Campana dei Caduti (Maria Dolens)

Cast from cannon bronze offered after the First World War, Maria Dolens stands on Colle di Miravalle above Rovereto as a memorial to the fallen of all wars.

Why it matters

Maria Dolens was conceived by Rovereto priest Don Antonio Rossaro as a memorial of peace. Made from cannon bronze offered by nations that fought in the First World War, it gave weapons a new meaning. Its hundred tolls symbolise, in the foundation’s account, a call to peace and brotherhood among peoples.

What to notice

Inscriptions cast on the bell include words attributed to Pius XII—“Nothing is lost with peace; everything may be lost with war”—and a Latin line by John XXIII on concord and liberty. Maria Dolens measures 3.36 metres high and 3.21 metres in diameter, and weighs about 22.6 tonnes. The foundation describes it as the world’s largest bell rung a distesa, or in full swinging peal. Its headstock allows the bell to turn completely during the swing.

Context and history

The idea came from don Antonio Rossaro, a priest of Rovereto, in the years after the front had cut through the mountains above his town. The first bell was cast in Trento on 30 October 1924, baptised Maria Dolens on 24 May 1925 and inaugurated on 4 October 1925, hung on the Malipiero bastion of the city castle. Sound defects led to a recasting in Verona on 13 June 1939; the second bell returned to Rovereto in May 1940. Silenced in 1960 by an irreparable crack, it was fused again on 1 August 1964 at the Capanni foundry in Castelnovo Nè Monti, blessed by Pope Paul VI in St Peter's Square on 31 October 1965 and placed on the Colle di Miravalle on 4 November 1965, on the ridge beside the great war ossuary. The centenary of the first toll fell on 4 October 2025.