Sacrario Militare di Cima Grappa e Ossario ipogeo

The Grappa War Memorial is one of the main World War I Ossuaries and is on top of the mountain. When the Great War was over, there were many military cemeteries spread all over the Grappa Range. So it was decided to build a single monumental cemetery on the mountain top: the current military War Memorial. It was designed by the architect, Giovanni Greppi, with the sculptor, Giannino Castiglioni, and was erected between 1932 and 1935. The War Memorial has a number of large, semi-circular steps, up the slope, on the road to the top. This enabled builders to exploit the ground slope to the best, limiting difficulties and building costs. The building's characterising element is the 'columbarium' design used for burial recesses to hold the bodies of dead soldiers. the columbarium model, together with the natural stone and bronze used to close the recesses, recalls Roman classicism, much loved by the Fascist customers. You reach the Memorial along Strada Cadorna. It holds the remains of 22,910 soldiers as follows: the north sector holds the Austro-Hungarian Ossuary with 10,295 dead, of which 295 identified; the south sector holds the Italian Ossuary, with 12,615 dead, of which 2,283 identified. The so-called Via Eroica (heroic road), 300 m long, connects the two ossuaries, with stones on thr side bearing the names of peaks involved in the war. At the start of the Via Eroica, to the north, the Portale di Roma (Rome Portal) designed and built by the architect, Limoncelli and offered by the city of Rome. The Madonna del Grappa Sacellum stands at the centre of the Italian Ossuary. The statue it contains is that of the Vergine Ausiliatrice (Mary Help of Christians) placed on the summit on 4 August 1901 by the then patriarch of Venice, Giuseppe Sarto, who was to become Pope Pious X.