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.
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 unification of Italy, 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 Roma, then also a shrine of the Italian Unknown Soldier, thus adopting the function of a secular temple consecrated to Italy. Because of its great representative value, the entire Vittoriano is often called the Altare della Patria, although the latter constitutes only a part of the monument.
It is currently managed by the Polo Museale del Lazio and is owned by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Sources
- Wikipédia (fr) : Monument à Victor-Emmanuel II
- Wikipedia (en): Victor Emmanuel II Monument
- Wikidata: Q506234
- Official website
Text: introduction of the Wikipedia article Victor Emmanuel II Monument, under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence (authors: article history). Facts: Wikidata (CC0). Coordinates: Wikidata, map background © OpenStreetMap contributors.