Spiridione Gopcevich

He spoke fluently thirteen languages and become a great shipowner in Trieste, then Austrian Littoral (modern Italy) and in Odessa, Imperial Russia.

His ships traded on the Mediterranean and the Black Sea routes, and he knew many dignitaries of the time, namely the British Prime Minister William Gladstone and the revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi whom he helped with the transport of military and humanitarian aid.

[2] He then built the family palace (1850) on the Canal Grande in Trieste, partially copying the decoration on the façade of the Venetian Palazzo Ducale, designed by his architect - Giovanni Andrea Berlam.

As the Crimean War was planned at that time, the grain remained blocked in the Black Sea ports, and he could not deliver it to Trieste even with great urgencies and letters to acquaintances - so he went bankrupt, and shortly afterwards killed himself in 1861.

Another illustrious descendant of the family was Marino Gopcevich (1899-1965), a neurologist, who in 1945 founded the Neurological division of the General Hospital in Trieste.