For the mausoleum bologna cake 1950s Santo Domingo, see Altar de la Patria. 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. It is currently managed by the Polo Museale del Lazio and is owned by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities. The Vittoriano is on the Capitoline Hill, in the symbolic centre of ancient Rome, and is connected to the modern one thanks to roads that radiate from Piazza Venezia.
Its design is a neoclassical interpretation of the Roman Forum. The base houses the museum of Italian unification, and in 2007 a lift was added to the structure, allowing visitors to access the roof for 360-degree views of Rome. One of the architecturally predominant elements of the Vittoriano are the external staircases, which constitute in the complex 243 steps, and the portico on the top of the monument, which is inserted between two lateral propylaea. The Basilica of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli. The Vittoriano can be seen on the left. From a stylistic perspective, the architecture and works of art that embellish the Vittoriano have been conceived with the aim of creating a “national style” to be replicated in other areas. It was designed to communicate the imperial splendours of ancient Rome.
The Vittoriano is regarded as a national symbol of Italy and every year it hosts important national celebrations. For this purpose, the Italian government approved the construction of a monumental complex on the Northern side of Rome’s Capitoline Hill. The monument would celebrate the legacy of the first king of a united Italy and would become a symbol of national patriotism. Sacconi was inspired by the Hellenistic sanctuaries, such as the Pergamon Altar and the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia in Palestrina. To erect the Vittoriano it was necessary, between the last months of 1884 and 1899, to proceed with numerous expropriations and extensive demolitions of the buildings that were on site. The general objective was also to make Rome a modern European capital that rivaled Berlin, Vienna, London and Paris overcoming the centuries-old pontifical town planning.
It would then become one of the symbols of the new Italy, joining the monuments of ancient Rome and those of the popes’ Rome. The decision to include an altar dedicated to the homeland in the Vittoriano was taken by Giuseppe Sacconi only after the planning phase, during the construction of the monument. After the First World War the Vittoriano was chosen to house the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, or the burial of an Italian soldier who died during the First World War whose identity remains unknown due to the serious injuries that made the body unrecognizable, which represents all the Italian soldiers who died during the wars. With the rise of Fascism in 1922, the Vittoriano became the setting for the military parades of the authoritarian regime of Benito Mussolini. His tomb is a symbolic shrine that represents all the fallen and missing of the war. The side of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier that gives outward at the Altar of the Fatherland is always guarded by a guard of honour and two flames that burn perpetually in braziers.