CAPPELLA ESPIATORIA

The Chapel stands on the spot where on July 29, 1900, anarchist Gaetano Bresci killed King Umberto I of Savoy at the end of a sporting event. Heir and successor Victor Emmanuel III commissioned architect Giuseppe Sacconi, creator of the Altare della Patria in Rome, to design a memorial building rich in symbolic elements, which was inaugurated in 1910.

Above the column are in fact a bronze Pieta, large alabaster crosses and the symbols of the kingdom, including the scepter and crown.

A mosaic-decorated chapel is carved into the base of the column, while below is a crypt in which a black marble memorial stone marks the point of the attack.

The project was probably approved by the Regina Margherita. Indeed, the decorative apparatus does not lack the daisy motif, her hallmark.

The same motif is repeated in the large gate by Alessandro Mazzucotelli, an internationally renowned "ornamental blacksmith," that borders the area.