Introduction
As visitors entered the hall that housed the Sacrario dei Martiri (Martyrs’ Shrine) within the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution – opened in Rome on 28 October 1932, on the occasion of the Decennale celebrations – they were enveloped in an intimate atmosphere of solemn mourning, skilfully crafted by the rationalist architect Adalberto Libera and the scenographer Antonio Valente. The minimalist design of this circular exhibition space focused the public’s attention on the inscription ‘Per la patria immortale’ (‘For the immortal fatherland’), engraved on a large cross set upon a red pedestal at the centre of the room (Stone Reference Stone1993, 225–226; Schnapp Reference Schnapp2003, 59–60), which imbued the hall with a sense of sacredness (Malone Reference Malone, Anderson and Sternberg2020). On the surrounding walls, the word ‘Presente’ – evoking the emblematic ritual of the Fascist roll call – was displayed repeatedly, recalling the symbolic bond between the living and the dead and emphasising the enduring memory of those who had given their lives for the cause of the Blackshirts (Gentile Reference Gentile2003, 47–48). This evocative hall was positioned at the core cycle of the exhibition. The choice was by no means accidental. On the contrary, it reflected the centrality of the cult of the fallen within the ideological universe of Italian Fascism (Suzzi Valli Reference Suzzi Valli, Janz and Klinkhammer2008; Berezin Reference Berezin, Grazia and Luzzatto2005). This cult represented the most genuine expression of the ‘regime’s secular religiosity’ and its ‘heroic conception’ of existence. Furthermore, it served to consolidate a specific idea of the nation – one grounded in the value of sacrifice, blind obedience to Mussolini’s orders, and the glorification of war and violence as instruments for the regeneration of the fatherland. Ultimately, throughout the ventennio, the memory of the fallen became a fundamental component of national identity, and death on the battlefield was transformed into a means of sacralisation of the nation itself (Gentile Reference Gentile2003, 42–47).
One of the primary expressions of the cult of the ‘martyrs of the Fascist Revolution’ was the appearance of dedicated monuments in various Italian cities, which served as focal points for official commemorations. This practice reflected what Albanese and Ceci (Reference Albanese, Ceci, Albanese and Ceci2022, 11) identify as the regime’s ‘desire to leave monumental testimonies of itself’ through architectural features and works, which were designed to ‘celebrate and immortalise … its men and history’.Footnote 1 Accordingly, in some cases, the dictatorship reused and re-signified pre-existing monuments to honour its fallen. In others, steles, chapels and altars of varying dimensions were built from scratch and sited in central squares, in places of worship such as monumental cemeteries, or in the Case del Fascio (Ertola Reference Ertola2024, 8–10). Alongside the creation of such monuments, Mussolini also undertook a reorganisation of war cemeteries, aiming to concentrate burials in a limited number of symbolic sites that could host the mass rites endorsed by his government.
To this end, significant resources were allocated to the realisation of military shrines. These imposing architectural complexes functioned as secular liturgical spaces through which the regime exalted the soldiers’ heroism and reinforced the myth of victory. Not least, they celebrated Italian greatness, which, according to the Duce and the intellectuals of the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party; PNF), had been fully realised with the advent of the Blackshirts’ Revolution. In these sites, national emblems were interwoven with those of the single party, reflecting the persistent efforts of PNF theorists to conflate Fascism with the nation. Among the more notable cases were the war memorials of Redipuglia, Monte Grappa, and Oslavia. Mussolini commissioned them to house the remains of hundreds of thousands of Italians who had fallen in the Great War, as part of the Fascist attempt to appropriate these figures ideologically (Cavicchioli Reference Cavicchioli, Cavicchioli and Provero2020; Pisani Reference Pisani and D’Amelio2019; Dogliani Reference Dogliani, Bosworth and Dogliani1999) and present them as exemplary models to promote Fascist nationalism and militarism (Malone Reference Malone2022, 35). The experiences of mass warfare and mass death between 1915 and 1918 – both inextricably bound to the emergence of Italian Fascism (Mosse Reference Mosse1998, 3–6) – contributed to transforming ‘the private and familial mourning’ of these soldiers into a ‘collective and patriotic sentiment’ (Ridolfi Reference Ridolfi2003, 154). In this context, the regime transfigured ‘rites of death’ into ‘rites of life’, in which the anguish of loss was ‘framed as an act of devotion to the fatherland’ (Gentile Reference Gentile2003, 48) – a fatherland conceived strictly in Fascist terms by the men of the PNF.
The cult of the fallen was by no means confined to the Italian peninsula during the ventennio. On the contrary, it extended beyond national borders to those places where the Blackshirts’ blood had been shed in pursuit of the defence and dissemination of Fascist ideals. A particularly noteworthy example is the tower-ossuary of the Italians in Zaragoza. Officially commissioned by the regime in late 1940, it was intended to honour the fallen soldiers of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (Corps of Voluntary Troops; CTV) – the Fascist military contingent dispatched to fight alongside Francisco Franco’s military rebels against the Second Republic during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The tower is the second-largest Italian military shrine abroad, only exceeded by that erected at El Alamein in Egypt. Owned by the Italian state, it stands adjacent to the Church of Saint Anthony of Padua, in the Torrero district of the Aragonese capital. Despite its limited recognition, the monument constitutes a subject of significant scholarly interest, since its history preserves the memory of Fascist Italy’s intervention in the Spanish Civil War. Moreover, it was intended to do so through an idiosyncratic narrative of that past which the Mussolini regime sought to transmit to posterity through stone and concrete. What is more, the attempt to re-signify this shrine after the end of the Fascist dictatorship makes it a compelling case study for reflecting on the processes through which a society can reimagine its history and engage with the legacy of an authoritarian past.
