Description : Ljubljana is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It has been the cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative centre. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the area. Ljubljana itself was first mentioned in the first half of the 12th century. Situated at the middle of a trade route between the northern Adriatic Sea and the Danube region, it was the historical capital of Carniola, one of the Slovene-inhabited parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. It was under Habsburg rule from the Middle Ages until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. After World War II, Ljubljana became the capital of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It retained this status until Slovenia became independent in 1991 and Ljubljana became the capital of the newly formed state. The parchment sheet Nomina defunctorum ("Names of the Dead"), most probably written in the second half of 1161, mentions the nobleman Rudolf of Tarcento, a lawyer of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, who had bestowed a canon with 20 farmsteads beside the castle of Ljubljana (castrum Leibach) to the Patriarchate. According to the historian Peter Štih's deduction, this happened between 1112 and 1125, thus representing the earliest mention of Ljubljana. Originally owned by a number of possessors, until the first half of the 12th century, the territory south of the Sava where the town of Ljubljana developed gradually became property of the Carinthian family of the Dukes of Sponheim. Urban settlement in Ljubljana started in the second half of the 12th century. At around 1200, market rights were granted to Old Square (Stari trg), which at the time was one of the three districts that Ljubljana originated from. The other two districts were an area called "Town" (Mesto), built around the predecessor of the present-day Ljubljana Cathedral at one side of the Ljubljanica River, and New Square (Novi trg) at the other side. The Franciscan Bridge, a predecessor of the present-day Triple Bridge, and the Butchers' Bridge connected the walled areas with wood-made buildings. Ljubljana acquired the town privileges at some time between 1220 and 1243. Seven fires erupted in the town during the Middle Ages. Artisans organised themselves into guilds. The Teutonic Knights, the Conventual Franciscans, and the Franciscans settled in the town. In 1256, when the Carinthian duke Ulrich III of Spanheim became lord of Carniola, the provincial capital was moved from Kamnik to Ljubljana. In the late 1270s, Ljubljana was conquered by King Ottokar II of Bohemia. In 1278, after Ottokar's defeat, it became—together with the rest of Carniola—property of Rudolph of Habsburg. It was administered by the Counts of Gorizia from 1279 until 1335, when it became the capital town of Carniola. Renamed Laibach, it would be owned by the House of Habsburg until 1797. In 1327, the Ljubljana's "Jewish Quarter"—now only "Jewish Street" (Židovska ulica) remains—was established with a synagogue, and lasted until Emperor Maximilian I in 1515 succumbed to medieval antisemitism and expelled Jews from Ljubljana, for which he demanded a certain payment from the town. In 1382, in front of St. Bartholomew's Church in Šiška, at the time a nearby village, now part of Ljubljana, a peace treaty was signed between the Republic of Venice and Leopold III of Habsburg.
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