnote 56 The award ceremonies were public performances held in splendidly decorated great halls, attended by “the most distinguished people in Trieste,” a military band, and on one occasion, even the higher-ups of the British navy. Some of the leading members used the opportunity to give long speeches: Lady Burton once proudly spoke for three-quarters of an hour. Though we ought not to forget the prize-winning carriage drivers, poultry sellers, butcher’s servants, and donkey owners whose experiences remained unrecorded, we do know that, according to the local newspaper Edinost, the recipients were almost exclusively Slovenes.Footnote 57 As we will learn, this was not a coincidence.

The role of the prize-giver was filled by Isabel Burton, who had moved to Trieste in 1872 and became the society’s main enthusiast for almost two decades. She raised funds from English benefactors but did not spend them all on the prizes awarded at the event. Instead, she kept some funds to distribute to people who had “proved themselves with some small act” as an immediate, on-the-spot gift.Footnote 58

Stepping back, we can see that the Society for the Protection of Animals of Trieste was born when the number of associations dedicated to the protection of animals was growing rapidly. In the 1860s, there were already thirty-three such societies in England and twenty-one in the Habsburg Empire.Footnote 59 Two decades later, there were an estimated 272 of them worldwide.Footnote 60 The society in Trieste was thus part of a European or even global network in which information, models, methods of action, documents, publications, and also people and ideas circulated.Footnote 61 The print-based communication network laid the groundwork for a burgeoning community united by shared interests. This community transcended the political, cultural, linguistic, and emerging national boundaries of its time, bringing together like-minded individuals.

Fellow activists also commonly met in person. For instance, in 1860, Pillepich attended a three-day congress of associations against animal cruelty in Dresden that brought together representatives of twenty-one European societies, including those from London, Hamburg, Prague, and Vienna.Footnote 62 In the following decades, members of the Trieste society participated in several such congresses.Footnote 63 The Triestines also took the initiative to establish contacts with other societies and enthusiastically welcomed newly formed societies against animal cruelty. In 1880, they sent their congratulations to Itzehoe in northern Germany and to Genoa in Italy.Footnote 64 Above all, Thiergen fostered an extensive network and became an honorary member of animal protection societies in Vienna, Paris, Frankfurt, Linz, Hamburg, and Breslau.Footnote 65 In short, the societies against animal cruelty that the people of Trieste corresponded with were numerous, with headquarters ranging from Hanover to Madrid and from New York to San Francisco.Footnote 66

Membership

Despite the initial skepticism surrounding their goals, anti-animal cruelty associations became one of the “bourgeoisie’s leisure rituals.”Footnote 67 Although, according to the rules, anyone, regardless of their religion, age, or gender, could become a member of the Society for the Protection of Animals of Trieste, dignitaries represented a majority of its members, not least because of the required membership fee.

The first president of the Society was Baron Carlo Pascotini (1797–1879), a prominent local politician. Isabel Burton described him as a “kind, bright, philanthropic gentleman” and one of the most eminent men in Trieste.Footnote 68 Like many other noble and bourgeois men in the city, Pascotini was active in several voluntary associations. He held important posts in the charitable society supporting the establishment and operation of kindergartens (Asilo Civico per l’Infanzia), was an honorary member of the Società d’Orticoltura del Litorale (Provincial Horticultural Society), and was even president of the Società Adriatica di Scienze Naturali (Adriatic Natural History Society). The presidency of the Society for the Protection of Animals was later held by another civil servant of noble birth, Carlo Coronini Cronberg (1818–1910),Footnote 69 and then by Riccardo Bazzoni (1826–91), the mayor of Trieste,Footnote 70 chairman of the charity committee that helped the impoverished people of Trieste and Istria,Footnote 71 and an important member of the Società Agraria Triestina. Footnote 72

Other elite figures from Trieste were also committed members of the association: the doctor and president of the very influential local association Società di Minerva, Lorenzo Lorenzutti (1843–1913); the famous Garibaldian and pro-Italian activist Leopoldo Mauroner (1839–1928); Baron Emilio Morpurgo (1837–1917), whose family Lady Burton called “the local Rothschilds”;Footnote 73 Antonio Krekich, an influential merchant; and the doctor and translator Saul Formiggini (1807–73), the first to translate the Divine Comedy into Hebrew.

