Architectural and artistic works of the Vittoriano

The architectural and artistic works of the Vittoriano, an Italian national monument located in Rome on the northern slope of the Capitoline Hill, represent, through allegories and personifications, the virtues and sentiments that motivated Italians during the Risorgimento, the period during which Italy achieved its national unity and liberation from foreign domination.^[1] For this reason, the Vittoriano is considered one of Italy's patriotic symbols.^[2]

It was the monument's designer, Giuseppe Sacconi, who decided to place only exclusively allegorical works of art, because he believed that only through art devoid of any reference to contemporaneity could the monument be given a universal value that would not be affected by the passage of time. Sacconi had to repeatedly counter the various proposals to place inside the building works of art that also represented precise historical figures and facts, beyond, naturally, King Victor Emmanuel II, to whom the monument is dedicated.

The architectural centerpiece of the Vittoriano is the equestrian statue of Victor Emmanuel II, the only non-allegorical representation in the monument.^[2][3] The term "Vittoriano" derives precisely from the name of Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, the first king of united Italy, one of the protagonists of the Risorgimento and the process of Italian unification, so much so that he is referred to by historiography as one of the four "Fathers of the Fatherland,"^[2] along with Cavour, for his political and diplomatic work, Garibaldi, for his military actions, and Mazzini, whose thought illuminated the minds and actions of Italian patriots.