Piero Cordignano is the grandson of Florenza Cordignano, who built dozens of public, military and private buildings in Tuzla and other cities. He lived and died in Tuzla, buried in the Borić cemetery. Florenzo had the construction company Cordignano and Candotti (with Luigi Candotti) and built in Tuzla the Catholic Church, the Great Gymnasium, the District Post Office, the military command, the Serbian Fund building, the Gamberger House, the Johan Merver House, the twin houses on Goli Brijeg, and in 1907 he built his own house, which still has utility value today, on Maršala Tita Street near Robot – color photo. In 1909, he also built the Bauer House – the family villa of his sister Viktoria in Bijeljina. Victoria Cordignano married Johan Bauer, a merchant and, according to some sources, the Mayor of Bijeljina during the Austro-Hungarian administration.
Piero Codignano asked for help in finding the descendants of his sister, Florenza, and in pursuit of this wish, Tihomir Knežiček contacted the Semberija Museum. The positive response shed almost complete light on the family line of Victoria Cordignano. One of Victoria's grandchildren bequeathed a photo album and a lot of documentation about the Bauer-Cordignano family, including Victoria Cordignano, to the Semberija Museum. The information was passed on to Piero, who received a complete picture of his family roots in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Semberija Museum has very professionally researched the documentation on the Victoried Cordignano family and in scanned form, the photographs and documents were submitted to the UGIP "Rino Zandonai", with permission and terms of use of the information. In return, the Semberija Museum was provided with information on the Cordignano family that the Association has, for which the Museum expressed its sincere gratitude. Formal cooperation on the topic of the Cordignano family was also agreed, as well as the joint implementation of activities that will be of interest to Tuzla and Bijeljina. This topic also prompted the Museum to more significantly investigate the past of the Bauer / Cordignano family in Bijeljina. Thus, photographs of the Cordignano family will be made available to the public for the first time, and in April 2026, the implementation of the project will begin, which aims to present the contributions of the Florenza Cordignano family in the field of construction infrastructure. The museum's photo album also contains the photographs and letter presented in this publication.