The Society for the Protection of Animals of Trieste also had “honorary presidents,” dignitaries whose function was symbolic. The title of honorary president went to barons, counts, politicians, and provincial deputies from the cream of Trieste society,Footnote 74 including Sigmund Conrad von Eybesfeld (1821–98), a lawyer, official, politician, and provincial president of Carniola, and Sisinio de Pretis Cagnodo (1828–90), an imperial deputy from Trieste.Footnote 75 The membership of the Society consisted of noblemen, senior officials, high-ranking representatives of the Catholic Church, and bankers, but also increasingly members of the aspiring middle class: merchants, industrialists, intellectuals, engineers, bankers, and, in general, the leaders of social life in Trieste.

The membership lists of animal protection societies include an unusually large number of women for the societies of the time.Footnote 76 The Society for the Protection of Animals was one of the public spaces in the mid-nineteenth-century Trieste that allowed women to participate, which comes as no surprise, given the contemporary belief that philanthropy was tailored for the supposedly more tender-hearted, hence women.Footnote 77 What is more, women members gained the opportunity to implement their ideas. They were featured among honorary members and patrons, and they were mentioned in obituaries.Footnote 78 Still, the number of women in the organization remained small. In 1884 among 270 members, there were 23 women.Footnote 79 Even more importantly, their numbers were limited to the wealthy bourgeoisie, so we can hardly talk of a more general participation of women in the movement’s activities.Footnote 80

Among the most prominent of the female members was the already-mentioned Lady Isabel Burton. Her husband’s work obligations had brought the two to Trieste in 1872. Her days were filled with tea parties, the then-fashionable Spiritualist séances, lectures at which she loved to talk about her travels, and work devoted to charitable associations. Her concern for animals was not new. She had already been a member of an animal protection society in London,Footnote 81 befriended members of the then-nascent vegetarian movement,Footnote 82 and shared her luxurious home with pets.Footnote 83 As a “lady bountiful,” she expressed her care for the latest moral acquisition, animal wellbeing, by awarding kind caretakers, shaming cruel ones, raising significant funds, and promoting British inventions like electric trams and animal shelters.Footnote 84 In the 1870s and 1880s, Trieste’s Society for the Protection of Animals would not have been the same without her. Despite Lady Burton being “only” a woman, her zeal and strong social network contributed vitally to the Triestine expression of empathy toward animals.

Promoters of the animal protection movement held themselves in high regard, considering themselves “civilized, progressive, and liberal.”Footnote 85 Kannegiesser characterized his fellow nature and animal lovers as educated and intelligent individuals.Footnote 86 Based on such premises, the welfarists sought to influence the “problematic” attitudes of farmers and workers toward nature and animals. To the bourgeois animal lover, instilling kindness in workers and farmers would help raise the imagined level of civilization in their city.Footnote 87 Elite members of the bourgeoisie, however, failed to recognize that their relationship with animals was both highly limited and fundamentally different from that of the rural and working-class population. For the lower classes, animals were everyday companions and natural resources upon which their lives depended—not ornaments, amusements, family members, or objects of study. The widely held assumption that historical figures who advocated for the humane treatment of animals had unquestionably benevolent intentions thus merits close examination.

The Burtons in the dining room of their villa in Trieste. Reproduced with permission of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Borough Art Collection, Orleans House Gallery (Burton Collection).

“Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here!”

The treatment of animals can be understood as a tool in the then-extensive bourgeois struggle to introduce its lifestyle as normative.Footnote 88 The historical materials highlighting the efforts of Trieste’s Society for the Protection of Animals portray the lower classes as “lacking in education and compassion.”Footnote 89 Members also referred to them as “the aberrated mass” and explained they had to be fought against because of their “plebeian” practices.Footnote 90 These practices were by and large described as deriving from their lack of “culture,” “morals,” “shame,” and “progress.”Footnote 91

The primary recipient of these sharp criticisms was the rural population. In one of their earliest reports, the members of Trieste’s Society explicitly put forth the need to come into contact with “every farmer.”Footnote 92 The second challenge faced by society came from the working class, particularly the slaughterers’ infliction of pain on animals and their participation in pigeon shooting, which was a popular blood sport among laborers and a source of frustration for the Society. They wanted this “despicable abuse” and “massacre” of “innocent animals” immediately prohibited.Footnote 93 The members’ concerns were not directed toward zoos or other forms of keeping exotic animals, or their transportation. When in 1900 Trieste’s merchant, botanist, mountaineer, and writer Julius Kugy (1858–1944) realized that he could no longer look after Benjamin, his unpredictable baboon who tried to escape and repeatedly hatched “wild plans, acts of vengeance, marauding expeditions,” he readily sent him off to Vienna’s Schönbrunn Zoo.Footnote 94 Considering Trieste’s status as a bustling port city, it is surprising that little attention was given to the living conditions of exotic animals. Tackling these issues would have necessitated confronting the bourgeois and aristocratic fascination with all things exotic.

