Gorizia in the context of "Julian Alps"

A European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union (EU) for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong pan-European dimension. Being a European Capital of Culture can be an opportunity for a city to generate considerable cultural, social, and economic benefits, and it can help foster urban regeneration, change the city's image, and raise its visibility and profile on an international scale. Multiple cities can be a European Capital of Culture simultaneously.

In 1985, Melina Mercouri, Greece's Minister of Culture, and her French counterpart Jack Lang came up with the idea of designating an annual City of Culture to bring Europeans closer together by highlighting the richness and diversity of European cultures and raising awareness of their common history and values.

Although a member of the Triple Alliance, Italy did not join Germany and Austria-Hungary when the conflict started in 1914, on the ground that war was initiated by the two Central Powers while the Triple Alliance was a defensive bloc. Italians protested for the lack of consultation before Austria issued the ultimatum to Serbia and invoked a clause of the Triple Alliance, according to which both Italy and Austria-Hungary were interested in the Balkans and whoever changed the status quo in the region had to compensate the other; Austria-Hungary refused any compensation before the end of the war. In May 1915, after secret parallel negotiations with both sides, the Italians entered the war as one of the Allied Powers, hoping to acquire the Italian-speaking "irredent lands" of Trento and Trieste (in Italian discourse the conflict was described as the "fourth war of independence" against Austria) and other territories (German-speaking South Tyrol, the largely Slavic-speaking regions of Istria and Dalmatia where Italians lived in coastal cities, some colonial compensations) promised them by the allies in the 1915 treaty of London.

Italy opened a front against Austria-Hungary along the Eastern Alps and the Isonzo river. Fighting was marked by trench warfare and attrition. On the Julian sector, the Italian army launched numerous offensives and made several conquests (most significantly Gorizia in 1916 and Bainsizza in 1917), but both sides suffered heavy casualties. On the Asiago plateau, in 1916, an Austrian offensive was followed by an Italian counter-offensive. Italy was forced to retreat in 1917 by a German-Austrian offensive at the Battle of Caporetto, after the Russian collapse allowed the Central Powers to move reinforcements to the Italian Front from the Eastern Front.

Nova Gorica (pronounced [ˈnɔ̀ːʋa ɡɔˈɾìːtsa] ) is a town in western Slovenia, on the border with Italy. It is the seat of the Municipality of Nova Gorica. Nova Gorica is a planned town, built according to the principles of modernist architecture after 1947, when the Paris Peace Treaty established a new border between Yugoslavia and Italy, leaving nearby Gorizia outside the borders of Yugoslavia and thus cutting off the Soča Valley, the Vipava Valley, the Gorizia Hills and the northwestern Karst Plateau from their traditional regional urban centre. It is the European Capital of Culture in 2025. Since 1948, Nova Gorica has replaced Gorizia as the principal urban center of the Gorizia region (Slovene: Goriška), as the northern part of the Slovenian Littoral has been traditionally called. Since May 2011, Nova Gorica has been joined with Gorizia and Šempeter-Vrtojba in a common trans-border metropolitan zone, administered by a joint administration board.

The Soča (Slovene: [ˈsòːtʃa], in Slovene) or Isonzo (Italian: [iˈzontso], in Italian; other names: Friulian: Lusinç; German: Sontig; Latin: Aesontius or Isontius) is a 138-kilometre (86 mi) long river that flows through western Slovenia (96 kilometres or 60 miles) and northeastern Italy (43 kilometres or 27 miles).

An Alpine river in character, its source lies in the Trenta Valley in the Julian Alps in northwestern Slovenia, at an elevation of 876 metres (2,874 ft). The river runs past the towns of Bovec, Kobarid, Tolmin, Kanal ob Soči, Nova Gorica (where it is crossed by the Solkan Bridge), and Gorizia, entering the Adriatic Sea close to the town of Monfalcone. It has a nival-pluvial regime in its upper course and pluvial-nival in its lower course.

Marko Anton Plenčič, Marcus von Plenciz or Marcus Antonius von Plenciz (28 April 1705 – 25 November 1786) was a Slovenian physician in Vienna who was among the early adopters of the germ or contagion theory of infection at a time when infectious disease was attributed to bad air or miasmas. He published his theories in Opera medico-physica 1762. He has been called the Slovene Pasteur.

Plenčič was born in Salcan near Görtz/Gorizia where he studied before going to study medicine in Vienna and Padua. Graduating in 1735, he practiced in Vienna until his death. His 1762 book Opera medico-physica had four parts and he described the theory of germs that he called animalcula minima or animalcula insensibilia as being the cause of infectious diseases with his focus being on rinderpest. Among his teachers was Carlo Francesco Cogrossi (1682–1769) who had also identified microbes as causal organisms for disease. Plenčič suggested that earthquakes such as the one in 1755 had helped the spread of rinderpest. He hypothesized that each disease was caused by a different organism dwelling within the human body, but was unable to offer proof. He suggested treatments that worked against the microbes as cures although the agents he suggested were antiseptics and heavy metal compounds. He was an honorary professor at the Vienna Medical School and was titled as a nobleman by Maria Theresa in 1764 and knighted in 1770.

Goriška (English: the Gorizia Region) is a historical region in western Slovenia on the border with Italy. It comprises the northern part of the wider traditional region of the Slovenian Littoral (Primorska). The name Goriška is an adjective referring to the city of Gorizia, its historical and cultural centre.