the OPENING IN ROME UNDER THE AURELIAN WALLS
It was a real pleasure and honour to open the exhibition under the Aurelian Walls in Rome in the touching location of the Rome War Cemetery. A site with a long and important history behind it. While the Cemetery is part of our recent history, the walls dates back almost two thousands years ago. The Aurelian Walls were built in Rome by the emperor Lucius Domitius Aurelianus between 270 and 275 AD. The construction was ordered to protect the capital of the empire because of the incursions coming from northern Europe. Nowadays the walls rise in the center of Rome recalling the empire ancient glories.
ROME WAR CEMETERY
The Commonwealth Military War Cemetery of Rome is located right next to the Walls. It is a small oasis of peace between the maritime pines and the well-kept English lawn.
Here rest in peace the remains of 422 people from almost all over the world who fell during the Italian campaign that began with the landing of Sicily on 10 July 1943.
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION
The photos displayed here are particularly suggestive and touching considering the nature of the location. Even more the battlefields shown are in part the ones where these soldiers fought and died.
It is promoted by the Commonwealth and it was designed to show the battlefields of both the Great War and the Second World War. It contains different unpublished shots of the reportage.
THE ASIAGO PLATEAU AND THE PIAVE RIVER
A part of the exhibition shows areas between the Asiago plateau and the Piave River, in Northern Italy. There, during the Great War, British troops where deployed and fought in incredibly harsh battles. This is an almost forgotten story. Forgotten as it is the presence of the American Red Cross.
Nobel Prize-winning writers
Not only troops but also illustrious citizens passed over there. Like the Nobel Prize-winning writers Rudyard Kipling and Ernest Hemingway. The exhibition represents the places where both the writers passed during the war. Part of the exhibition recalls the Kipling’s words.
“ Men must mountaineer as well as climb is held with the Alpine regiments. Men used to carry loads along eighteen-inch paths round thousand-foot drops” Rudyard Kipling
THE PLACES OF THE LANDING AND MONTECASSINO
The part dedicated to Second World War instead shows the symbolic places of the most important battles of the Italian Campaign from the Landing of Sicily to Montecassino. Battles whose memory must be kept alive.
ON EXHIBITION FROM APRIL UNTIL JUNE
The exhibit will be on display in April. It will be back on display again between May and early June. This second version will be enriched with further shots in occasion of the War Grave Week, organized on a global scale by the Commonwealth War Grave Commission.
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