The War Memorial

Placed in the northern part of the lower gardens of Corso Mombello, at the crossroads with Via Roma, it was dedicated to the Fallen of the War 1915-1918.

The initiative to erect a war memorial in Sanremo had already been taken in January 1921 by the Associazione Nazionale Mutilati e Invalidi di Guerra (National Association of the Disabled and Invalids of War), presided over by the accountant Aldo Ravina, who on 20th March of the same year was also appointed chairman of the Executive Committee for the realisation of the monument.

The Committee, later chaired by Professor Antonio Canepa and Mayor Bensa, began to collect the necessary funds for the erection of the monument, to which Queen Margherita also contributed. She managed to obtain 80 quintals of bronze scrap metal from the State Railways at a price reduced by 40%.

In order to further increase the collection of the necessary funds, a large lottery was held with a Fiat 520 car worth 25,000 lire as a prize and awarded to Mr Ernesto Cavallero Lastress.

The project had been entrusted to the sculptor Vincenzo Pasquali who worked on the casting of the work, for which a fee of 175,000 lire was paid.

In June 1923 everything was almost finished and the mayor Bensa, accompanied by the vice president of the Committee Giovanni Boeri, was received in Rome by King Vittorio Emanuele III, who accepted the invitation to come to Sanremo to attend the inauguration of the monument.

The six-metre high statue stands on a trapezoidal parallelepiped base resting on four steps and framed at the top by a bronze lictor's fasces running around all four sides, ending with a pyramidal structure that acted as a support for the imposing six-metre high bronze sculptural group depicting Winged Victory, a woman on a rearing horse brandishing a sword, with condottieri at her feet.

On the front side is the dedication to the fallen and on the other three the names of the redeemed cities, Trento and Trieste, and that of Rome.

On 12 November 1923 the King arrived in Sanremo from Racconigi accompanied by Prince Umberto and General Cittadini, his aide-de-camp.

Welcomed at the railway station by the high commissioner of the FFSS (State Railways) Torre, representing the government, by the prefect of the Duke Borea d'Olmo palace, by Senator Marsaglia and by the city authorities, he then reviewed the units of the 42nd Infantry Regiment and twelve music bands, while the battleship Duilio, anchored in the harbour roadstead together with the destroyer San Martino, fired twenty-one blank cannons.

Vittorio Emanuele III then arrived in Corso Umberto and took his place on the authorities' box next to the Queen Mother.

Immediately afterwards, the veil covering the monument, the work of the sculptor Vincenzo Pasquali, was removed, while the bands sang the Piave anthem. After the bishop of Ventimiglia Ambrogio Daffra had blessed the monument, the official speaker for the ceremony was Corrado Marchi, editor of Genoa's Corriere Mercantile, who gave a heartfelt salute to Sanremo's fallen soldiers, while all the representatives of the province's fighting, workers', Catholic, professional and sports associations paraded in front of the royal box.

At the end of the ceremony, the king went to the Russian church to visit the tombs of his in-laws and then to the Casino Municipale, where he received the homage of the main personalities of the local political world, including Sultan Mohammed VI, with whom the king had a brief conversation.
At around 12 noon, Victor Emmanuel III finally went to the railway station, where he boarded the royal train, leaving immediately for Bordighera to join the Queen Mother and the Crown Prince.

Unfortunately, during the Second World War, due to a shortage of metal suitable for casting weapons, the bronze statue was removed from its pedestal and diverted to the Metal Collection Centre.

The work was destined for casting, but its end was always shrouded in mystery, so much so that it seems to have ended up in a municipal depot instead, where it remained abandoned until the Liberation, but this too has never been ascertained.

Since then, it has been forgotten.

It was never replaced again until, on 2 June 2018, on the occasion of Republic Day, , thanks to the generous donation of Mrs Elsa Ausenda and her husband Renato Carlo, who died years ago, it was possible to place a copy of the original monument on the base.

With the authorisation of the Municipality of Sanremo and the Superintendency of Cultural Heritage of Genoa, and also thanks to the efforts of the Denuzzo Gallery and the architect Gianni Salesi, the work was commissioned to the Master of Art Domenico Sepe, Neapolitan by origin, who, before starting the work, studied the original sketch preserved in the Civic Museum.

The inauguration ceremony took place at 9.30 a.m. starting from Piazza Colombo with a parade of ANPI representatives, arriving at 9.45 a.m. at the Monument, at the crossroads between Via Roma and Corso Mombello where the bronze group was unveiled in the presence of some Authorities and many ex-combatants.

Many townspeople were also present, not only for the solemnity of the moment but also for their curiosity to look at the plinth, which for many years they had seen as a monk, restored with a work they had only heard about.

The idea of placing a bronze group on the pedestal of the Monument to the Fallen, which had been orphaned of its statue for some time, and which, at least in spirit, would match it, came from Mr Marco Renato Carlo.

Carlo took part in the Second World War as part of the "Pieve di Teco", a glorious Alpine unit that distinguished itself both during the Great War and the last one.
It was a local conscription and many of the Alpine soldiers who took part in it came from the province, including Carlo who, having returned from captivity in Germany, wished to remember his many fallen comrades-in-arms by donating to the Municipality of Sanremo the sum, obtained from a collective collection, also promoted by other volunteers, needed to rebuild the city's War Memorial.

His work, as mentioned, was then brought to a successful conclusion by his widow, Elsa Ausenda.

(free elaboration from texts by various authors and writings from the pages of our Facebook Group; images from the Web and private archives)