| Historical curiosities
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Porto San Rocco was organised to enhance an area that has always been linked to nautical activities. In fact, in the distant 1850s the Strudthoff family purchased the land surrounding the church of San Rocco from Muggia to build a shipyard. The church was built on the area of the isolation hospital following the plague in the 1600s.
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Later, in 1857, "Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino", a limited liability company was founded with a share capital of 500,000 Florins, thus starting the activity of the San Rocco shipyards. The most important work was performed by I.R. Marina in 1861 when the Novara frigate was extended; this ship was used by Emperor Maximillian to reach Mexico.
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The shipyard, which built merchant ships, warships and five gunboats for the Hapsburg Royal Navy, was the most important and productive area of the region in the last thirty years of the 1800s, and remained so up to the sixties.
For the small town of Muggia, the San Rocco shipyard was a great economic resource, and in an area where the fishing and salt-mine activities were part of daily life, the fishermen became expert shipwrights and carpenters, starting a tradition that still continues today.
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