Language
English
One hundred years ago the journey of the Unknown Soldier towards the Vittoriano began
Reading the chronicles, it almost seems like you are in another world: «the Commission carefully explored all the places where the fighting had taken place and a body was chosen for each of the following areas: Rovereto, Dolomites, Altipiani, Grappa, Montello, Basso Piave, Cadore, Gorizia, Basso Isonzo, San Michele, from Castagnevizza to the sea. The eleven bodies were initially taken to Gorizia, from where they were then transported to the Basilica of Aquileia on 28 October 1921. Here the choice of the body destined for glorious repose on the Altar of the Fatherland was made. The choice was made by a commoner, Maria Bergamas from Trieste, whose son Antonio had deserted from the army...
Unknown Militi, women tell the Son of Italy
On the occasion of the centenary of the burial of the Unknown Soldier at the Altar of the Fatherland in Rome, Idrovolante Edizioni is publishing a very special book. Titled “Ignoto Militi”, it is a collection of writings all signed by women authors. “Because if the Unknown Soldier is a son of Italy – we read on the back cover – women are his girlfriends, wives, daughters, mothers. Mothers like Maria Bergamas, who gave the life of her son Antonio to the Fatherland and who was charged with choosing, from eleven coffins of nameless fallen soldiers, the one that was taken to the Vittoriano in Rome. And which is still there, to symbolize the eternity of the sacrifice of...
The restoration of the Redipuglia Shrine is completed
The largest military shrine in Italy preserves 100.000 fallen soldiers from the First World War, 60.000 of whom are unknown. On the centenary of what, especially but not only for the Italians on the eastern border, was a true Fourth War of Independence, it has undergone extensive restoration that has finally been completed. This is the monumental staircase of Redipuglia (an Italianization of the Slovenian toponym Sredipolje). It was inaugurated in 1938 based on a design by the architect Giovanni Greppi and the sculptor Giannino Castiglioni. This partnership had also been entrusted with the Bezzecca Military Shrine (which united Garibaldi's fallen soldiers from the Third War of Independence and...
105 years ago the martyrdom of Nazario Sauro
September 20, 1880 marked the tenth anniversary of the Breach of Porta Pia, through which the troops of the Kingdom of Italy had conquered Rome, putting an end to the temporal power of the Popes and enriching the path of the Risorgimento with the conquest of what was to be the capital of a united Italy. However, at the time, lands where the majority of the population spoke, felt and had Italian culture were still under the domination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: Trentino, Venezia Giulia (including Trieste, Gorizia and Istria), Fiume and the cities of the Dalmatian coast. Committed Italian patriots and intellectuals called those lands “unredeemed”,...
The monumental area of Mount Sabotino
Mount Sabotino, the northern bastion of the Austro-Hungarian bridgehead of Gorizia, represented a key point on the Isonzo front from the beginning of the Italo-Austrian war of 1915-18. An extraordinary fortress in stone, this relief still shows valuable evidence of the ars fortificatoria practiced first by the Austro-Hungarian technical units and, after August 1916, by the Italian ones who transformed it into a real underground bulwark. This volume in the series “Archeologia di guerra” offers the public a tool for understanding the fascinating metamorphosis of a mountain that, due to its war history, entered into myth...
Eastern Border History Summer School
New, important step forward in the collaboration between the Ministry of Education and the Associations of Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian Exiles: a summer school dedicated to the history of the eastern border in the prestigious setting of the Vittoriale. In fact, from 12 to 16 July, as part of the activities “The events of the eastern border and the world of school”, the first summer school entitled “The difficult twentieth century of the eastern border. From the Italian Risorgimento to European perspectives” will take place in Gardone Riviera (in the province of Brescia) in the Vittoriale degli Italiani as part of the initiatives for the centenary of the sumptuous residence of Gabriele...
Centenary of the Unknown Soldier: a train will repeat the 1921 journey
From Aquileia to Rome. Guerini: 'A unifying moment in our history' One hundred years later - between October 29 and November 2 - a 'Train of Memory' will retrace the journey of the special convoy that in 1921 carried the body of the Unknown Soldier from Aquileia to Rome, where he was buried on November 4 in the shrine of the Altar of the Fatherland, at the Vittoriano. It was one of the unifying events of the Nation, with over a million people who flocked to pay their respects to the coffin along the 120 stages of the journey. "This year we will relive, without any rhetoric, that important moment in our history when the country found itself united. We need to reconnect the threads after the dramatic experience of the...
May 24, 1915, Fourth War of Independence
For the Italians still subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as residents in the unredeemed lands (Trentino, Venezia Giulia, Fiume and Dalmatia) as for a large part of the interventionist front, what contemporaries called the Great War actually represented a Fourth War of Independence, the completion of the Risorgimento path that stopped at the Breach of Porta Pia (September 20, 1870) and then set aside due to the commitment of the Kingdom of Italy in colonial adventures and adherence to the Triple Alliance. This continuity with the Risorgimento struggles and the recognition finally of the requests brought forward by the irredentists resident on both sides...
November 4th, a popular victory that Italy is mutilating today
by Davide Rossi and Lorenzo Salimbeni - 04/11/2020 Source: l'Adige On 4 November 1918, the armistice signed the previous day at Villa Giusti between Italy and Austria-Hungary came into force, completing "the work begun with such heroism by our fathers", as Vittorio Emanuele III of Savoy had announced on 24 May 1915 upon entering what contemporaries called the Great War, but which for Italians was the Fourth War of Independence. It was a conflict that crowned the auspices of irredentism, a political and cultural movement born in 1877 among the people of Trieste, Istria and Trentino who had gathered in Naples for the funeral of...
