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War memorials

Italy: Tempio-Sacrario di S. Nicolò, Udine

Architect: Provino Valle & Alessandro Limongelli
Location: Udine, Italy

Udine, an ancient city and the principal town of Friuli, was the seat of the Italian Supreme Command until Caporetto. It was bombed in the Second World War.

The grand, domed Tempio-Sacrario di S. Nicolò in the Piazza XXVI Lfuglio (the date of annexation by Italy in 1866) was completed in 1940. Designed by the local architect Provino Valle (1877-1955), it was begun in 1925 as a new parish church on the west side of the city. Two years later it was decided to alter the scheme to make it into a mausoleum containing the remains of 15,855 known and 5,658 unidentified casualties of the war, and the Rome architect Alessandro Limongelli wasbrought in to assist Valle. The names of the known casualties are listed on twenty travertine columns in the crypt. The bronze figure of Christ bear the black marble high altar was by Mistruzzi; the gilded bronze stations of the Cross were by Gianni Castiglioni. The four giant statues of soldiers on pedestals against the west front of the church were the work of Silvio Olivo.

Alessandro Limongelli (1890-1932) was born in Cairo and died in Tripoli before this church was finished. He submitted designs for an ossuary at San Michele (1920), the war memorial at Genoa (1924) for the sacrario at Redipuglia and he began that at Monte Grappa; in 1927 he designed a pavilion for a trade fair in Tripoli and went on to design other buildings in Italian-occupied Libya, including a triumphal arch in Tripoli.

Gavin Stamp

Ministero della Defesa 

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