Description

This coin is a remembrance of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is a war memorial located in Rome under the statue of the goddess Roma at the Altare della Patria. It is a sacellum dedicated to the Italian soldiers killed and missing during war.

The body of the Italian unknown soldier was chosen on 28 October 1921 in the Basilica of Aquileia by Maria Bergamas, the mother of Antonio Bergamas, an Italian irredentist volunteer in the Royal Italian Army whose body was not recovered during World War I. Maria Bergamas chose the body from among 11 unidentified bodies of members of the Italian Armed Forces whose remains had been retrieved from various areas of the front.

The body was buried on November 4, 1921 at the Altare della Patria in Rome under the statue of the goddess Roma with a solemn ceremony, at which King Victor Emmanuel III was present as well as many veterans and war widows.

His tomb is a symbolic shrine that represents all the fallen and missing in the war.[8] The side of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier that gives outward at the Altare della Patria is always guarded by a guard of honor and two flames that burn perpetually in braziers. The guard is provided with military personnel of the various branches of the Italian Armed Forces, which alternate every ten years.

Artist: Silvia Petrassi