The Society singled out workers and farmers behaving “inappropriately.” On one occasion, members reported witnessing how some overburdened horses had stopped moving due to being unable to pull a load of cargo, upon which the coachman had not hesitated to strike the horses. The members condemned the carriage driver as heartless and recognized the suffering of the poor animals, equating their pain to that of humans.Footnote 95 One can trace numerous similar accounts, like those about “a boy from the common folk brutally pulling a dog,”Footnote 96 about villagers provoking the “dissatisfaction and repugnance of the civilized townsmen” by “communicating with their donkeys in the language of the stick,”Footnote 97 or about horse merchants “torturing miserable animals by lacking human sentiment and [being] blinded by egoism.”Footnote 98 The members seem to have been frequently shocked by the local treatment of animals and often recounted the indignation of “civilized passersby.”Footnote 99 Most stirringly, in 1880, a member reported on the “disgrace” of feeding pigs with human excrement in the district of Abbazia (Opatija).Footnote 100

Interestingly, the associational activities extended beyond merely noticing the behavior of the lower classes; they also involved observing and assessing the condition of individual animals. Although Lady Burton was more accustomed to grand fetes than to horse stables, she nevertheless enjoyed doing rounds to witness the lives of animals with her own eyes. She frequently visited a certain horse dealer living on the outskirts of Trieste, where she discovered “poor dogs on bare ground in a dark hole, without food and drink.”Footnote 101 Upon visiting this “unfortunate place,” which filled her soul “with horror and disgust,” an exclamation from Dante came to her mind: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter [here]!” On another occasion, she experienced an abattoir as “an ugly hole, without drainage, where blood, when water is lacking, spreads, putrefies, and contaminates the purest and healthiest air of our surroundings.”Footnote 102

The Society’s members took it upon themselves to encourage changes, starting with reminders to the personnel of their misdemeanors against animals.Footnote 103 More typically, they directed their gaze outside of their homes to detect and potentially report anyone expressing “cruelty” toward animals to the inspector, or the police directly. Carters and butchers in particular were under the Society’s watchful eye.Footnote 104 Social control was therefore not solely the product of state institutions but also nonstate actors such as the Society for the Protection of Animals. In addition, the Society, alongside their fraternal societies across the empire, put efforts into influencing and creating legislation to regulate the treatment of animals, eventually eradicating violence against animals from the streets of urban Europe.Footnote 105

Beasts in Human Forms

Historical evidence from the Society for the Protection of Animals provides insight into the seemingly clear and fixed boundary between what was considered human and what was considered animal. These two categories are cultural artifacts, which makes the divide between them dependent on the specific historical context. While natural scientists over the course of the nineteenth century produced an abundance of elaborate theories suggesting where the animal ends and the human begins, the present article goes beyond scientific discourses to illustrate a broader bourgeois perception regarding the scientifically incongruous but socially powerful idea of an animal-human divide.

In their criticism of the behavior of the working and peasant classes, Trieste’s Society for the Protection of Animals did not simply catalog bad actions. They denied “culture,” “morality,” and “civilization” to those whom they referred to as the “torturers.” In other words, they did not stop at denouncing specific practices but deplored the people’s very character. The records of the Society are filled with judgments withholding “humanity” from the “torturers.” In one founding document, the society proclaimed: “Animal cruelty is contrary to the principles of morality that shape the foundation of a civilized world. The guardianship of animals is most often entrusted to a class of people who lack culture and are therefore brutal towards animals.”Footnote 106

The words of animal welfarists resonate with the belief that the mistreatment of animals reflects one’s lack of humanity, making the allegedly cruel individuals themselves animalistic. In 1880, the president of the Society reported to the police that “inhumane hunters” were shooting pigeons. What he had in mind was the “flight of pigeons,” a special ritual typical for New Year’s Eve celebrations in Trieste’s taverns and ballrooms. The Society’s members tried to ban this form of entertainment. According to them, it did not belong in the “kind and cultivated Trieste.” Similarly, in 1882, a member from Pazin (Pisino) described the “inhumane treatment of donkeys” by rural folk. The claim was substantiated by the peasants’ excessive use of the beating stick, which supposedly accompanied the donkey’s every fifth step.Footnote 107Lady Burton too labeled those who treated animals “cruelly” as “inhumane.” She went a step further when she referred to Anton Skabar, a man from a village near Trieste who threw his dog into a fissure, as a “beast in human form.”Footnote 108 According to Kannegiesser, those who were unkind to animals “lacked any trace of humanity.”Footnote 109

