Monumento alla Bella Italia, Marble memorial in Piazza della Loggia, Brescia, Italy

The Monumento alla Bella Italia stands in the north-eastern branch of Piazza della Loggia. It has an octagonal base of Botticino marble in two parts separated by a decorated cornice, with carved panels on four sides showing episodes of the 1849 uprising. A low plinth with two inscriptions supports the female figure, who wears a long tunic tied at the right side and holds a folded banner under her left arm and vine shoots in her right hand.

Giovanni Battista Lombardi created this monument in 1864 to replace a Venetian column that had marked a site with a tragic past. The work was commissioned to commemorate the events of 1849 and the resistance that followed.

The carved panels on the base show scenes from the Ten Days of Brescia, particularly the barricades and local resistance against occupation. These depictions keep alive the memory of a pivotal moment in the city's past.

The monument stands openly in the square and can be viewed from all sides, allowing you to explore different angles of its details. Its central location makes it easy to reach, and the surrounding space gives you room to linger and study the carved panels closely.

The empty space left after the Venetian column was destroyed in 1821 was filled by the monument in 1864. Its inauguration on 21 August 1864 came with an agricultural and industrial exhibition, an art exhibition, a cattle show, an agrarian congress and a national shooting competition.