Until now, the tower-ossuary of the Italians in Zaragoza has received little attention in contemporary historiography. The few existing references to it appear in the works of scholars (Mamone Reference Mamone2021; Rodrigo Reference Rodrigo2016; Vaquero Peláez Reference Vaquero Peláez2006) who have focused primarily on the historical experience of the CTV and engaged with the tower only marginally and mostly through a descriptive lens. By contrast, the present article responds to the need to expand upon these studies through rigorous archival research. It does so by shedding light on the efforts of the Fascist dictatorship to perpetuate the memory of its fallen – and, to some extent, of the regime itself – through this enduring monumental structure, as well as on the tortuous process behind the tower’s creation, which extended beyond the fall of Mussolini’s regime.
To address this topic, the article has been divided into three sections. The first section briefly traces the origins of the CTV and its role in the Spanish Civil War in defence of fascism in Europe, and against Bolshevism and liberal democracy. The second explores the context in which the idea was conceived for building a tower-ossuary in memory of the CTV legionaries who had fallen in Spain. It also examines the civil, religious and political actors involved in the design and realisation of the memorial from 1939 until the summer of 1943. The final section concentrates on the evolution of the tower after the approval of Dino Grandi’s Motion on 25 July 1943, analysing how the initial post-fascist transitional governments approached the completion of this contentious monument and sought to re-signify it within the new Italian political context.
At the Duce’s command, in the service of Franco
In the circles around Mussolini, the idea of creating an ad hoc Fascist military division to support Franco’s troops in the battle against the ‘reds’ began to take shape in early November 1936. The initiative followed the failure of the military rebels’ assault on Madrid on 8 November, which had represented a severe setback for Franco, who had been appointed supreme military commander and head of state of ‘National’ Spain just weeks before. Mussolini and the high-ranking members of the Italian General Staff attributed the fiasco to two principal factors. On the one hand, they blamed the lack of determination and decisiveness in Nationalist military actions. On the other, they pointed to the substantial numerical inferiority and inadequate equipment of the rebel forces, which had failed to crush Republican resistance, by that time supported by the Soviet Union and the International Brigades. In this context, Mussolini – who had officially recognised Franco’s government on 8 November – began to consider the creation of a dedicated corps to be sent to Spain, with the aim of providing the rebel faction with the necessary reinforcements – namely, troops, instructors, weapons, and ammunition – to secure a swift victory in the war (Rodrigo Reference Rodrigo2016, 100–101; Vaquero Peláez Reference Vaquero Peláez2006, 63–78). As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Galeazzo Ciano stressed, the Fascist leadership was convinced that the Second Republic would grant ‘Bolshevism access to the Mediterranean’ and perceived in Franco ‘the impulse of those ideal motives that had already inspired the Blackshirts’ revolution’ in Italy. Accordingly, the regime started its military mobilisation.Footnote 2
Between late November and early December 1936, with Franco’s approval, an office for the immediate recruitment of the new Italian contingent was opened at the residence of the Spanish vice-consul in Rome (Coverdale Reference Coverdale1975, 158). On 6 December, Mussolini met with Ciano, as well as the heads of the Army, Navy, and Air Force General Staff, the chief of the early Missione Militare Italiana in Spagna (Italian Military Mission in Spain; MMIS), Mario Roatta, and the head of German intelligence, Wilhelm Canaris, to discuss increasing supplies to assist Franco’s troops. At the same time, within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ufficio Spagna (Spain Office) was established under Ciano’s direction and staffed by officers from the Fascist Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (Voluntary Militia for National Security; MVSN) and the Royal Army (Rovighi and Stefani Reference Rovighi and Stefani1992, 137–151). In creating this office, the Fascist government sought to centralise the management of all Italian aid in Spanish territory, removing it from the respective military hierarchies (Rodrigo Reference Rodrigo2016, 102; Dogliani Reference Dogliani2008, 329).
In mid-December, under the direction of General Roatta – now the head of all Italian military forces in Spain – the first units of the new Fascist contingent began to be transferred to the zones occupied by the Francoists. This contingent comprised both genuine Italian volunteers – many of whom were former soldiers or members of the MVSN – and regular army personnel. As Rodrigo (Reference Rodrigo2016, 29–30) has pointed out, these men travelled to fight in a foreign land in response to ‘the call of a fascist faith’, which entailed ‘the expansion of its geographical and identity boundaries and the convergence with other counterrevolutionary European experiences’ in the struggle against ‘those without faith and without a fatherland’, namely Bolsheviks, Marxists, communists, and anarchists.
Despite Mussolini’s initial declarations of neutrality, between December 1936 and February 1937, the Italian presence in Spain increased exponentially, effectively transforming Italy into the ‘third belligerent’ in the civil war (Rodrigo Reference Rodrigo2016, 97; Dogliani Reference Dogliani2008, 330).Footnote 3 Just two months after the arrival of the first Blackshirts in Cádiz, the Duce’s contingent numbered around 44,300 men (Rodrigo Reference Rodrigo2016, 32) organised into the new Corpo Truppe Volontarie, which replaced the MMIS. Although formally subordinated to the Francoist High Command, the CTV was an autonomous military body with its own organisation and hierarchy. Composed of four main divisions – Dio lo Vuole, Fiamme Nere, Penne Nere and Littorio – it included infantry, artillery, armoured units, as well as logistical and medical backing. Also incorporated was an air section of the Italian Air Force – the Aviazione Legionaria (Legionary Aviation) – which contributed significantly to military operations through bombing raids and reconnaissance missions. Along with the large-scale deployment of men in the early months of 1937, there was also a significant increase in the amount of Italian equipment entering Spain, which ranged from aircraft to motor vehicles, from cannons and bombs to light tanks, and from machine guns to mortars (Coverdale Reference Coverdale1975, 167).
