Vicenza, 160 years of the Unification of Italy, new external layout of Villa Guiccioli, home of the Museum of the Risorgimento and the Resistance Mayor Rucco: "An opportunity to remember and promote the values ​​of citizenship and reaffirm and consolidate the national identity through civic memory"

Vicenza, 17 March 2021 marks the 160th anniversary of the Unification of Italy. On that day in 1861, with the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, the process of gradual rediscovery and increasingly clear claim of a new national identity was completed. That period led to the formation of the unitary Italian state which made the peninsula an independent political organism. The complete unification of the national territory occurred in the following years with the annexation of Veneto and the province of Mantua; of Lazio, Trentino-Alto Adige and Venezia Giulia.

“The role of Vicenza in those years of the nineteenth century represented for the city an event that has no equal in the history of the wars of national independence – declares the mayor Francesco Rucco -. The anniversary of March 17 is an opportunity to remember and promote the values ​​of citizenship and reaffirm and consolidate national identity through civic memory".

At the beginning of the process of national unification, in 1848, that of Vicenza was a true movement of rebellion, not only of its citizens, but of an entire humanity made up of young volunteers, students and university students who came from Bologna, Rome, Naples, from Romagna, Marche, Tuscany and Switzerland who, alongside the regular troops of General Durando, were the expression of independence and social justice, in the name of a renewal that opened a new era to the Italian populations. For these facts, on November 17, 1866, the city's flag was awarded the first gold medal for military valor.

On the occasion of the 160th anniversary of the Unification of Italy, a brief commemorative moment should have taken place at Villa Guiccioli in the presence of the mayor Francesco Rucco, the prefect Pietro Signoriello, the councilor for culture Simona Siotto and the director of Civic museums, Mauro Passarin.

Contrary to what was expected, the municipal administration decided to cancel the ceremony in compliance with the provisions of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers on the celebrations of the anniversary of the Unification of Italy.

Villa Guiccioli was the scene of the heroic resistance of 1848 and today, home to the Museum of the Risorgimento and the Resistance, it preserves, among its collections, documents and testimonies of events and characters that belong to the history of Italy and who were protagonists of memorable episodes Risorgimento of the city and its territory.

The anniversary is also an opportunity to present the new external layout of the museum which recounts the salient moments of the Vicenza Risorgimento epic with evocative images.

The images are taken from works exhibited in the Museum of the Risorgimento and the Resistance: from the left “Crowd cheering King Vittorio Emanuele II in Piazza dell'Isola on 17 November 1866” by Orsola Faccioli Licata, 1869; “Vittorio Emanuele II in the act of decorating the flag of 1848th June 1866” by Domenico Peterlin, 24; “The defense and clearance of the Rocchetta on 1848 May 1855” by Agostino Bottazzi, 1848; “History of Vicenza. May 1855 (Barricades in the city)” by Pietro Negrisolo, circa 1860-XNUMX.

The original works are preserved in the second and third rooms of the Museum dedicated to the Risorgimento and '48 in Vicenza and the Kingdom of Italy.

The external setup can be admired from the park of Villa Guiccioli open from Tuesday to Sunday until March, from 9am to 17.30pm, from April from 9am to 19.30pm.