Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - Roma, Italy
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N 41° 53.696 E 012° 28.976
33T E 291192 N 4641174
In Italy, the ceremony for the entombment of the Unknown Soldier took place in Rome on 4 November 1921 at the Vittoriano monument. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a memorial to all those who died in the Great War.
Waymark Code: WM10Z9D
Location: Lazio, Italy
Date Posted: 07/15/2019
Views: 7
The Vittoriano monument, also known as Vittorio Emanuele II Monument or Altare della Patria, holds the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with an eternal flame, built under the statue of goddess Roma after World War I following an idea of General Giulio Douhet. The body of the unknown soldier was chosen on 26 October 1921 from among 11 unknown remains by Maria Bergamas, a woman from Gradisca d'Isonzo whose only child was killed during World War I. Her son's body was never recovered. The selected unknown was transferred from Aquileia, where the ceremony with Bergamas had taken place, to Rome and buried in a state funeral on 4 November 1921.
In the capital city, the ceremony envisaged a Catholic Mass in the Santa Maria degli Angeli church on 2 November 1921, Day of the Dead, and a major ritual on 4 November at the Vittoriano monument. This last ceremony was attended by Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy (1869-1947), all ranks of the armed forces, war widows, dead soldiers’ families and hundreds of common people.
The objective of constructing a shared memory of the sacrifice of thousands of Italian men converged in a truly emotional participation of the entire national community. In a country dramatically polarized, the entombment of the Unknown Soldier aroused solid appreciation throughout the political spectrum. This anonymous body acted, indeed, as a place for reconciliation and identification. After this impressive event, the monument was no longer identified as a memorial to a single individual, King Victor Emmanuel II, but rather as a memorial to all those who died in the Great War. Hence, it truly became an effective “Altar of the Fatherland”, where the father of the nation and his humble but heroic sons could be jointly honoured. Collective and individual mourning were politically legitimated through a state-sponsored “cult of the fallen”.
It was around this last subject that the subsequent Fascist dictatorship also built its own political liturgy, by taking advantage of the legacy of the First World War to legitimize its seizure of power. The Vittoriano and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier became, therefore, the preferred stage for a variety of patriotic ceremonies concerning the Great War and other national festivities, but also Fascist anniversaries. The presupposed ideological continuity between the experience of the conflict and the emergence of Fascism was even displayed by the regime in the 1932 Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution, which took place in Rome, where room N was expressly dedicated to the unknown soldier.
The “Altar of the Fatherland” served as the central site for national liturgy even after the fall of Fascism and the creation of the Italian Republic in 1946, and continues to do so up to today.
The inscription on the tomb reads: "IGNOTO MILITI 1915 - 1923"
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