Throughout the three years of civil war, the CTV was actively engaged across all major theatres of operation. In February 1937, for example, 10,000 of its soldiers, aided by the Aviazione Legionaria, were deployed in the conquest of the city of Málaga, which had remained under Republican control until that point (Rodrigo Reference Rodrigo2016, 116). Carried out in coordination with Spanish rebel forces, the assault resulted in the swift fall of the city and served as a compelling demonstration of the effectiveness of Italian intervention in a conventional warfare context. The following month, CTV divisions launched an offensive aimed at encircling Madrid. However, on this occasion they encountered formidable resistance from Republican forces, who defeated the Italian contingent – poorly equipped for adverse climatic conditions and lacking adequate logistical support – at Guadalajara on 23 March 1937. The reverse would prove deeply humiliating for Roatta’s men.
The failure of the Guadalajara offensive imposed a thorough strategic and structural reorganisation of the CTV to improve its combat performance. In accordance with directives issued by the Italian high command and the Spanish rebel authorities, the CTV was downsized and restructured into more flexible units, which were better integrated with the Francoist army, thereby displaying greater operational efficiency in the subsequent military campaigns. Between April and October 1937, under the leadership of the new CTV commander Ettore Bastico and Chief of Staff Ettore Gambara, Italian forces took part in operations across northern Spain, contributing to the conquest of Vizcaya, Cantabria, and Asturias. The success of that campaign – and particularly the capture of Santander in August – was celebrated by PNF propaganda as a glorious redemption following the setback at Guadalajara, serving as a reaffirmation of the valour and military strength of Fascist Italy (Rodrigo Reference Rodrigo2016, 158; Coverdale Reference Coverdale1975, 282–284).
From September 1937 onwards, Mussolini’s legions were also engaged in Aragonese territory. That month, they participated in operations to repel the Republican offensive on Zaragoza, and between December 1937 and February 1938 they were involved in the Battle of Teruel, which ultimately ended in a Francoist victory (Vaquero Peláez Reference Vaquero Peláez2011, 36–52). Between March and April 1938, under the command of the new leader Mario Berti, the men of the CTV were deployed in the huge rebel offensive in Aragon, which resulted in the splitting of the enemy front and a Francoist advance into the northeastern part of the country (Vaquero Peláez Reference Vaquero Peláez2011, 99–132). Shortly thereafter came the offensive in Catalonia that Franco’s troops launched on 23 December 1938. In the following days, the CTV occupied 151 Catalan towns and six cities, in addition to Tarragona and Barcelona, the latter being captured on 26 January 1939, to Mussolini’s great satisfaction. On 4 February, Italian legionaries under the command of Gambara – who had succeeded Berti as head of the CTV – arrived at the gates of Girona, the last Catalan city to fall under Franco’s control.
During the final offensive, Italian divisions covered the area from Valencia to Cartagena, passing through Alicante and Gandía – the last town to be bombed by the Italian air force – as well as the area of Madrid, Guadalajara, and Alcalá de Henares. When the capital fell on 28 March 1939, Mussolini’s troops proudly marched alongside Franco’s men, symbolising the victorious alliance between Italy and Spain that had defeated the common Bolshevik enemy on Iberian soil, all under the essentially passive gaze of the major European democracies. By the end of May 1939, Italian military activities in Spain had largely ceased, coinciding with the recall of the CTV to Italy (Rodrigo Reference Rodrigo2016, 296–301).Footnote 4
The intervention of the CTV in support of the Generalísimo’s troops was extremely costly for Fascist Italy, which bore an estimated total expenditure of around 8.5 trillion lire, equivalent to an entire annual military budget. The human cost was also considerable. Of the nearly 79,000 men deployed between 1936 and 1939, over 3,700 lost their lives on the Spanish battlefields (Rodrigo Reference Rodrigo2016, 32 and 334). They did so fighting in defence of fascist ideals, for the glory of the Duce and for the triumph of the new Spanish Caudillo. Once the civil war was over, Mussolini’s regime decided to honour those fallen soldiers and preserve the memory of their sacrifice by constructing a shrine in the new Francoist state. The city selected for this initiative was Zaragoza, the ancient site of Caesaraugusta, which had been founded by Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian in the 1st century BCE, during the final phase of the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. The implied connection between that illustrious imperial past and the accomplishments of the CTV in the Spanish Civil War could not have been more striking and fortunate for Mussolini. Portraying himself as a ‘new Augustus of the revived imperial Italy’ (Gentile Reference Gentile2007, 143), he prepared to commemorate, in the Aragonese capital, the legionaries of the new ‘Rome in blackshirt’, who had fallen in the effort to spread fascist civilisation in Spain.
