The Victory Monument (Italian : Monumento alla Vittoria; German : Siegesdenkmal) is a monument in Bolzano, northernmost Italy, erected on the personal orders of Benito Mussolini in South Tyrol, which had been annexed from Austria after World War I. The 19 metre wide Victory Gate was designed by architect Marcello Piacentini and substituted the former Austrian Kaiserjäger monument, torn down in 1926–27. Its construction in Fascist style, displaying lictorial pillars, was dedicated to the "Martyrs of World War I".
The following Latin script can be seen on the main façade:
The monument was inaugurated on 12 July 1928 by King Victor Emmanuel III and major representatives of the fascist government.
The inscription, referring to Roman imperial history, was seen as provocative by many within the German-speaking majority in the province of South Tyrol. On the day of the inauguration there was a counter-demonstration with 10,000 people in Innsbruck. [1]
Since its construction, the monument has been a focal point of the tensions between the Italian and German speaking communities in Bolzano and in the whole region; after various attempts to blow it up carried out by South Tyrolean separatist groups in the late 1970s, it has been fenced off to protect it from further defacement. [2]
Only in 2014, by a joint decision taken by the Italian Ministry of Culture, the South Tyrolean Provincial Government and the Municipality of Bolzano, the Monument has been reopened to the public along with a permanent exhibition (under the title "BZ '18–'45: one monument, one city, two dictatorships") focussing on the history of the monument, within the context of Fascism and the Nazi occupation. [3]
In 2016, the exhibition was granted a special commendation by the Judging Panel of the European Museum of the Year Award which pointed out that "the exhibition reintegrates a controversial monument, which has long served as the focal point of battles over politics, culture, and regional identity. The project is a highly courageous and professional initiative to promote humanism, tolerance and democracy." [4]
Similarly to the Victory Monument, in 2017 also the former Casa del Fascio and its monumental fascist bas-relief have been recontextualized on behalf of the Provincial Administration by adding an illuminated inscription quoting Hannah Arendt. [5]
South Tyrol is an autonomous province in northern Italy. An English translation of the official German and Italian names could be the autonomous province Bolzano – South Tyrol, reflecting the multilingualism and different naming conventions in the area. Together with the autonomous province of Trento, South Tyrol forms the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province is the northernmost of Italy, the second largest with an area of 7,400 square kilometres (2,857 sq mi), and has a total population of about 534,000 inhabitants as of 2021. Its capital and largest city is Bolzano.
Bolzano is the capital city of the province of South Tyrol, in Northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third largest in historical Tyrol. The greater metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants and is one of the urban centers within the Alps.
The South Tyrol Option Agreement was an agreement in effect between 1939 and 1943, when the native German and Ladin-speaking people in South Tyrol and several other municipalities of northern Italy, which had belonged to Austria before WWI, were given the option of either emigrating to neighboring Nazi Germany or remaining in Fascist Italy, where the German minority was subjected to repressive Italianization efforts.
Modern-day South Tyrol, an autonomous Italian province created in 1948, was part of the Austro-Hungarian County of Tyrol until 1918. It was annexed by Italy following the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I. It has been part of a cross-border joint entity, the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino, since 2001.
The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is a university primarily located in Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy. It was founded on 31 October 1997 and is organized into five faculties.
Ettore Tolomei was an Italian nationalist and fascist. He was designated a Member of the Italian Senate in 1923, and ennobled as Conte della Vetta in 1937.
Jeffrey Schnapp is an American university professor who works as a cultural historian, designer, and technologist. Until joining the Harvard University in 2011, he was the director of the Stanford Humanities Lab from its foundation in 1999 through 2009. At Harvard, he holds the Carl Pescosolido Chair in Romance and Comparative Literatures in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and also teaches in the Department of Architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Effective June 2015, he assumed the position of Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Piaggio Fast Forward, the robotics division of the Piaggio. In 2018 he transitioned to the role of Chief Visionary Officer, handing over the role of CEO to his co-founder Greg Lynn. In October 2021, Piaggio Fast Forward launched a second product, gita mini.
A casa del Fascio, casa Littoria, or casa del Littorio was a building housing the local branch of the National Fascist Party and later the Republican Fascist Party under the regime of Italian Fascism, in Italy and its colonies, and Malta. In major urban centers, it was called the palazzo del Littorio or palazzo Littorio. Littorio means lictor, the bearer of the fasces lictorii, the symbol of Roman power adopted by the Fascist party.
Marcello Piacentini was an Italian urban theorist and one of the main proponents of Italian Fascist architecture.
The South Tyrolean Liberation Committee was an underground secessionist and terrorist organisation founded by Sepp Kerschbaumer and several combatants including Georg Klotz in the mid-1950s which aimed to achieve the right for self-determination for South Tyrol and the related secession from Italy via bomb attacks.
Der Schlern is a German-language monthly for the study of science, research, art and culture related to South Tyrol.
The South Tyrolean Unterland or Bozen Unterland is a section of the Etschtal valley stretching from the regional capital Bolzano (Bozen) down the Adige (Etsch) river to Tramin and Salorno (Salurn). The area is known for its history, particularly regarding Rhaetic, Roman, and Germanic archaeological sites; its bilingualism, and its viticulture; the Gewürztraminer grape originated here.
Julius Perathoner was an Austro-Hungarian politician who became an Italian citizen after the Treaty of Saint-Germain. He was one of the most important exponents of the Liberal Party in Tyrol and the last mayor of German ethnicity of the City of Bolzano from 1895 to 1922. On October 3, 1922 the democratically elected Perathoner was forcibly deposed as mayor during the March on Bozen from Italian fascists and replaced by a fascist functionary.
Eurac Research is a private research center headquartered in Bolzano, South Tyrol. The center has eleven institutes and five centers. Eurac Research has more than 800 partners spread across 56 countries. Eurac Research collaborates with international organizations such as the Alpine and Carpathian Conventions, UNEP and UNIDO in the context of sustainable development and energy technology, and also hosts the headquarters of the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention at its headquarters in Bolzano. Core funding is provided by the autonomous province of South Tyrol, with additional financing coming from membership fees and European project funds.
The South Tyrolean independence movement is a political movement in the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol that calls for the secession of the region from Italy and its reunification with the State of Tyrol, Austria. Concurrently, some groups favor the establishment of an interim Free State of South Tyrol as a sovereign nation while reintegration is organized.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Bolzano/Bozen in the Trentino-South Tyrol region of Italy.
The Civic Archives in Bozen-Bolzano are the municipal archive of the city of Bolzano in South Tyrol, Italy. They are located in the old town hall and store documents from over 700 years of civic and regional history.
The former Casa del Fascio in Bolzano was built between 1939 and 1942 in a rationalist style on a project by the architects Guido Pelizzari, Francesco Rossi and Luis Plattner, as the seat of the Italian Fascist Party and its collateral organisations, in Piazza del Tribunale. Since the end of World War II it has housed the State Financial Offices and other state bodies operating in South Tyrol.
The cathedral Maria Himmelfahrt is the parish church of the South Tyrolean capital Bolzano and cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bozen-Brixen. While the Bishop has resided in Bozen since 1964, the cathedra and the cathedral chapter remain in Brixen. Maria Himmelfahrt is therefore with Brixen Cathedral co-cathedral of the diocese.
Bozner Blutsonntag refers to the events of 24 April 1921 in Bozen. It was the first climax of fascist violence in South Tyrol, a German-speaking province that was annexed by Italy after World War I.
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