The boundary between the social constructs of “human” and “animal” was blurred not only in the eyes of the animal rights supporters from Trieste. As early as 1853, a Slovene article had expressed the same view: “[A]s long as a person thinks ‘animals should be beaten, as they are animals,’ they testify that they are still animals.”Footnote 110 Philip Howell reported on similar circumstances in Victorian England where, in the imagination of the bourgeoisie, a street dog was similar to an orphan.Footnote 111

Members of the Society for the Protection of Animals of Trieste and like-thinking activists not only saw themselves as more refined or superior but also as fully “human,” while arbitrarily excluding the lower classes from this designation. Darwin and his fellow researchers had abolished the boundary between humans and other animals, but not everyone agreed. To Trieste’s bourgeoisie, the category of “human” was a malleable one. This is also hinted at by an episode that took place in the heart of Trieste in 1877 when the local bourgeoisie had a chance to observe an “exhibit item” from the Nile watershed, a young Akha girl known as Saida. Interestingly, showcasing her left some to speculate about her kinship relations with apes and to generally wonder whether she was “human.”Footnote 112

The category of “animal” was just as malleable. The bourgeoisie’s classification of animals excluded selected beings that would, according to scientific arguments, undoubtedly be denoted as animals.Footnote 113 That is, members of the upper classes were emotionally attached to their pets. Julius Kugy, for example, enjoyed the company of his baboon, Benjamin, which he dressed in handcrafted dresses, and a cat named Muca whom he described as a “true queen.” He was deeply affected by the cat’s death and composed a song in tribute to her memory. Besides Muca and Benjamin, the Kugy family also took care of a dog named Toni, a turtledove, and several marmots, among which Julius’s favorite was Mottel, his “source of comfort in dark times.”Footnote 114

The animals chosen to become pets were named, shared their owners’ beds, smelled pleasant, sometimes dressed in beautiful clothes, mourned after their passing, and were even memorialized with monuments. One of the Society’s booklets advised its members to play music to their animals, claiming that while dogs enjoyed the sounds of violins, horses were most satisfied when listening to a flute’s melodies.Footnote 115 Animals adopted as family members were stripped of anything reminding the bourgeoisie of animals, becoming, in Kathleen Kete’s words, “de-animalized animals.”Footnote 116

In short, Trieste’s animal rights activists developed distinctive understandings about where the animal ended and the human began. Although not articulated theoretically, this perspective of animal protectors was alive and well in their everyday lives. By simultaneously expanding the category of human to include pets and defining it to exclude the lower classes, the bourgeoise set up its own, alternative view of where to locate the animal/human divide.

“Uncivilized Slavs”

In bourgeois expressions of disapproval about the purported mistreatment of animals, different imagined social boundaries emerged and became intertwined: higher/lower social class, urban/rural, human/animal, and Italian/Slovenian or Slavic.Footnote 117 The first three were hardly unique to Trieste. The fourth dichotomy, however, engages with social dynamics specific to late-Habsburg Trieste. Ethnic or national affiliation helped the members of the Society pinpoint specific targets to “enlighten.” The equation of the Slavic population with barbarism and a lower level of civilization has a long history in the littoral region, as well as outside of it.Footnote 118 The writer and unyielding irredentist Ruggero Timeus (1892–1915), for instance, believed that Italians were synonymous with humanity, while he considered their antagonists, the Slavs, as not even human.Footnote 119 These mental dichotomies, which proved highly dangerous in the twentieth century, have their origins in the nineteenth century. As it turns out, it was not only national activists and their associations, but also seemingly indifferent social spaces such as Trieste’s Society for the Protection of Animals that actively contributed to the construction of stereotypes about Slovenes or Slavs. In the case of our Society, it came by associating them with animal abuse.

The association’s co-founder, Pillepich, highlighted its efforts to foster a sense of compassion for animals beyond the city’s borders, predominantly among the villagers and rural residents traditionally understood as the Slav population.Footnote 120 His opinion was shared by many. Lady Burton spent many of her days in the rural “Karso” (Karst) and complained of the “badly behaved Slav children in the village,”Footnote 121 and even more about the “very bad cruelty” present among the local Slav population.Footnote 122 Above all, she was bewildered by the alleged usage of “foibas,” sinkholes typical for the karst bedrock. According to her, “some of the most brutal amongst the peasant Slavs have the habit of throwing their animals down when they want to get rid of them.”Footnote 123 Curiously enough, she was on one occasion certain she had heard a poor dog’s moans from a cave and organized “a large party with endless ropes and grappling irons” to rescue it. In the end, the moaning of the dog turned out to be the hooting of owls that had taken refuge in the hole.Footnote 124