Monumentalising the CTV’s sacrifice: the construction of the ‘Italian Escorial’ in Zaragoza
In the spring of 1939, while the vast majority of the CTV was repatriated, the Italian government and the military high command decided to maintain a small contingent in Spain, the Compagnia Onoranze Caduti in Spagna (Company for Honouring the Fallen in Spain; OCS), which was entrusted with the task of recovering the remains of the legionaries who had perished during the conflict. These remains were scattered across the peninsula, often interred in makeshift graves and frequently without proper identification. The issue of burying those fallen in the Spanish Civil War had already emerged with particular urgency in the final months of the conflict, as the central authorities in Rome and their counterparts in Spain began receiving numerous letters from relatives seeking information about the fate and burial of their loved ones, and, in many cases, urging their repatriation. This latter request was promptly deemed unfeasible. First, it posed significant logistical and financial difficulties. Second, Mussolini himself had withheld his personal approval to the initiative. The Duce had explicitly expressed his intention that the fallen legionaries remain in the land they helped to ‘save’Footnote 5 in perpetual remembrance of their sacrifice, so that their presence might constitute ‘the most sacred pledge of unity between the two Latin nations’.Footnote 6
Given the impossibility of providing a proper burial for these combatants in Italy, the idea arose to gather all the remains in a single location in Spain. This would achieve considerable savings in both materials and time, given that the dispersal of the fallen across Spanish territory made it unworkable for Mussolini’s government to assume responsibility for the maintenance and oversight of so many cemeteries.Footnote 7 This idea, to be carried out under the supervision of the Italian military high command, was supported by Capuchin Father Pietro da Varzi (known in civilian life as Centurion Giovanni Bergamini), Legionary Chaplain of the CTV from the spring of 1937 and head of the OCS. Father da Varzi was not a prominent figure in either religious or military circles, yet he was undoubtedly the most knowledgeable individual on the matter. Indeed, he had been appointed as the officer responsible for the exhumation, identification, and arrangement of the remains of members of the CTV, a task that he carried out with the assistance of a detachment of volunteer legionaries under extremely challenging conditions. In many cases, the bodies of the fallen were located in remote and scarcely accessible areas, which rendered their transportation to cemeteries in larger urban centres exceedingly complicated. To these logistical difficulties was frequently added the advanced state of decomposition of the corpses – often poorly preserved due to neglect – which further complicated their transfer.Footnote 8 Accordingly, the situation in the early months of 1939 was far from reassuring. The remains of the CTV soldiers were scattered without a definitive resting place across 170 cemeteries, generally small in size and situated far from principal transport routes, rendering visits by families from Italy practically impossible. Providing a more dignified burial for these fallen was a moral imperative for the Fascist government, which simultaneously sought to establish a more enduring remembrance of the Italian blood that had been shed for the Francoist cause.Footnote 9
Following Father da Varzi’s recommendation and in response to the wishes of the mothers and widows of the fallen CTV soldiers, united within the Ut Vivant Association, the proposal to construct a single large memorial shrine to house all the legionaries who died on the Spanish battlefields began to take shape. The choice of location immediately fell upon Zaragoza for four principal reasons. First, it was the city that held the greatest number of remains of Italian combatants. Second, the city had served as the base for the two most significant operations of the CTV: those of the Ebro and Catalonia. Third, Zaragoza’s Roman past appeared to the Fascist regime as a ‘sign of intimate and fraternal Latin understanding’.Footnote 10 Finally, the capital of Aragon was home to the Basilica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, a sanctuary of the Hispanic race and one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Spain. In the eyes of Mussolini and his men, this would confer upon the Fascist monumental project a religious legitimacy of the highest order.
The project was met with immediate approval by the Spanish authorities. On 11 May 1939, the Spanish Minister of the Interior and Franco’s brother-in-law, Ramón Serrano Súñer, in the presence of the Italian ambassador to Madrid, Guido Viola di Campalto, and General Gambara of the CTV, addressed the ‘legionaries of the Immortal Rome’ who had fought ‘against international communism and its accomplices’ in defence of the shared ‘Mediterranean and Christian civilisation’. He expressed deep appreciation for their commitment to Franco and affirmed that ‘the monument to the loyalty of this Italo-Spanish friendship, sealed with the blood of the [two countries’] finest sons’ would soon rise in Spain ‘in enduring stone’.Footnote 11 Encouraged by these words, on 4 October 1939 the Ut Vivant Association sent a letter to Serrano Súñer, requesting his intervention to facilitate the transfer of the land designated for the memorial and for a church to be built nearby. The land, state-owned and administered by the Company of the Imperial Canal of Zaragoza, was to be granted in free and perpetual usufruct to the Capuchin Province of Navarra-Cantabria-Aragon, which had offered to undertake the construction of both the mausoleum and the sanctuary.Footnote 12 In this way, the monumental complex, born of a clear political will of Mussolini’s Italy, also received the tangible support of the Catholic Church, thus endowing the structure with a religious significance as well. The shrine would ultimately encapsulate the convergence, beginning with the 1929 Lateran Pacts, between Italian Fascism and Catholicism on the terrain of anti-communism and the defence of Christianity – a convergence that extended to other European fascisms throughout the 1930s (Chamedes Reference Chamedes2016) and was further consolidated by the Spanish Civil War, with Franco’s regime representing a conspicuous manifestation (Priorelli and Quiroga Reference Priorelli, Quiroga and Bresciani2021, 271).
