Monument to the Fallen of Trieste

At the end of the Park of Remembrance, just before the square at the top of San Giusto Hill, stands the monument honouring those who fell in the First World War.

The work was designed by the Trieste sculptor Attilio Selva and rests on a base of white Istrian stone conceived by Enrico Del Debbio, the celebrated architect of the Foro Mussolini—today the Foro Italico—and the Farnesina Palace. It was inaugurated in 1935 in the presence of King Victor Emmanuel III and several Fascist officials.

The bronze sculptural group, more than five metres high, depicts men in a dramatic war scene: three support a wounded comrade while a fifth defends them with his shield. On the base is the dedication “Trieste / to those fallen / in the war of liberation / MCMXV–MCMXVIII”. In this case “war of liberation” does not refer to the Resistance in the Second World War, but to the concept of an Italian Trieste freed from Austria-Hungary, an idea dear to Fascist patriotic nationalism.