As the stereotypical image of the Slavic population included the “uncivilized” treatment of animals, translation of new decrees into Slavic languages was deemed necessary. True, both the law and administrative practice required such translations, but the Society itself insisted on translations of all the pro-animal decrees into “cragnolino”Footnote 125 or “slavo,” given they were aimed specifically at the Slav population.Footnote 126 That said, the local Slavic intelligentsia did not mock the growing animal rights movement. Quite the opposite, they seemed to praise the local Society’s activities. Edinost, a Slovene journal published in Trieste from 1876, applauded the diligent work of Trieste’s Society for the Protection of Animals in reporting on scrawny and beaten animals. It sang songs of admiration for Lady Burton and joined in the criticism of animal skinners and other “cruel barbarians.”Footnote 127 In 1889, it was reported that eye inflammations in livestock could be prevented by wiping their eyes with chamomile solution.Footnote 128 The increased concern for animal wellbeing thus resonated in the journal. However, Edinost captured exclusively the sentiments of the Slovene upper classes, indicating that even the Society for the Protection of Animals’ criticism of Slovenians and their alleged attitudes took place in the shadow of class belonging.

Anti-Vivisection

As concerns for animal welfare grew, so too did interest in animals as scientific subjects. Laboratory experiments on dogs, for example, helped in understanding the crucial role of embryo development in fertilization.Footnote 129 Yet, because animal rights advocates opposed any experiments on animals, vivisection was particularly controversial.Footnote 130 Opposition to vivisection swelled into a full-fledged movement by the late 1870s, eventually gaining a global presence and remaining active until the onset of World War I. The movement attracted and empowered numerous women, especially in France and England, where they took leading roles in anti-vivisection societies and thereby asserted themselves in public life.Footnote 131

As World War I approached, Jews in particular faced increasing complaints from animal welfare advocates, especially those fiercely opposed to vivisection.Footnote 132 Opponents of vivisection constantly repeated two themes: the ritual slaughter of livestock practiced by Jewish worshipers and the alleged cruelty of doctors, many of whom were Jewish during that period.Footnote 133 Some researchers have even argued that the vigorous antisemitism that emerged within the anti-vivisection movement later became a fundamental component of Nazi rhetoric.Footnote 134

The Habsburg associations against animal cruelty were appalled by vivisection, a topic they debated in the pages of Tierfreund and at their congresses.Footnote 135 The anti-vivisection movement did not leave the Society for the Protection of Animals of Trieste untouched. On the list of opponents of vivisection put together in 1882 by the Society in Dresden were also some members of the Society for the Protection of Animals of Trieste.Footnote 136 Lady Burton was among the signatories, which is not surprising given that she had friends among English advocates of the movement and attended their meetings during visits to London.Footnote 137

However, it seems that members of the Society for the Protection of Animals pursued their own path regarding vivisection. The unexpected stance on the anti-vivisection movement can be attributed to (at least) two factors. First, Trieste animal protectors were supportive of naturalism and naturalists. To explain, the longtime secretary of the Society, Matteo Chinchella, was a member of the natural history society in Trieste, at least until the end of 1881.Footnote 138 Also, the Society’s president, Riccardo Bazzoni, and other prominent animal welfarists were simultaneously dedicated members of the natural history society.Footnote 139 Connections went both ways, as Trieste’s most recognized naturalists also belonged to the Society for the Protection of Animals of Trieste. For example, the renowned botanist and Trieste’s podesta Muzio de Tommasini (1794–1879) was a member.Footnote 140

Second, besides naturalists, other alleged practitioners of vivisection were welcome in the Society, namely Jews. In Habsburg Trieste, Jews were not the only religious minority, but they were the largest, numbering as many as 5,000 at the dawn of the twentieth century.Footnote 141 The Jews of Trieste were not united by a common language or origin, resulting in a highly heterogeneous community. This diversity did not extend to social class, as the Jewish community primarily consisted of individuals from the middle and upper classes.Footnote 142 The first vice president of the Society, Caliman de Minerbi, was a merchant, industrialist, philanthropist, and generally an influential Jew in Trieste. There were several other Jews on the membership lists of the Society, a fact that is not surprising in light of numerous studies that have shown how, in the context of Europe at that time, Trieste stood out for its liberal attitude toward the Jewish population. Due to the tolerant Habsburg policy, free port status, cosmopolitan and secular spirit of the city, Jewish men and women easily integrated into the fabric of urban society.Footnote 143 Jews were a fixture of the local elite: attending salons, concerts, tea parties, and participating in prestigious clubs and the city’s network of societies, especially liberal ones.Footnote 144

The Society thus found itself divided on the issue of vivisection between, on the one hand, the tendencies of the pan-European or even global movement against animal torture that rejected vivisection and was suspicious of scientific knowledge and the Jewish population, and on the other the habitus of the Trieste bourgeoisie, characterized by a favorable attitude toward Jews. Its hesitant attitude toward the anti-vivisection movement was also influenced by the close connections between the Society and local natural scientists. An attempt to resolve this dilemma was published in the society’s Bulletin. In 1880 the Society resolved to set up a commission tasked with distancing the Trieste Society from the then heated debates on vivisection between animal protection associations and naturalists.Footnote 145 With this commission, the Society departed from the conservative mindset increasingly characterizing animal protection associations.