Serrano Súñer unhesitatingly agreed to the Ut Vivant request,Footnote 13 which had already secured the approval of Ciano and GambaraFootnote 14 – the latter having succeeded Viola di Campalto as ambassador to Madrid in August 1939. On 4 December of that year, Franco also gave his personal endorsement to Father da Varzi’s project. In the meantime, the cleric had already been overseeing the consolidation of the remains retrieved from various Spanish cemeteries into provisional repositories in Zaragoza, pending their final interment.Footnote 15 Any lingering doubts were dispelled in the spring of 1940. On 10 May, the mothers and widows of the Ut Vivant association wrote to Mussolini, confirming their renunciation of ‘having the beloved remains’, thereby honouring the Duce’s wish to allow ‘the Heroes to continue, in the liberated land, to keep watch, as immovable bastions of Christianity and Romanity’. In the same letter, they called for the direct intervention of the leader of the Blackshirts to ensure that urgent and appropriate measures were taken for the ‘necessary, dignified, definitive, and prompt arrangement’ of the bodies.Footnote 16 Finally, on 13 and 14 May 1940, after discussing the matter with Father da Varzi and consulting with Ciano and Gambara, Mussolini gave his final approval to the project.Footnote 17
On 24 July 1940, by order of the Spanish Ministry of Public Works, the requested land was ceded for the construction of the memorial and the church.Footnote 18 The Spanish government donated a plot measuring 4,784 square metres – officially handed over to the MMIS and subsequently transferred to the Italian State – valued at one million pesetas. It also provided 60 soldiers to assist in the recovery of the CTV remains and their assembly in Zaragoza under the direction of Father da Varzi. Lastly, considering the construction of the memorial on a par with the nation’s most urgent public works, the Francoist administration granted Italy a series of exemptions and concessions. These included the purchase of materials – particularly iron and specialised cements – at reduced prices, as well as their free transportation by railway and Spanish military vehicles from the place of origin to the site of construction.Footnote 19
On 19 December 1940, the Italian Undersecretary of State, Luigi Russo, officially informed the Ministry of War that Mussolini had authorised the commencement of work on the Zaragoza memorial in the area that the Spanish government had donated as a burial site for the 3,400 fallen members of the CTV.Footnote 20 In the same letter, arrangements were also made for approximately one hundred corpses to be sent to the grand Francoist mausoleum – at that time itself under construction – of El Valle de los Caídos (The Valley of the Fallen, recently redesignated Valle de Cuelgamuros), in official representation of the Italian sacrifice in the Spanish Civil War. A further 300-400 bodies were to be preserved in the Pyramid of the Italians at Paso del Escudo – a smaller mausoleum inaugurated in the summer of 1939 in Cantabria – where they remained until 1975, the year in which many were finally transferred to Zaragoza (Tomasoni Reference Tomasoni2024; Vaquero Peláez Reference Vaquero Peláez2006, 267–276).Footnote 21
Mussolini entrusted the oversight of the works to the man who had conceived the memorial, Father da Varzi. He was instructed to operate in close coordination with the Italian diplomatic and military representatives – specifically, the ambassador to Madrid, the head of the MMIS, and an officer of the Military Engineering Corps – and under the strict supervision of the Extraordinary Commissioner for the Honours of the War Dead, General Ugo Cei. Initially, the project was allocated a budget of 2 million pesetas, managed by the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (National Bank of Labour; BNL) in Madrid, which was charged with recovering Italian war credits and administering the remaining capital from the CTV’s funds.Footnote 22 However, following more detailed assessments and owing to the rising costs of materials and labour, the Italian Council of Ministers approved an increased allocation, raising the budget to a total of 3,280,000 pesetas for the realisation of a monumental complex, which from the outset was clearly anything but modest.Footnote 23
Indeed, the initial architectural plan envisaged the construction of an 86-metre tower-ossuaryFootnote 24 and, as mentioned above, an adjoining church. The latter was intended to impart an additional sense of sanctity to the memorial and to reaffirm the legitimacy of the Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War in defence of fascist ideals and Catholic civilisation against the atheism of the ‘reds’ and the anticlerical fervour of the Republicans. Both structures were to be situated adjacent to Pignatelli Park, in the Torrero district, in the highest part of the city. The complex was designed by the Navarrese architect Victor Eusa, while the erection of the monumental structures was entrusted to the Zaragoza company Angel Aisa y Hermano.Footnote 25 The decision to engage a Spanish architect and construction firm – on which Gambara and Serrano Súñer promptly agreed – was motivated by two factors. On the one hand, it was a matter of courtesy towards the host country and Serrano Súñer himself, who had exerted considerable efforts to remove the bureaucratic obstacles to the transfer of the land for the construction of the shrine. On the other hand, the decision reflected clear economic imperatives. Employing a Spanish architect and firm would facilitate the procurement of materials and the timely completion of the work at a particularly sensitive moment for Spanish industry and commerce, which were still recovering from three years of civil war.Footnote 26
In particular, the choice of Eusa as architect proved exceptionally fortunate for the Fascist government, which found in him the perfect interpreter of the regime’s delusions of grandeur. The design of an 86-metre tower – later reduced to 70 metres – was met with great enthusiasm. For Eusa, constructing the ossuary as an imposing tower perfectly expressed ‘a spirituality capable of erasing the material concept of death’. The vertical projection of the structure would evoke the ascension to heaven of the resurrected Jesus Christ and, by extension, of the fallen members of the CTV resting within the tower.Footnote 27 As Father da Varzi asserted, the monumental tower – which would have become the tallest building in the city – would set the fallen ‘on their feet like a sentinel, commemorating their sacrifice and the regime’s gratitude for which they gave their lives’.Footnote 28 Inside the tower, the architect contemplated a helical ramp with a square cross-section. Along the walls, panels framed with grey stone were to be arranged, upon which individual white marble plaques bearing the names and details of the CTV legionaries interred therein would be affixed. At the base of the tower, there was to be a large chapel, the floor of which featured a prominent black cross in marble, visible to visitors looking down from the helical ramp. Adjacent to the chapel, a semicircular presbytery containing a small marble altar was to be constructed (Formiconi Reference Formiconi2021, 42–43). To complete the design, atop the tower there would be bells and a large cross surrounded by smaller crosses, each illuminated by powerful beams of directed light. Meanwhile, beside the tower a church would be erected – which the Capuchin Fathers decided to dedicate to Saint Anthony of Padua – and a grand portico comprising four arches, each spanning eleven metres. Decorative elements depicting crosses and fasci littori were located throughout the structure, which was to be built upon a reinforced concrete base.Footnote 29 Significantly, the same granite used in the construction of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial – which houses the pantheon of the Spanish monarchs – was chosen to clad the surfaces of the tower and the portico. This choice was quite deliberate. As Father da Varzi emphasised, the tower-ossuary in Zaragoza was intended to be a ‘work of faith, as solid as the granite from which it was constructed; granite from El Escorial, laboriously quarried from the slopes of the Guadarrama, to form, in the city founded by Caesar Augustus, a small but indestructible Italian Escorial’.Footnote 30 A more modest material was selected for the church, whose exterior was clad in exposed brickwork designed to impart a simple and austere appearance to the sanctuary (Figure 1).
Project of the monumental complex signed by architect Victor Eusa. Photographic Collection of the Historical Archive of the Capuchin Friars of the Province of Genoa.
