On December 29, 1881, “Il Piccolo” appeared, an Italian-language daily newspaper from Trieste, which was still under the domination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The newspaper, which owes its name to the smaller format in which it was printed compared to other newspapers of the time, was immediately the voice of the liberal-national ruling class of Trieste, speaking and cultured in Italy, repeatedly challenging the watchful Habsburg censorship in giving space to initiatives and issues of an irredentist nature.

The presentation editorial To the readers it read:

Let's summarize our program in a few words.
We will be independent, impartial, honest. 
That's all. 

Il Piccolo identified so deeply with the Italian component of multi-ethnic Trieste that when the Kingdom of Italy entered the First World War against Austria-Hungary, the pro-Austrian citizens set fire to the editorial office as well as other symbolic places of the city's Italian nature (such as the Società Ginnastica Triestina and the Lega Nazionale).

The Trieste newspaper would have resumed publication celebrating the arrival of Italian troops in the city of San Giusto and the victory in that conflict which for many represented a Fourth War of Independence, was then framed by the fascist regime, went through Nazi domination in the form of the Adriatic Coast Operations Zone and the Forty days of bloody occupation by the Yugoslav communist partisans and finally had to change its name by order of the Anglo-American occupation authorities.

The return of the Italian administration to the Julian capital on 26 October 1954 allowed the historic newspaper to reclaim its name and to highlight the issues of the eastern Italian border that were still open: in particular, the mobilization against the Treaty of Osimo represented the moment of greatest sympathy and synergy between Il Piccolo and the robust community of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian exiles who had arrived in the city following the Exodus from the lands of the eastern Adriatic.

The Multimedia Documentation Centre of Julian, Istrian, Rijeka and Dalmatian culture is particularly pleased to have created, as part of the celebrations for the 140th anniversary of the newspaper and in collaboration with the provincial committee of Trieste of the National Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia, the We Exiles project, a portal that reconstructs through the Piccolo's period pages the dramas of the Julian-Dalmatian Exodus, of the Refugee Collection Centers and of the reintegration of exiles into the Italian social fabric. [LS]