Monument to Giuseppe Ungaretti in Santa Maria la Longa

Santa Maria la Longa is a small agricultural centre in the heart of the Friulian plain, halfway between Udine and Palmanova along the regional road SR352.

During the Great War, until the Caporetto retreat, it lay in the centre of the Italian rear lines, in an ideal position for troops to rest because it was not far from the front but outside the range of Austro-Hungarian artillery. For this reason, between 1915 and 1917 numerous barracks were built and several buildings were adapted for other functions, including hospitals and accommodation for officers and soldiers.

Among the many soldiers who found rest in Santa Maria were the famous poets Gabriele d’Annunzio and Giuseppe Ungaretti. It was here, on 26 January 1917, that Ungaretti composed some of his most famous poems: “Dormire”, “Solitudine” and “Mattina”, the masterpiece of Hermetic poetry that reads “M’illumino d’immenso”.

On the eighty-eighth anniversary of these poems, the municipal administration inaugurated a monument dedicated to Ungaretti in the central Piazza Divisione Julia. The statue, by the Friulian sculptor Franco Maschio, depicts a body rising and arching backwards. Beside it are three Karst stones engraved with Ungaretti’s poems.