In June 1941 Pope Pius XII bestowed his apostolic blessing upon all those involved in the creation of the tower and churchFootnote 31 and, on 4 November, Father da Varzi informed the Presidency of the Council of the commencement of excavation works.Footnote 32 The ceremony marking the laying of the first stone of the ‘pantheon of the Italian fallen in the Spanish crusade’ – as the then ambassador to Madrid, Francesco Lequio, called it – was held seven months later, on 3 May 1942.Footnote 33 Extensively publicised by the local press,Footnote 34 it proved to be a solemn event, which was attended by an impressive array of Italian and Spanish civil and military authorities. Chief among them was the Italian ambassador Lequio, as well as the Chief of the Spanish General Staff, General Fidel Dávila, on behalf of Franco. Also present was the head of the Fasci in Spain alongside the Marqués de Rialp, a minister plenipotentiary who had been sent to represent Serrano Súñer (now at the helm of the Spanish Foreign Ministry). Senior officials of the MMIS were joined at the ceremony by the provincial head of the Falange and the mayor of Zaragoza. As a further proof of the Catholic Church’s endorsement for the creation of the shrine, also in attendance were the local ecclesiastical authorities, the provincial superior of the Capuchin Fathers and, understandably, Father da Varzi, who officiated the celebratory Mass. The military chaplain preached from an altar installed for the occasion within the construction enclosure and adorned with an image of Saint Anthony alongside the Italian and Spanish flags. The blessing of the first stone, however, was reserved for an even more distinguished guest, namely the Papal Nuncio, Gaetano Cicognani. Despite the rather tense relations between Pius XII and Mussolini at the time, Cicognani accepted Father da Varzi’s invitation, while pleading with him to ensure that the event remain ‘strictly religious’ in nature.Footnote 35 It would seem the request fell on deaf ears. The ceremony inevitably bore a deeply political character, given the intrinsically political nature of the tower as it was conceived – a project combining the cult of the Fascist dead and the concept of the great Nationalist crusade that was fought against ‘the enemies of law and faith under the auspices of Mussolini and Franco’.Footnote 36
With this ceremony concluded, to the great satisfaction of the Italian authorities, work on the construction of the tower and the church progressed in earnest. Shortly thereafter, construction also began on a convent in the immediate vicinity of the church.Footnote 37 Upon Father da Varzi’s suggestion, the Capuchin Order proposed to finance, at its own expense, the building of a facility intended to house the friars responsible for the custodianship of the monumental complex and the liturgical functions associated with it. The proposed structure was also to comprise a guesthouse to host the families of the fallen soldiers visiting their deceased relatives from Italy. While the BNL granted approximately 8,000 square metres of land to the Capuchins free of charge for this purpose,Footnote 38 the Italian state allocated one million pesetas – adding to the 3,280,000 already earmarked for the memorial and the church – as a contribution towards the realisation of the convent, thereby securing ownership of the entire monumental site.Footnote 39
With the inclusion of the convent, the design of the monumental complex was definitively finalised. Nonetheless, contrary to the optimistic expectations of the Fascist authorities, construction progressed slowly throughout 1942 and into the spring of 1943. Despite the facilitation provided by the Franco government, delays in the delivery of high-strength special cement – resulting from domestic production issues due to the postwar reconstruction boomFootnote 40 – generated mounting frustration. For the zealous Father da Varzi, the situation became increasingly discouraging. By May 1943, nearly a year and a half after the commencement of works, the ‘indestructible Italian Escorial’ amounted to little more than its foundations.Footnote 41
A difficult task: re-signifying the tower after the regime
On 5 August 1943, a few days after the fall of the Fascist regime, a report on the progress of the monumental shrine in Zaragoza – likely written by Father da Varzi himself – emphasised that the change in government had had no impact on the ongoing work, which was continuing with ‘the usual sense of calm, seriousness, and dignity’.Footnote 42 The situation was less favourable than it was portrayed, however. At the time of the signing of the armistice between Italy and the Allied powers on 3 September, the church at the site – for which no special materials had been required – was essentially completed and the construction of the convent was advancing swiftly. By contrast, the works on the tower – the main building of the complex – were significantly delayed. The construction of the ossuary had reached only 20 metres out of the agreed 70. In addition to the previously mentioned difficulties in obtaining building materials, there had been a considerable increase in their prices.Footnote 43 This latter factor negatively affected the budget, alongside the rather imprudent management of Father da Varzi, who had carried out the works with ‘excessively grandiose concepts’ given the broad decision-making autonomy he enjoyed under the Fascist regime.Footnote 44 As a result, by the summer of 1943, the 3,280,000 pesetas allocated for the tower and the church were nearly exhausted. This compelled Father da Varzi to submit a request for a further 2 million pesetas to finish the project, which had once again reached a standstill.Footnote 45
To all these technical and financial difficulties was added a pressing political concern. It was necessary to dispel any doubts – arising in light of the changed and uncertain internal situation in Italy – regarding the moral support and political will of the new transitional government led by Pietro Badoglio with respect to the completion of the Zaragoza shrine. As Ottavio Carnevale, then head of the MMIS, suggested to the Italian ambassador to Madrid, Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli – who replaced Lequio in February 1943 – the project had ‘a too lofty purpose for the new regime to either disown or disregard it’.Footnote 46 A clear stance in favour of concluding the works was therefore required from the new government. Indeed, abandoning them would have had detrimental consequences for Italy’s prestige, not only in the eyes of the powerful Catholic clergy, but above all with the Francoist government.Footnote 47
In truth, Italian-Spanish relations were already entering a very delicate phase. In the aftermath of the Cassibile armistice, Franco adopted a cautious stance both towards the ‘Kingdom of the South’ led by Badoglio and the new Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Italian Social Republic; RSI) headed by Mussolini. At that time, the Caudillo’s primary objectives were to safeguard Spanish national interests and, above all, to secure his own rule – two goals that he sought to achieve by gradually distancing Spain from the Axis powers but simultaneously avoiding a complete break in relations. At the end of September, under pressure from the new Spanish Foreign Minister, the pro-Allies Francisco Gómez Jordana, Franco proceeded – albeit somewhat reluctantly – to grant official recognition to Badoglio’s Italy, while also permitting the presence in Madrid of an unofficial representative of the RSI, namely the former Italian consul in Málaga, Eugenio Morreale (Del Hierro Lecea Reference Del Hierro Lecea2015, 28–29).
