Victory Monument

In 1925, a national competition was announced for the construction of a “Monument to Victory” in Forlì, to be inaugurated on October 30, 1932, the tenth anniversary of the “fascist revolution”.

The competition was won by a figure favored by the regime, the architect and engineer Cesare Bazzani, who wanted to create a monument that, compared to the others, had the particularity of being able to have two main sides on which to host ceremonies, one facing the public garden and the other facing the station; this characteristic was also underlined by Mussolini in the inauguration speech he gave from the balcony of the Government Palace in Piazza Saffi, saying of the monument “…on one side pity for the fallen, on the other the proud exaltation of victory…”, for which the entire work was also called Monument to the Fallen.

Bazzani designed an important composite architectural structure completely covered in Trani marble, 32 meters high in total: a raised base with rounded shorter sides, on which three elements stand: in the center a 22-meter high Doric column whose base contains a small chapel which is entered through an iron door: from the ceiling of the chapel you can access the spiral staircase contained inside the column, which reaches the top of this; the staircase is lit by two small openings on the column itself. On the sides two parallelepipeds decorated with two bas-reliefs each, made by Bernardino Boifava, which depict the fundamental moments in the life of the heroes, that is, the attack, the defense, the sacrifice and the triumph, and on the sides that look towards the square, a fountain with a modern representing the sacrifice of Victory.

At the top, the column capital hosts a decorated round base on which is placed an important bronze sculptural group of three winged female figures representing the sky, the earth and the sea. The model was made by the sculptor Bernardo Morescalchi who entrusted the casting to the Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli of Florence. Marescalchi had previously worked with the Fonderia Artistica Marinelli for the casting of large-scale works, such as the Horses of Forlì.

In October 1932 Mussolini officially inaugurated the monument with a grand ceremony and a speech from the balcony of the Government Palace.
Later, in June 1938, King Vittorio Emanuele III, visiting Forlì, stopped at the foot of the monument and laid a wreath.

Searching in the archives of the Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli, a letter appeared, dated April 28, 1923, following the inauguration of the Monument that the Foundry wrote to the Podestà of Forlì, in which payment was requested for “the letters for the monument la Vittoria”, for which it was still a creditor. These are the letters of the inscription applied at the top under the capital of the base of the bronzes.

In the year 2024, the Municipality of Forlì has planned an inspection to monitor its “health”, followed by the Studio Tecnico Nerodichina of Forlì with the architect Giancarlo Gatta. The Winged Victories presented cracks and breaks; but the most peculiar thing was a series of holes that at first left scholars in doubt and only after a conversation between the architect Gatta and Ferdinando Marinelli Jr. manager of the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry was it understood that they were due to bullets from the last war.