Monument of Vittorio Emanuele II
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The Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II (National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II) or Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland) or "Il Vittoriano" is a monument to honour Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy. It is located in Rome, Italy. It occupies a site between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill. The monument was designed by Giuseppe Sacconi in 1895. It was inaugurated in 1911 and completed in 1925.[1]
The monument is built of pure white marble and features majestic stairways, tall Corinthian columns, fountains, a huge equestrian statue of Victor Emmanuel and two statues of goddess Victoria riding on quadrigas. The structure is 135 meters (490 ft) wide and 70 meters (230 ft) high. If the quadrigae and winged victories are included, the height is to 81 meters (265 ft).[1]
The monument holds the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with an eternal flame, built under the statue of Italy after World War I. The base of the structure also houses the museum of Italian Reunification.[1][2]
The monument was controversial since its construction destroyed a large area of the Capitoline Hill with a Mediaeval neighbourhood for its sake. The monument itself is often regarded as pompous and too large.[2][3][4] It is clearly visible to most of the city of Rome despite being boxy in general shape and lacking a dome or a tower.[1] The monument is also glaringly white, making it highly conspicuous amidst the generally brownish buildings surrounding it, and its stacked, crowded nature has lended it several derogatory nicknames. Romans sometimes refer to the structure by a variety of irreverent slang expressions, such as "Zuppa Inglese", "the wedding cake", and "the false teeth", while Americans liberating Rome in 1944 labeled it "the typewriter", a nickname also adopted by the locals. Despite all this criticism, the monument still attracts a large number of visitors. It was featured in the 2003 movie The Core where it collapses due to being struck by huge bolts of lightning.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d Vidotto, Vittorio. "The Invention of Two Capital Cities. Archaeology and Public Spaces in Athens and Rome" (PDF). European Association for Urban History. Retrieved on 2007-02-26.
- ^ a b d'Aquino, Niccolo (Feb 2001). "Capitals: Rome". Europe (403): 36-38. Retrieved on 2007-02-26.
- ^ Atkinson, David; Cosgrove, Denis (Mar. 1998). "Urban Rhetoric and Embodied Identities: City, Nation, and Empire at the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument in Rome, 1870-1945". Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88 (1): 28-49. Retrieved on 2007-02-26.
- ^ Anonymous (Oct 1996). "Outrage". The Architectural Review 200 (1196): 25. Retrieved on 2007-02-26.
