At the end of WW I, several countries chose to remember their unidentified casualties with some patriotic symbols. This is also the origin of the so-called Unknown soldier, the tomb of a soldier with no name meant to represent all casualties of war. In Italy, such initiative was taken in 1920 and the government decided to place the selected coffin at the Vittoriano, a majestic monument dedicated to the first King of Italy in Venice Square (piazza Venezia), Rome.
With a strong symbolic and emotional significance, the body of to be moved to the capital was chosen by Maria Bergamas, mother of a young irredentist who was killed during the Great War. Maria lived in Trieste at that time but she was from Gradisca d'Isonzo, a town just a few kilometres from Gorizia and the battlefields of Mt. San Michele and Sei Busi. Her son Antonio was born in the same town and had died near Mt. Cimone, on the Asiago plateau, in 1916.
Today, you can still see the house where Mary and Anthony used to live before they moved to Trieste, located in Via Bergamas 37 in Gradisca d'Isonzo. A plaque is inscribed with the following words: "Here was born Antonio Bergamas, who devoted his faith to Mazzini's ideal since young age, on 18th June 1916, in the sacred name of Italy, marked his faith with his blood on Mt. Cimone". You can easily walk to the house from Piazza Unità d'Italia, near the Redemption Column.
INFORMATION
Via Bergamas, 37
I-34072 Gradisca d'Isonzo (GO)
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
via Ciotti, 49
I-34072 Gradisca d'Isonzo (GO)
Tel. +39 0481 960624
Fax +39 0481 960624
prolocogradisca@virgilio.it