In this ambiguous context, Badoglio’s government was determined to set aside ideological differences and normalise diplomatic relations with the Franco regime. A series of pressing factors drove the new Italian administration in this direction. First was the Kingdom of Italy’s need to reclaim part of its lost sovereignty by securing international legitimacy. Second was the urgent necessity to alleviate the catastrophic state of the Italian economy by resuming trade relations with Spain and reactivating war debt payments. The third factor was the need to protect the interests of Italian companies operating in Spain – such as FIAT and the BNL itself – as well as those of the sizeable Italian community and the extensive network of Italian cultural institutions throughout the country. Lastly, there was the issue of the Italian ships interned in Spanish ports since September 1943, which Badoglio’s government sought to recover so that they could be made available to the Allies for the war effort in the Mediterranean (Del Hierro Lecea Reference Del Hierro Lecea2015, 35–44).
In this context, any further source of tension with the Francoist state had to be averted. Accordingly, Badoglio’s government voiced its approval for the completion of the Zaragoza shrine, believing that it would help to foster amicable relations with Madrid. The prompt resumption of construction work on the tower thus became crucial – not least to prevent fuelling dissent within the Italian communities in Spain, where the intervention of the CTV during the civil war remained widely popular.Footnote 48 Moreover, the project was seen as essential to counter the rhetoric of RSI agents, who were exploiting delays in the construction of the ossuary to discredit Badoglio’s leadership in the eyes of the Caudillo.
In this regard, an early example emerged in December 1943, when the unofficial RSI representation in Spain informed the RSI Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Salò that Franco was allegedly displeased with the ‘Badoglian direction’ of the shrine’s construction and was calling for its ‘urgent replacement’.Footnote 49 On 8 February 1944, Ambassador Paulucci di Calboli – who had put aside his initial hesitations and, at the end of September, officially declared his loyalty to Badoglio – warned the latter of rumours that RSI agents were seeking to complete the tower-ossuary independently, in an effort to gain favour with the Generalísimo at the expense of the legitimate Italian government.Footnote 50 That same month, a further incident took place. Radio Roma – a station controlled by the RSI, whose broadcasts reached Spain – aired a report, originally circulated by the German news agency Transocean, claiming that Badoglio had proposed to the Allies that the CTV soldiers’ remains destined for the Zaragoza shrine be exhumed and reburied in a single mass grave.Footnote 51 The report, which provoked outrage among the Spanish authorities, was firmly denied by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs through Ambassador Paulucci di Calboli. Accordingly, the latter responded by assuring that work on the final arrangement of the Italian war dead in Spain was ongoing and well advanced, and that for Italy, the veneration of the dead stood above any political division.Footnote 52
The ambassador to Madrid also proved instrumental in unlocking the additional two million pesetas requested by Father da Varzi. To this end, Paulucci di Calboli proposed two possible solutions. The first involved recovering the amount in question from the Francoist government as an instalment on the Italian war loan granted during the Spanish Civil War – a proposal that was swiftly abandoned due to the Caudillo’s intransigent stance on the matter. The second option, ultimately approved by Badoglio in the spring of 1944, entailed reallocating all remaining available funds – including those initially designated for the construction of the convent, the cost of which was now to be borne entirely by the Capuchin Order – towards the completion of the tower-ossuary.Footnote 53 This allowed work on the shrine to resume throughout the following year, during Ivanoe Bonomi’s premiership, albeit once again in fits and starts.
On 21 July 1945, the day Ferruccio Parri’s new antifascist government assumed office, the newly appointed ambassador to Madrid, Tommaso Gallarati Scotti, informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the continuing financial and political difficulties surrounding the construction of the shrine. Following yet another suspension of the works – this time due to a dispute with the construction firm – Gallarati Scotti stressed the urgency of completing the project rapidly and without incurring further costs, so as to pre-empt any suspicions on the Spanish side regarding possible exhumations or the dispersal of remains ‘prompted by a partisan spirit’. He urged that the project be guided by a ‘sense of national duty and human compassion for the dead’ and called for the tower-ossuary to be stripped of its political past. The ambassador further proposed that the memorial should honour all Italian fallen in the Spanish Civil War, thus including not only Mussolini’s legionaries but also those who had died fighting with the International Brigades in defence of the Second Republic. In this way, he argued, the tower would bear ‘no further traces of Fascism or legionarism’, retaining only the cross as its ‘sole symbol of reconciliation’. The intention was to decisively depoliticise the shrine, while simultaneously addressing the Catholic Church’s need to distance itself from its earlier ties with the Fascist regime. In the same letter, Gallarati Scotti also reported that he had ordered the ostentatious dimensions of the tower to be scaled down ‘to more discreet proportions’, justifying the decision by pointing to the absurdity of funding a 70-metre structure given the grave economic difficulties Italy was facing at the time. He concluded by expressing his hope that the shrine would be completed within the year and that the Capuchin friars would ascribe to it a purely religious meaning, so that ‘no one could any longer attach any political significance to [that] monumental work’.Footnote 54
Once again, the date for laying the final stone was postponed, although this time only by a short period. On 24 June 1946, three weeks after the constitutional referendum that established the new Italian democratic republic, thereby marking the closure of the long era of Fascism, the tower-ossuary in Zaragoza was completed.Footnote 55 On that same day, the shrine was entrusted to the custody of the Capuchin Fathers through a discreet handover, deliberately avoiding an official inauguration that might have embarrassed the Italian government, then led by Christian Democrat Alcide De Gasperi, who had taken over from Parri in December 1945.