Conclusion

The Society for the Protection of Animals was last recorded on the list of Trieste’s associations in 1905.Footnote 146 However, we can only speculate about when it ceased to function. When a teacher from a village near Trieste asked the separate Carniolan Society for Animal Protection (Krainischer Tierschutz-Verein) for a bird feeding station in 1914 it may have been because there was no similar society in Trieste, or perhaps he wrote to Laibach/Ljubljana because he did not want to collaborate with the mostly Italian members of the Society for the Protection of Animals.Footnote 147 A decrease in membership and activities was surely connected to the departure of Lady Burton after the death of her husband in 1891.Footnote 148 Although she left money and instructions on how to prepare financial reports that would “appease” English donors, her return to England left a void in the functioning of the Society.Footnote 149 In any case, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Society for the Protection of Animals dwindled, marking the end of the first significant phase of the animal protection movement in Trieste.

During its lifetime, the activities of the Society resembled those of similar groups across Europe that were contributing to a fundamental transformation of human–animal relations. Advocates for animal rights, firmly convinced they were doing good, pushed the working class and rural population toward compassion for animals from the comfort of their villas while listening to their canaries and caressing their well-groomed dogs. The members believed that it was their moral duty to influence the practices of the lower classes, not least through shame and punishment.

The sources on the Society for the Protection of Animals of Trieste offer a window into the contemporary understanding of the animal/human divide. As it turns out, scientific arguments did not interfere with their bourgeois notions of the animal/human divide. When members accused the lower classes of lacking “humanity,” interpreted their behavior as “animal-like,” or simply referred to them as animals, they called into question the established divide. In essence, animal advocates saw themselves as distinct from, more human than, and primarily better than those who supposedly treated their animals roughly. Ultimately, the way the growing bourgeoisie treated their animal friends served as an instrument in one of the nineteenth century’s most important processes—the creation of the social distinction between the bourgeoisie on the one hand, and the workers and farming population on the other.

Although Trieste’s Society was in many ways an example of a global phenomenon, it possessed distinct characteristics shaped by the unique traits of the city itself. The first concerns the members’ main targets: the local Slavic population. For centuries, Slavic and Italian speakers had coexisted along the Upper Adriatic, but this relationship became increasingly tumultuous in the second half of the nineteenth century. Longstanding divisions along urban–rural and lower-upper class lines were joined by the rise of nationalism that exacerbated the growing rift between the communities. For these reasons, the members of Trieste’s Society for the Protection of Animals identified Slavs as a problematic, even bestial, community and deemed them in need of guidance. An animal protection initiative like the one in Trieste could therefore reflect and reinforce broader societal hierarchies and prejudices.

The second characteristic of Trieste’s animal welfare advocates also arises from the unique social structure of this port city, namely the influential and accepted presence of Jews. This dynamic appears to have hindered the Society’s alignment with anti-vivisectionism. By not supporting this movement, it distanced itself from the international animal protection network. Animal welfare was hence balanced against competing interests, such as scientific progress or cultural priorities.

While animal protection movements shared common global themes, the specific characteristics of societies like Trieste’s underscore the importance of local context in shaping the movement’s goals and approaches. Trieste’s blend of inhabitants and their modes of coexistence provided the local animal rights advocates with an identity that distinguished them from their counterparts in other cities, thereby highlighting the interplay between the local and universal within animal protection movements. Yet, as in Prague, Vienna, Paris, and other cities, the identity of Trieste’s Society for the Protection of Animals remained concerned with similar issues and, above all, reflected the priorities of the local elite.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my thanks to Wolfgang Göderle, Therese Garstenauer, Fabio Giomi, Rok Stergar, Pieter Judson, Boris Kryštufek, and the two anonymous reviewers. Their comments contributed greatly to the quality of the article.

Funding

This article is a result of the research funded by the Slovene Research Agency (Z6-4613 ARIS).

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87 Kete, “Introduction: Animals and Human Empire,” 1.

