Piccolo Museo della Grande Guerra

Sappada's Small Museum of the Great War preserves objects and documents relating to the Alpine front and the village's wartime experience.

Why it matters

The Piave's source region saw fighting between Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops in the high Dolomites from 1915 to 1917. Founded in 2002 by collectors Emanuele Pachner and Francesco Pomarè, the museum recalls soldiers on both sides and the experience of Sappada, a German-speaking community evacuated during the war.

What to notice

The collection occupies a former forge and municipal slaughterhouse. A mural by Pierantonio Chiaradia, painted in 2003, depicts a Great War scene in Val Sesis. Uniforms, tools, field stoves, documents and photographs represent the Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces and the conditions of high-altitude warfare.

Context and history

Italian troops occupied Passo Sesis in 1915, and fighting continued around Monte Peralba. In 1916 Austrian artillery bombarded Cima Sappada; an avalanche in Val Sesis in the winter of 1916–17 killed sixty Italian soldiers. During the Caporetto retreat in October 1917, 233 Sappada families—841 people—were evacuated to Tuscany, while 337 residents remained under occupation. Nineteen local women served as portatrici carrying supplies. The refugees returned in March 1919; an influenza epidemic had killed seventy-two during their displacement.