Pazin was built in an area rich in history and inhabited since ancient times. The burg surrounding the castle was inhabited since
prehistory. Some of the surrounding rural settlements, such as Glavizza, Beram, which features a
necropolis dating from the 7th to 5th century BC, and the
castellieri of Bertossi, likewise inhabited since prehistoric times, developed into urban centers, while others became burgs around newly built castles, and others still remained rural villages. with
Livia, wife of
Emperor Augustus, believing that her longevity was due to it. The current settlement of Pazin originated with the houses built around a castle erected by Germanic rulers. These were the houses of the family relatives and feudal settlers, to which were later added those of the foreign
artisans, who offered their services to the lords of the castle as well as their employees and subjects. It then belonged to the Imperial
March of Istria, which had originally been under the suzerainty of the newly established
Duchy of Carinthia in 976, but separated together with the
March of Carniola in 1040. In the 12th century, Mitterburg Castle was in possession of the
Lower Carniolan count Meinhard of Schwarzenburg, who held the office of a
vogt of the Poreč bishops (in Latin documents he is known as
Cernogradus), and established the Pazin County (earldom). Upon his death, Pazin was inherited by his son-in-law Count Engelbert III of
Gorizia (Görz) in 1186. While most of Istria had gradually been annexed by
Venice, Engelbert's descendant Count Albert III of Gorizia in 1374 bequested his Mitterburg estates to the Austrian
House of Habsburg, who attached them to their
Duchy of Carniola and gave it out in fief to various families, the last of which was the comital House of
Montecuccoli Both the Turks and the Venetians attacked the town of Draguccio (Draguć), in the
Pisinese, and part of the County of Pazin since 1350, and destroyed the settlement around its castle during Austrian times. After the little town passed to Venice, the
Uskoks and Austrians gave it the same treatment. The last Ottoman incursion in Istria occurred in Pazin in 1511. On this occasion, they destroyed the castle. inside
Pazin Castle In 1508, during the
War of the League of Cambrai, the city was conquered by Venetian forces under
Bartolomeo d'Alviano, and annexed by the
Republic of Venice. It remained under Venetian rule until 1509. During its time under the
Serenissima, Francesco Loredan was the
castellan of the fortress, while Secondo de Cà Pesaro served in the position of captain of Pazin, as
provveditore of the Republic of Venice. Slavs inhabited the countryside around Pazin since the 9th century; they worked for the German landowners, who lived in the small fortresses and rocks, built on the edges of the cliffs. The Italians of Pisino trace their origins to the pre-existing Roman community living in the area of the County of Pazin, having resisted the expansion and assimilation of the newcomers. The Italian ethnicity in the County of Pazin was also kept alive and powered by the continuous contact and relationships with the nearby and strictly Italian communities of the Pola and Parenzo (Poreč) areas. As with the other Istrian counties, the notary and diplomatic language of Pazin remained
Latin, in preference to the
German language. The
Istrian Demarcation (
Razvod istarski) was written in 1325 in Croatian and in the
Glagolitic script. Beside this debated document, there is only one document written in
Croatian, a borders act between
Kožljak and
Mošćenička Draga, which, however, was written in Croatian to please to chieftains of the Mošćenička Draga area, subjects of the lords of
Kastav, who didn't understand Latin. The only official language of the public and private documents of the County of Pazin was Latin, which in the 17th century was replaced by the
Italian language. Even the acts and the registers from the captain administration were written in Latin, and then in Italian; German, which was still marginally used up to the 16th century, was used ever less, and finally disappeared in the 17th century. Until 1918, the town (under the name Pisino) was part of the
Austrian monarchy (Austrian side after the
compromise of 1867), seat of the district of the same name, one of the 11
Bezirkshauptmannschaften in the
Austrian Littoral province. In the same year, Pazin and all the
Peninsula of Istria were transferred to the
Kingdom of Italy.
Benito Mussolini, then, introduced a fascist regime in Italy which, under the "Duce", began to Italianize the region. During
World War II, the
Pazin Decisions were declared, which proclaimed the unification of Istria with
Croatia. Most of Istria became part of
Yugoslavia after World War II with the
Paris Peace Treaties in 1947, and subsequently became part of modern-day Croatia. ==Education==