Vittoriano (Victor Emmanuel II Monument), Rome

Interesting facts

Before the equestrian statue was finally assembled, more than twenty people reportedly sat down to a meal inside the belly of the bronze horse.

The statue of Victor Emmanuel II was cast from the bronze of melted-down cannons of the Royal Italian Army.

Sacconi's design was not the first winner: an 1880 international competition with 311 entries was won by the French architect Henri-Paul Nénot.

Excavations for the foundations turned up the remains of a mammoth, which were transferred to the University of Rome.

Clearing the site meant demolishing the Aracoeli convent along with the sixteenth-century Tower of Paul III.

Sacconi died in 1905, and the architects Gaetano Koch, Manfredo Manfredi and Pio Piacentini carried on his project.

Sixteen allegorical statues, each about five metres tall, line the portico and personify the regions of Italy.

Two fountains at the foot of the monument represent the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Seas, the waters on either side of Italy.

Two braziers burn perpetually beside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, dedicated by Italians living abroad to their homeland.

The monument's outer stairways have a combined total of 243 steps.

Why it is worth it

The Vittoriano, the national monument to Victor Emmanuel II, is the building that Rome loves to argue about. Raised in honour of the first king of united Italy, it was designed by Giuseppe Sacconi, winner of a competition, and begun in 1885 on the northern slope of the Capitoline Hill. It was inaugurated on 4 June 1911, the fiftieth anniversary of unification, but not finished until 1935. Built of brilliant white marble from Botticino near Brescia, it is about 135 m wide and 81 m high to the tops of its sculptures, a colossal stage of stairways, terraces and colonnades that Romans have nicknamed the wedding cake and the typewriter.

Sacconi drew on Hellenistic sanctuaries such as the Altar of Pergamon, and the monument works like a sequence of ascending platforms. At its centre, the bronze equestrian statue of Victor Emmanuel II by Enrico Chiaradia rides above the Altare della Patria, the Altar of the Fatherland, where the goddess Roma, carved by Angelo Zanelli stands at the heart of the composition. Since 1921 the altar has also held the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, chosen from eleven unidentified dead of the First World War by Maria Bergamas, whose choice made the tomb a shrine for every family that never recovered its dead. Above, a curved portico of sixteen Corinthian columns closes the composition, crowned at either end by quadrigas of Victory added in 1927.

Building it meant clearing a whole medieval quarter at the foot of the Capitoline, and the dazzling white stone still sits uneasily among the warm ochres of old Rome. That tension is the point of visiting. From the upper terraces, reached by stairs or by a glass lift added in 2007, the historic city is laid out in every direction, domes, ruins and roofs spreading to the hills. The building also houses the Central Museum of the Risorgimento, devoted to the story of Italian unification.

Getting there

The monument fronts Piazza Venezia in the centre of Rome, about 2.4 km from the reference point used for the city. Ciampino Airport (CIA) is about 14 km away, and Rome Fiumicino (FCO) handles most international flights. The Capitoline Hill rises directly behind the monument.

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia

The Victor Emmanuel II National Monument, also known as the Vittoriano or for synecdoche Altare della Patria, is a large national monument built between 1885 and 1935 to honour Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a unified Italy, in Rome, Italy. It occupies a site between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill. The monument was realized by Giuseppe Sacconi.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia