Monumento ai Caduti della Guerra 1915-18

A First World War memorial by one of Italy's most celebrated sculptors stands in the gardens facing Acqui Terme's railway station. The monument by Pietro Canonica carries the victorious final bulletin of the war in relief and was unveiled in the presence of a prince of the royal house, marking the town's official act of remembrance.

Why it matters

Acqui Terme's memorial to the fallen of the 1915–18 war is the town's principal monument to the Great War, and it carries two signatures of national importance. The first is its author: Pietro Canonica, the Piedmontese sculptor whose equestrian and allegorical works stand in Rome, Moscow and Istanbul, here signing what the municipal tourism portal calls a remarkable work. The second is the text: the monument bears in relief the Bollettino della Vittoria, General Armando Diaz's victory bulletin of 4 November 1918, the document every Italian war memorial wanted to quote. Its inauguration in the presence of Prince Umberto of Savoy — the future King Umberto II — shows how much weight the town attached to the dedication. Its setting in the public gardens by the station linked the memorial to Acqui Terme's civic welcome.

What to notice

The relief of the victory bulletin makes the text part of the monument's surface. Canonica's figure work reflects commemorative themes of sacrifice, victory and mourning. The gardens in front of the station also contain a monument to Giacomo Bove, the explorer born in nearby Maranzana. Together the works reflect what early twentieth-century Acqui chose to commemorate: local figures who served the nation in war and exploration.

Context and history

Italy entered the First World War in 1915 and the conflict took a devastating toll on small Piedmontese towns, whose names are read today on the stone rolls of honour in churches and town halls everywhere in the region. When the post-war memorial campaign reached Acqui Terme, the town turned to Canonica, an artist of international standing who had made his name with funerary and public monuments — and who went on to be named a senator for life. The unveiling ceremony in the presence of Prince Umberto of Savoy placed the town's grief within the official narrative of the young Kingdom of Italy, and the choice to carve Diaz's victory bulletin — rather than a local dedication — aligned the memorial with the national iconography that spread across Italy in the 1920s. The monument forms part of Acqui Terme's twentieth-century commemorative history, alongside memorials to Cefalonia and the Resistance.