On a recent afternoon, a little girl gently patted the shoulder of a statue of the Italian writer Gabriele d’Annunzio, depicted sitting cross-legged and reading on a bench in a central square. “This is a girl who shows respect,” said Rosa Cacioppo Mantini, a 92-year-old retired high school literature teacher and committed Fascist who nearly every day stands guard over the statue and adorns it with an Italian flag.

Then the little girl stepped back, stomped on d’Annunzio’s bronze foot and slapped his bald head. “Disrespectful!” Ms. Mantini seethed. Such are the passions provoked these days by d’Annunzio, whose introduction into Trieste’s Piazza della Borsa in September has anguished many local residents.