Museo del III Reggimento Alpini

In the Officers' Pavilion of Fenestrelle Fort, the Museum of the 3rd Alpini Regiment keeps the memory of Italy's mountain infantry, whose Fenestrelle battalion served in that regiment from the late nineteenth century. The same pavilion holds a collection of First World War trench art carved from spent shell casings.

Why it matters

Fenestrelle's story did not end when the last Savoy masonry dried: from the late nineteenth century the fortress landscape quartered Alpini, Italy's elite mountain infantry, and the battalion that carried the village's name served with the 3rd Alpini Regiment through the campaigns of the early twentieth century and both world wars. This museum, set up in the padiglione degli Ufficiali, keeps that regimental memory inside the fortress that gave the battalion its name.

What to notice

The pavilion also houses L'Artigianato di Trincea, Fulvio Giacchino's collection of trench art, objects made by soldiers at the front from spent ammunition, including brass shell casings carved into ornament. The transformation of weapons debris into delicate handwork is a vivid record of how men passed time and preserved dignity in the trenches of the First World War. Regimental material in the museum rooms recalls the traditions and campaigns of the Alpini.

Context and history

The Alpini corps was raised by the Royal Italian Army in 1872 as locally recruited mountain companies, and the battalion named Fenestrelle appears in the order of battle of the 3rd Alpini Regiment from the force's 1880s reorganisation. The regiment's battalions served in Libya and the Dodecanese before the First World War and fought on the Alpine front. The museum preserves this legacy beneath the roof where the fort's own officers once lived.