Since its inauguration, the shrine, standing at a final height of 42.65 metres, has remained intact in the heart of Zaragoza, almost hidden behind the Church of Saint Anthony of Padua, of which it seems to serve as the bell tower (Figure 2). Following minor additions in the 1970s and early 2000s, it currently houses a total of 3,799 marble plaques, commemorating and corresponding to the CTV legionaries who fell for the glory of Mussolini, Franco, and Spain (Figure 3). Under Gallarati Scotti’s directives, the remains of some Italian volunteers who joined the International Brigades and died defending the principles of freedom and antifascism were also recovered over time. A total of 385 antifascist fighters now rest in the same ossuary, their names engraved on seven commemorative plaques located at the base of the tower’s first floor, on the rear wall of a lateral niche. During the final phase of the shrine’s construction, the phrase ‘L’Italia a tutti i suoi caduti in Spagna’ (‘Italy to all its fallen in Spain’) was inscribed in large letters on the stone arch at the entrance to the tower and hailed by Gallarati Scotti in July 1946 as evidence of the ossuary’s genuinely apolitical and bipartisan character (Figure 4).Footnote 56 Despite the ambassador’s intentions, however, this was ultimately little more than a cosmetic gesture – a hurried and arguably flawed attempt to whitewash the Fascist legacy to which the tower-ossuary was, and continues to be, inextricably bound.
Entrance to the monumental complex of the tower-ossuary in Zaragoza. Author’s photograph.
Commemorative marble plaques inside the tower. Author’s photograph.
Entrance gate to the tower-ossuary. Author’s photograph.
Conclusion
The tower of the Italians in Zaragoza offers a powerful illustration of how celebrative monuments and shrines function not as static repositories of memory, but as dynamic instruments in the construction, negotiation, and performance of historical narratives. Conceived to exalt the myth of the members of the CTV who had fallen as martyrs of the Fascist crusade, the ossuary fundamentally stood as a testament to the triumph of Mussolini’s political project. It aimed at glorifying not only the sacrifice of the Italian Fascist legionaries in Spain, but also the ideological supremacy of Fascism, its military power and, to a certain extent, its potential for expansion. Through it, the Duce wanted to monumentalise the Fascist narrative of the Spanish Civil War and the contribution of the Italians to the conflict, while excluding any historical reconstruction of those events that diverged from the narrative upheld by the Blackshirts.
After the fall of the regime, Italy’s first post-fascist governments opted to complete the construction of the shrine, rather than dismantle it. The decision was grounded in political pragmatism. During a delicate transitional phase, proceeding with the monument enabled the new Italian administrations to stabilise relations with Francoist Spain – relations deemed crucial for recovering Italy’s wartime credit, advancing commercial and industrial cooperation, and securing a Mediterranean alliance between the two countries. Meanwhile, preserving the tower also served a domestic aim, namely, to restore Italy’s moral and political legitimacy among the expatriate communities in Spain, after two decades of sustained efforts by Mussolini to ‘fascistise’ Italians abroad. In this context, the authorities sought to assign new meaning to the tower – one that aligned with the democratic values of the new Italy. Efforts were made to ensure that the ossuary in Zaragoza would promote a more inclusive memory of the Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War, by incorporating within the monument a representation of fallen Italian volunteers who had fought in the International Brigades, that is to say against Franco and to halt the spread of fascism in Europe. Nonetheless this symbolic gesture, while noteworthy, did little to neutralise the Fascist essence of the shrine, which has remained largely defined by its authoritarian origins.
Ultimately, the tower of the Italians in Zaragoza reveals the complex entanglements between memory, ideology, identity construction, and state politics. Moreover, it stands as an emblematic case for analysing the unresolved tensions between the material legacies of an authoritarian past and subsequent attempts at symbolic reconfiguration. Its history demonstrates that monuments are not remnants of bygone eras, but active agents in the processes through which a society reinterprets its past, revealing the ambiguities and contradictions inherent in political transitions and in the management of historical heritage.
Acknowledgements
Sincere thanks go to Carlos Domper Lasús for introducing me to the Tower of the Italians in Zaragoza and giving me the opportunity to visit it, as well as to Juan Manuel De Lara Vázquez for his dedication and assistance with the archival research for this article.
Funding statement
This research has been funded by the Memorial Democràtic and the Department of Justice and Democratic Quality of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant ID: MEM240/24/000076), to whom I extend my appreciation. Open Access funding has been provided by the Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya (CSUC) through an agreement with Cambridge University Press.
Competing interests
The author declares none.
Giorgia Priorelli is a ‘Ramón y Cajal’ researcher at the Department of History and Art History at the Universitat de Girona (Spain), where she has been working since 2022. In 2020–2021, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a member of the H2020 project SO-CLOSE ‘Enhancing Social Cohesion through Sharing the Cultural Heritage of Forced Migrations’. In 2018, she obtained her PhD in Political History at the LUISS ‘Guido Carli’ in Rome. She has been a visiting fellow at the New School for Social Research in New York, the Università di Bologna, the European University Institute, Durham University, the Universitat de Valencia and the IMT School for Advanced Studies in Lucca. Her research interests include nationalism, Italian and Spanish fascisms, neofascism, as well as refugees and forced displacement in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Among her publications are the monograph Italian Fascism and Spanish Falangism in Comparison. Constructing the Nation (Palgrave, 2020), and the edited volumes Combining Political History and Political Science. Towards a New Understanding of the Political (Routledge, 2022) and Political Outbreaks Against the Liberal Order (1917–1939). Narratives, Practices and Celebrations (Routledge, 2026).
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