88 On the Italian movement see Guazzaloca, Primo, 5, 9; on the Carniolan Society for Animal Protection see Rendla, “Kranjsko društvo za varstvo živali,” 68. The new bourgeois morality was becoming a norm, so much so that even Friedrich Engels’s writings contained sharp comments on the working-class “bestiality” (Kete, “Introduction: Animals and Human Empire,” 11).

89 Cesare Bordiga “Un po’ di prefazione,” Pubblicazioni della Società Triestina contro il maltrattamento degli animali 7 (1859): 3.

90 “Proemio,” Pubblicazioni della Società Zoofila Triestina 9 (1861): 7.

91 AST, LAP, Box 9, 9/1.1, Society’s Program (1852).

92 Pillepich and Thiergen, “Rapporto,” 21.

93 “Il tiro al piccione,” Bollettino della Società Zoofila Triestina, 31 July 1880, 13–16.

94 Julius Kugy, Delo, glasba, gore [Work, Music, Mountains] (Maribor, [1931] 1996): 161–68, 191; Schönbrunn Zoo, Vienna, Historical Collections, Thier-Buch der k. k. Menagerie Schönbrunn No. 4, 1893–1906.

95 “Varietà,” Pubblicazioni della Società Zoofila Triestina 9 (1861): 39.

96 Bordiga, “Un po’ di prefazione,” 5.

97 “A tutti I municipi e podestarie,” Bollettino della Società Zoofila Triestina, 12 December 1882, 8.

98 Kannegiesser, Siate uomini e proteggete gli animali!, 31.

99 “Komur se ne smili žival, temu se tudi človek ne.”

100 “Notizie interne,” 6; Giuseppe de Susanni, “Illustre Presidenza,” Bollettino della Società Zoofila Triestina, 31 July 1880, 10.

101 “Komur se ne smili žival, temu se tudi človek ne.” The quotes of Isabel Burton were translated into Slovenian by an unknown author, the translation back into English is my own. Her speech was published on 19 December 1881 in the supplement of the local Slovene journal Edinost (VI, no. 3).

102 Ibid.

103 Pubblicazioni della Società Triestina contro il maltrattamento degli animali 7 (1859), 4.

104 “Notificazione,” Rapporto della Società Triestina contro il maltrattamento degli animali (Trieste, 1854), 23–24; “Notizie interne,” Bollettino della Società Zoofila Triestina, 31 July 1880, 5.

105 “Inclito I. R. Commissariato!” Bollettino della Società Zoofila Triestina, 31 July 1880, 9; Bargheer, Stefan, “The Fools of the Leisure Class: Honor, Ridicule, and the Emergence of Animal Protection Legislation in England, 1740–1840,” European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie/Europäisches Archiv Für Soziologie 47, no. 1 (2006): 3–35 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

106 AST, LAP, Box 9, Society’s Program (1852).

107 “A tutti i Municipi e Podestarie,” Bollettino della Società Zoofila Triestina, 12 December 1882, 8.

108 “Komur se ne smili žival, temu se tudi človek ne.”

109 Kannegiesser, Siate uomini e proteggete gli animali!, 6, 31.

110 K. Fišer, “Ali se človek zamore tudi zoper žival pregrešiti?” [Can a person also sin against an animal?] Novice, 5 November 1853, 353.

111 Howell’s bourgeoisie saw streets filled with “fallen” women, children, and animals, all of which were living on the outskirts or even beyond “civilization.” Philip Howell, “Between Wild and Domestic, Animal and Human, Life and Death: The Problem of the Stray in the Victorian City,” in Animal History in the Modern City. Exploring Liminality, ed. Clemens Wischerman, Aline Steinbrecher, and Philip Howell (London, 2018), 145–60.

112 Puccini, Sandra, Andare lontano. Viaggi ed etnografia nel secondo Ottocento (Rome, 2007), 75–112 Google Scholar; Ličen, Daša, “Razstaviti Drugega: Saidin prihod v Trst,” [Exhibiting the Other: Saida’s Arrival in Trieste] Glasnik Slovenskega etnološkega društva 58, no. 1–2 (2018): 5–15 Google Scholar.

113 The disagreements between quotidian and scientific approaches are not surprising, especially in light of Harriet Ritvo’s work, which highlights the malleability of animal classifications in the Victorian era. See Harriet Ritvo, The Platypus and the Mermaid and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination (Cambridge, 1997).

114 Julius Kugy, Delo, glasba, gore, 47–50, 96, 161–68, 191, 198.

115 “Dell’effetto della musica sugli animali,” Pubblicazioni della Società Zoofila Triestina 9 (1861): 20–21.

