Vittoriale degli Italiani, inaugurated Mausoleum and restored Auditorium

The Mausoleum, located at the highest point of the monumental park and designed by Gian Carlo Maroni, the poet’s trusted architect, represents the symbolic heart of the area. After a careful restoration of the stone surfaces, damaged by exposure to atmospheric agents, the building was enhanced by a new scenographic lighting system. Linear light bars enhance the white stone, while punctual lights guide access to the tomb. The system, completely LED and with low thermal impact, allows the modulation of light scenarios and intelligent control of consumption, integrating harmoniously with the existing historical structures.

The Auditorium, designed by architect Angelo Bucarelli, has been entirely renovated in terms of finishes and systems. The new coverings and colors in shades of blue and red dialogue with the three-dimensional installations by master Ugo Riva, which enliven the upper arches with ceramic birds and golden aluminum casting. Among the new features is also the restoration of the suspended SVA aircraft, a tribute to the flight over Vienna. According to the president of the Il Vittoriale degli Italiani Foundation, Giordano Bruno Guerri, “the intervention is not limited to maintenance and restoration, but represents a strategic enhancement of the entire complex”. The Auditorium thus becomes a modern and multifunctional space for shows, conferences and concerts, “strengthening the role of the Vittoriale as a living and accessible cultural organism, capable of combining protection, innovation and high cultural planning”.

On the occasion of the inaugural party, together with the publisher and winner of the Vittoriale Nicola Crocetti, in the renovated Auditorium of the Vittoriale, the volume “Gabriele d’Annunzio. Sweet my words” was presented which collects the most beautiful poems of the Pope chosen and introduced by President Guerri. The book offers a selection of the most intense verses, with particular attention to the extraordinary creative season of the early twentieth century, when masterpieces such as The Rain in the Pine Grove were born.

And again in the Auditorium, Guerri presented the acquisition by the Vittoriale archives of the original documents of the ‘Marine Pact’, which Gabriele d’Annunzio defined as ‘Pactum sine nomina’, because it lacked signatures that could obscure its ‘popular melody’. The document, written entirely by the Pope in 1923, is a masterpiece of rhetoric and social justice that reveals d’Annunzio as a tireless legislator and mediator. The documentation acquired includes 105 autograph sheets of d’Annunzio and 36 envelopes, for a total of 46 letters, including three autograph minutes of telegrams to Benito Mussolini, two to Costanzo Ciano and a letter to Domenico Giulietti. Giulietti’s materials relating to the genesis of the Pact are also preserved: a handwritten diary, a notebook and the autograph copy of the ‘Maritime Pact’ kept in a splendid decorated paper folder from the Bottega d’Arte, accompanied by a letter addressed to Giulietti himself.

Finally, the 2026 exhibition season also opened at the Vittoriale with a rich series of exhibitions. “Ugo Mulas. Seppia bones. For Eugenio Montale” debuts at the Nascosto Gulf, with 25 black and white photographs that dialogue with the poetry of the great Ligurian author, restoring the essence and light of the landscape. In the Auditorium, Lorenzo Capellini’s “Inside the Eye” comes to life, a selection of 99 black and white and color shots that tell of years of poetic research and visual sensitivity. At Mas and Villa Mirabella, “Bending lead, building light” by Umberto Mariani is inaugurated, a path dedicated to the famous lead sheet surfaces, while at Casa Cama “Pagine” by Emanuele Gregolin opens, works on newspaper pages transformed into a pictorial surface, enriched by a critical sound text accessible via QR code. (by Paolo Martini)