Rijeka

Rijeka stands at the mouth of the Rječina on the Kvarner Gulf, a walled harbour town below the pilgrimage hill of Trsat, with the Frankopan counts of Krk as its neighbours. In 1337 it belonged to the lords of Duino; the Leaning Tower and church of the Virgin Mary, built in 1377, are among the few medieval monuments left. In 1465 the Walsee family handed it to the Habsburg Frederick III, and the town stayed Habsburg land for the next four centuries.

Venice, Rijeka's rival for the Kvarner coast, sacked and burned it in 1509. In 1515 Emperor Maximilian I named it the most loyal town and gave it trade privileges. A printing press was running in 1530 under Bishop Šimun Kožičić Benja, producing books in Glagolitic. Charles VI made Rijeka a free port in 1719, and an earthquake in 1750 destroyed most of the town, which was rebuilt as a new commercial city.