The Victor Emmanuel Museum. Altare della Patria - Rome Italy - ECTV

The Victor Emmanuel Monument, Altare della Patria or Wedding Cake Rome.

The Victor Emmanuel II National Monument (Italian: Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II), also known as Vittoriano or Altare della Patria ("Altar of the Fatherland"), is a large national monument built between 1885 and 1935 to honour Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a unified Italy, in Rome, Italy.[2] It occupies a site between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill. The monument was realized by Giuseppe Sacconi.

From an architectural perspective, it was conceived as a modern forum, an agora on three levels connected by stairways and dominated by a portico characterized by a colonnade. The complex process of national unity and liberation from foreign domination carried out by King Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, to whom the monument is dedicated, has a great symbolic and representative value, being architecturally and artistically centred on the Italian unification—for this reason the Vittoriano is considered one of the national symbols of Italy.

It also preserves the Altar of the Fatherland (Italian: Altare della Patria), first an altar of the goddess Rome, then also a shrine of the Italian Unknown Soldier, thus adopting the function of a lay temple consecrated to Italy. Because of its great representative value, the entire Vittoriano is often called the Altare della Patria, although the latter constitutes only a part of the monument.

Standing in the centre of ancient Rome, and connected to the modern one by the streets that radiate from Piazza Venezia, it has been consecrated to a wide symbolic value representing a lay temple metaphorically dedicated to a free and united Italy—celebrating by virtue the burial of the Unknown Soldier (the sacrifice for the homeland and for the connected ideals).

It is currently managed by the Polo Museale del Lazio and is owned by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities.

The Vittoriano is on the Capitoline Hill, in the symbolic centre of ancient Rome, and is connected to the modern one thanks to roads that radiate from Piazza Venezia.[3]

Its design is a neoclassical interpretation of the Roman Forum. It features stairways, Corinthian columns, fountains, an equestrian sculpture of Victor Emmanuel II, and two statues of the goddess Victoria riding on quadrigas. On its summit there would have been a majestic portico characterized by a long colonnade and two imposing propylaea, one dedicated to the "unity of the homeland", and the other to the "freedom of the citizens", concepts metaphorically linked to the figure of Victor Emmanuel II.[3]

The base houses the museum of Italian unification,[4][5] and in 2007 a lift was added to the structure, allowing visitors to access the roof for 360-degree views of Rome.[6] This terrace, which is the highest of the monument, can also be reached via 196 steps that start from the portico.[7]

The structure is 135 m (443 ft) wide, 130 m (427 ft) deep, and 70 m (230 ft) high.[3][8] If the quadrigae and Winged Victorys are included, the height reaches 81 m (266 ft).[4] It has a total area of 17,550 m2 (188,907 sq ft) and possesses, due to the conspicuous development of the interior spaces, a floor area of 717,000 m2 (7,717,724 sq ft).[3][8]

One of the architecturally predominant elements of the Vittoriano are the external staircases, which constitute in the complex 243 steps, and the portico on the top of the monument, which is inserted between two lateral propylaea.[3] The entrance stairway is 41 m (135 ft) wide and 34 m (112 ft) long, the terrace of the Altar of the Fatherland is 66 m (217 ft) wide.[8] The maximum depth of the Vittoriano underground reaches 17 m (56 ft) below street level. The colonnade is formed by columns 15 m (49 ft) high and the length of the porch is 72 m (236 ft).[3]

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