Oslavia Ossuary

The Oslavia Ossuary was built in 1938 on Hill 153 of Mount Calvario to a design by the Roman architect Ghino Venturi.

Conceived in the form of a *Totenburg* — a “fortress of the dead” watching over the surrounding land — the complex was commissioned by the Fascist regime to gather the remains of soldiers who had fallen in the various battles of the Great War fought around Gorizia and Tolmin, today in Slovenia.

The ossuary occupies a triangular area and consists of four towers: one at each corner and a central tower. Inside the towers are the loculi of the identified dead, arranged along the walls, for a total of around 20,000 names, including 138 Austro-Hungarian soldiers. The remains of a further 37,000 unidentified soldiers, 539 of them non-Italian, are buried in three large ossuaries located within the side towers.

All the towers are connected by underground tunnels and contain crypts. The most important is the central one, where the tombs of thirteen men decorated with the Gold Medal for Military Valour can be found, among them General Achille Papa, who died on 5 October 1917, General Ferruccio Trombi, fatally struck at Oslavia on 28 November 1915, and General Alceo Catalocchino, killed in the Natisone Valleys on 27 August 1917.

The main tower also contains a great dark-marble cross, while outside, near the left-hand corner of the ossuary, hangs a bell called “Chiara”.