116 Kete, “Introduction: Animals and Human Empire,” 15.

117 The resilience of these overlapping contradictions extends beyond the ambitions of this article. The issue has been critically addressed and thoroughly analyzed elsewhere. For instance, in the context of Italian anti-Slavism and the historiography of the northern Adriatic by Verginella, Marta, “Dokončni boj med severnojadranskimi rasami” [The Final Struggle between the “Northern Adriatic Races” in the Irredentist and Fascist discourse] Acta Histriae 24, no. 4 (2016): 705–20Google Scholar; Verginella, Marta, “O zgodovinjenju dihotomije mesta in podeželja” [On Historicizing the Dichotomy, the City and the Countryside] Acta Histriae, 25, no. 33 (2017): 457–72Google Scholar.

118 Wolff, Larry, Venice and the Slavs. The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment (Stanford, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Verginella, “Dokončni boj med severnojadranskimi rasami.”

119 For Timeus, the Slavs were indeed “peasant-like” individuals “without culture, without history, a political program, and social foundations.” See Ruggero F. Timeus, Scritti politici (Trieste, 1929), 125, 145; more in Verginella, “Dokončni boj med severnojadranskimi rasami,” 708–11.

120 Pillepich, “Discorso.”

121 Isabel Burton, The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton (New York, 1897), 627

122 Burton, The Life, 127.

123 Ibid., 180.

124 Ibid.

125 Pillepich, “Discorso.”

126 “Costruzione di stalle,” Diavoletto, 5 November 1862, 448.

127 “Komur se ne smili žival, temu se tudi človek ne”; “Živinoreja v Trstu” [Livestock Farming in Trieste], Edinost, 7 September 1889, 3.

128 “Kot sredstvo,” Edinost, 7 September 1889, suppl, 2.

129 Kete, “Introduction: Animals and Human Empire,” 18.

130 Kete, “Animals and Ideology,” 27.

131 Ibid.; Guazzaloca, Primo, 13–14. The movement still exists, but it had achieved its fundamental goals and lost momentum by the first half of the previous century.

132 Kete, “Animals and Ideology,” 27.

133 Among the medical students at the University of Vienna, for example, 48 percent were Jewish in 1890: Unowsky, Daniel, The Pomp and Politics of Patriotism: Imperial Celebrations in Habsburg Austria, 1848–1916 ( West Lafayette, 2005), 146 Google Scholar.

134 Guerrini, Anita, “The Rhetorics of Animal Rights,” in Applied Ethics in Animal Research: Philosophy, Regulation and Laboratory Applications, ed. Gluck, John P., DiPasquale, Tony, and Barbara Orlans, F. (West Lafayette, 2002), 55–76 Google Scholar, here 68–69.

135 “Vivisektion,” Der Thierfreund: Zeitblätter für Menschenveredlung und Thierschutz 10, no. 4 (1861): 15–16; “Programm,” Der Thierfreund: Zeitblätter für Menschenveredlung und Thierschutz 13, no. 4 (1864): 13.

136 “Notizie Interne” 1882, 5.

137 Burton, The Life, 283, 333.

138 “Elenco dei Membri della Società Adriatica di Scienze Naturali in Trieste alla fine dell’anno 1881,” Bollettino della Società Adriatica di Scienze Naturali (1882): 317–21, 318.

139 E.g., “Elenco dei Membri della Società Adriatica di Scienze Naturali in Trieste alla fine dell’anno sociale 1889,” Bollettino della Società Adriatica di Scienze Naturali (1890): xxi–xxv, xxii.

140 “Notizie Interne” 1880, 5.

141 Catalan, Tullia, “The Ambivalence of the Port City. The Jews of Trieste from the 19th to the 20th Century,” Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History 2 (2011): 69–98Google Scholar, here 77, www.quest-cdecjournal.it/focus.php?id=232.

142 Catalan, “The Ambivalence”, 77

143 Tullia Catalan, “I Morpurgo di Trieste. Una famiglia ebraica fra emancipazione ed integrazione (1848–1915),” in Percorsi e modelli familiari in Italia tra ‘700 e ‘900, ed. Filippo Mazzonis, (Rome, 1997), 165–86, Here 169.

144 Ibid., 181, 185–86.

145 “Notizie Interne,” 1880, 7.

146 AST, LAP, Box 285, A List of Societies in the Littoral (1905).

147 Arhiv Republike Slovenije [Archives of the Republic of Slovenia], AS-649, Voluntary Associations, Kranjsko društvo za varstvo živali [Carniolan Society for Animal Protection].

148 Burton, The Life, 412.

149 Ibid., 427.