The Redipuglia Memorial is
the largest and most majestic Italian shrine dedicated to the fallen of the Great War. Built on the slopes of
Sei Busi Mount on a project by the architect Giovanni Greppi and the sculptor Giannino Castiglioni, it
was inaugurated on 18 September 1938 after ten years of work. This work, also known as the “Hundred Thousand” Memorial, houses the remains of 100,187 soldiers who fell in the surrounding areas, partly already buried initially on the opposite
Colle di Sant’Elia.
Strongly desired by the Fascist regime, the shrine wanted to
celebrate the sacrifice of the fallen as well as give a worthy burial to those who had not found space in the Invitti cemetery. The structure consists of three levels and symbolically represents
the army that descends from the sky, under the leadership of its commander, to travel the Heroic Way. At the top,
three crosses recall the image of Mount Golgotha and the crucifixion of Christ. Parked the car on the square in front of the Memorial, the visit begins after passing the destroyer “Grado”, an Austro-Hungarian ship that has become Italian after the end of the war. Walking towards the tombs you
go along the “Via Eroica” a stone paved road bordered by 38 bronze plaques indicating the names of the karst places disputed during the Great War.
At the end of this evocative route, we arrive at the
majestic tombs of the generals, among which the one of the
commander of the Third Army, Emanuele Filiberto Duca d’Aosta, who had expressed the desire to be buried in Redipuglia, stands out. The tomb is made up of
a block of red marble from Val Camonica weighing 75 tons. Next to it are the granite tombs of five generals: Antonio Chinotto, Tommaso Monti, Giovanni Prelli, Giuseppe Paolini and Fulvio Riccieri. Behind rise the
22 steps (2.5 meters high and 12 wide)
which, in alphabetical order,
house the remains of the 39857 identified soldiers Each niche is surmounted by the word “Present” and can be reached thanks to the side stairways leading to the top. At the center of the first step is the only buried woman, a Red Cross nurse named Margherita Kaiser Parodi Orlando, while on the twenty-second are the remains of 72 sailors and 56 men of the Guardia di Finanza.
Arrived at the end of the staircase and the steps,
two large tombs covered with bronze plates
they guard the remains of over 60,000 unknown soldiers. Go beyond it to reach the top of the shrine where the visit can continue by visiting the small chapel that houses the “Deposition” and the panels of the Via Crucis by the sculptor Castiglioni. Above this religious structure are the three bronze crosses. At the back of the last step are two bronze crosses;
museum roomsInside are photographs of the first Redipuglia Shrine, documents, war relics and paintings by Ciotti that adorned the first Tomb of the Duke of Aosta, originally placed in the small chapel at the top of the Sant’Elia Hill; On the plateau, at Altitude 89, there is the Observatory and a model of the territory that highlights the border line at dawn on 24 October 1917, the day of the
Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo.
