Sta Come Torre. The National Monument to the Italian Sailor and the Construction of the Ritual of Memory During the Fascist Era

The National Monument to the Italian Sailor in Brindisi is a majestic monument that stands on the Adriatic coast in memory of the Italian sailors who gave their lives to the service of the homeland. This mon- ument is a tangible symbol of gratitude and recognition for the brave sailors who defended Italy and its waters. It is also a “necessary ar- chitecture” like all the architectural and monumental complexes de- signed and built by the fascist regime to receive and commemorate the remains of soldiers who died in war, with particular emphasis on those who fell in the First World War. Such monuments were meant to celebrate them with mass ceremonies to exalt heroism, sacrifice, death in battle, and the sacred nature of victory over the enemy through an elaborate symbolic and iconographic system and the use of spaces – architectural as well as natural and “historic” landscapes. The decision to build a national monument in Brindisi in honor of the approximately 6,000 sailors who died during the 1915–18 war was prompted by the city’s prominent role in the war, which had earned it the War Cross. A national competition was announced for the monument, open to ar- chitects and sculptors, and 92 projects were submitted, later presented in a special exhibition held in Rome. The winning project was the design of an enormous rudder monument with a chapel-shrine presented by architect Luigi Brunati and sculptor Amerigo Bartoli, for an estimated cost of 1,200,00 lire. Construction took only one year, from October 28, 1932, to October 1933 and it was inaugurated on November 4, 1933, in the presence of King Vittorio Emanuele II. Beyond the monument itself, the construction of the ritual of memory associated with it had a profound significance for the local community and the country as a whole.