page_title: Victor Emmanuel II Monument
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Victor Emmanuel II Monument / History
caption_attribution_description: Rome - Italya, Vittoriano Quadriga dell'Unità. Photo taken from Piazza Venezia
context_page_description: The Victor Emmanuel II National Monument or Vittoriano, called Altare della Patria, is a national monument built in honour of Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a unified Italy, located in Rome, Italy. It occupies a site between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill. It is currently managed by the Polo Museale del Lazio and is owned by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities.
  From an architectural perspective, it was conceived as a modern forum, an agora on three levels connected by stairways and dominated by a portico characterized by a colonnade. The complex process of national unity and liberation from foreign domination carried out by King Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, to whom the monument is dedicated, has a great symbolic and representative value, being architecturally and artistically centred on the Italian unification—for this reason the Vittoriano is considered one of the national symbols of Italy.
  It also preserves the Altar of the Fatherland, first an altar of the goddess Rome, then also a shrine of the Italian Unknown Soldier, thus adopting the function of a lay temple consecrated to Italy.
context_section_description: After the death of Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy on January 9, 1878, many initiatives were destined to raise a permanent monument that celebrated the first king of a united Italy, creator of the process of unification and liberation from foreign domination, which is indicated by historiography as "Father of the Fatherland" also due to the political work of the President of the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom of Sardinia Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour and to the military contribution of Giuseppe Garibaldi. The goal was therefore to commemorate the entire Italian unification season ("Risorgimento") through one of its protagonists.
  For this purpose, the Italian government approved the construction of a monumental complex on the Northern side of Rome's Capitoline Hill. The monument would celebrate the legacy of the first king of a united Italy and would become a symbol of national patriotism. The project was realized by Giuseppe Sacconi in 1885, in an eclectic style.
  The project by Giuseppe Sacconi was inspired by the Hellenistic sanctuaries, such as the Pergamon Altar and the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia in Palestrina. The Vittoriano was conceived as a vast and modern forum open to citizens, situated on a sort of elevated square in the historic centre of Rome organized as an agora on three levels connected by tiers, with conspicuous spaces reserved for strolling visitors.
  To erect the Vittoriano it was necessary, between the last months of 1884 and 1899, to proceed with numerous expropriations and extensive demolitions of the buildings that were located in the construction area. The place chosen was in the heart of the historic centre of Rome and was therefore occupied by ancient buildings arranged according to urban planning that dated back to the Middle Ages. This was considered necessary because the Vittoriano should have been built in the heart of the historic centre of Rome, in a modern urban context, in front of a new large square (the future Piazza Venezia), which at the time was just a narrow open space in front of Palazzo Venezia.
  The general objective was also to make Rome a modern European capital that rivaled Berlin, Vienna, London and Paris overcoming the centuries-old pontifical town planning. In this context, the Vittoriano would have been the equivalent of the Brandenburg Gate of Berlin, the Admiralty Arch of London and the Opéra Garnier of Paris; these buildings are all united by a monumental and classical aspect that metaphorically communicates pride and the power of the nation that erected them.
  It would then become one of the symbols of the new Italy, joining the monuments of ancient Rome and those of the popes' Rome. Having then been conceived as a large public square, the Vittoriano, in addition to representing a memorial dedicated to Victor Emmanuel II, was invested with another role—a modern forum dedicated to the new free and united Italy.
  Established Italian sculptors, such as Leonardo Bistolfi, Manfredo Manfredi, Giulio Monteverde, Francesco Jerace, Augusto Rivalta, Lodovico Pogliaghi, Pietro Canonica, Ettore Ximenes, Adolfo Apolloni, Mario Rutelli and Angelo Zanelli, made its sculptures nationwide. It was inaugurated on June 4, 1911, and completed in 1935. The partly completed monument was inaugurated on June 4, 1911, on the occasion of the Turin International world's fair and the 50th anniversary of Italian unification. Construction continued throughout the first half of the 20th Century; in 1921 the body of the Italian Unknown Soldier was placed in the crypt under the statue of goddess Roma, and in 1935, the monument was fully completed amidst the inauguration of the Museo Centrale del Risorgimento Italiano.
  The decision to include an altar dedicated to the homeland in the Vittoriano was taken by Giuseppe Sacconi only after the planning phase, during the construction of the monument. The place and the dominant subject were immediately chosen, being a large statue of the goddess Rome that would have been placed on the first terrace after the entrance to the monument, just below the equestri
caption: The Quadriga of Unity on the summit of one of the two propylaea
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2007:11:04 21:36:19", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5402", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2898", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2274"}