The Vittoriale degli Italiani is located in Gardone Riviera, on the Brescia shore of Lake Garda.
It is a complex of buildings, streets, squares, an open-air theater, gardens, and waterways, erected in 1921 by Gabriele d’Annunzio.
It was built in memory of the “inimitable life” of the poet-soldier and the exploits of the Italians during the First World War.
The entrance to the Vittoriale features a double-arched portal with a niche in the center housing a small fountain and D’Annunzio’s inscription: “Within this triple circle of walls, where that religious book which I thought was dedicated to the rites of the homeland and which the Latin victors called the Vittoriale is already translated into living stone.”
A tympanum with D’Annunzio’s famous motto, “I have what I have donated,” marks the entrance to the Vittoriale and serves as a warning to visitors.
The Priory, or rather the house of the Friar Prior as d’Annunzio liked to call himself, features a façade inspired by the Palazzotto del Podestà in Arezzo.
It is the house-museum dedicated to Gabriele d’Annunzio, who lived here from 1921 to 1938. The residence is divided into numerous rooms, the main ones being the Leper’s Room where the poet retreated in solitude, the Zambracca Room where his bedroom was located, the Globe Room with its large library, and the Workshop where the poet worked on his works.
The guided tour of the Priory ends in the Cast Room, the first room of the Schifomondo (the new wing designed for the poet’s residence). Gabriele d’Annunzio’s body was placed on display in this room on 2nd March 1938.
Photography and video are strictly prohibited in the first part of the Priory and during the guided tour.
The park houses the hangar housing the MAS 96 (armed torpedo boat) used by d’Annunzio during the famous Buccari Hoax, the feat he carried out with Costanzo Ciano and Luigi Rizzo on the night of 10th-11th February 1918, against the Austrian ships in the port of Buccari (now in Croatia).
From a military standpoint, the action was completely irrelevant because the Austro-Hungarian ships, effectively protected by anti-torpedo nets, suffered no material damage, but from a media perspective it was a major success.
The Mausoleum houses the monumental tomb of Gabriele d’Annunzio, surrounded by his faithful companions, including the architect Gian Carlo Maroni.
The Mausoleum’s design was modeled after Roman tumulus tombs: three stone circles, dedicated to the Victory of the Humble, the Artful, and the Heroes, support the Botticino marble tombs, which surround the tomb of d’Annunzio, placed at the center and highest point.
At d’Annunzio’s request, the Royal Ship Puglia was set in the Vittoriale park with its bow facing the Adriatic, in memory of its captain, Tommaso Gulli, who died in the waters of Split in 1920.
The ship arrived in Gardone dismantled and stored on 20 railway carriages, later reassembled on the hill.
Inside the auditorium is the famous plane associated with d’Annunzio’s flight over Vienna on 9th August 1918. The flight over Vienna was a demonstration, not armed but purely for propaganda purposes, with the dropping of over 390,000 tricolor leaflets over the Austrian capital.
The Open-Air Theater is one of the places the poet desired and designed starting in 1931, when he went to Pompeii to study the structure of the Teatro Grande.
