Il Vittoriano: costruzione, morte e rinascita di un simbolo della nazione

Abstract

In 1878, after the death of Vittorio Emanuele II, the idea of erecting a monument in Rome to commemorate his memory and symbolize “modernity” in the Eternal City was proposed, leading to extensive demolition activities. The Vittoriano became the witness of political and cultural change: from a monument erected to the memory of Vittorio Emanuele II to the Altare della Patria and shrine of the Unknown Soldier, eventually becoming a panoramic Belvedere after 2000. Particularly after the Second World War, a sort of damnatio memoriae of the Vittoriano developed, which found its clarification in a public trial organized in 1986. This loss of memory, which corresponds not only to a similar loss of “meaning”, was accompanied by what has been read as a real contempt for modern monuments.