From Italian Monuments to the Fallen of World War I to Fascist War Memorials

摘要

This paper describes the different ways of commemorating the fallen of World War I in Italy between 1918 andud1940. From the collection of examples emerges that there was no homogeneity in the forms of remembranceudduring these two decades. Rather, we find both a continuous renewal and overlapping of different kinds ofudcommemorative forms. Right after the end of World War I, a spread of spontaneous local monuments isuddiscernible, though the many small war cemeteries rising near the former battlefield areas were alreadyudbeginning to be perceived as a problem. Shortly before World War II, the construction of huge ossuaries and,udlater, war memorials was fostered by the Fascist Regime which availed itself of the fallen for ideological andudpolitical purposes. Between these two extremes, also other forms of commemoration such as parks or avenuesudof remembrance were realized. This paper tries not to force coincidences between history and the history ofudarchitecture; nevertheless, it understands monuments, parks and avenues of remembrance, ossuaries, and warudmemorials as a kind of seismograph sensitive to the period’s shifts and jolts, and to Fascist policies in particular.