VICTORIAN AND ARACOELI, Tour

All you have to do is look at it to realize that it's practically impossible to stylistically define the Vittoriano. As a whole, it might remind you of Neoclassical solemnity, but the richness of its sculptural decoration is more similar to the so-called Eclectic or Liberty styles. And you have to consider the fact that the architect Giuseppe Sacconi didn't merely design the structure, but also committed himself body and soul to defining every detail of its decoration.

When it was inaugurated for the Universal Exposition of 1911, after fifty years of national independence, the ornamental sculptures of marble and bronze were still missing. These were mostly added after the First World War until they were complete in 1925, forty years after the start of the works, and fully in the fascist era. It took another ten years to finish the interior. Sarcastically, the Romans immediately baptized it "the typewriter".

Its general form recalls the Hellenistic altar of Pergamo, in Asia Minor: a series of stairs leading to a Hollywood-like colonnade that culminates in a terrace with two bronze carriages....