Tempio della Pace, Memorial tomb in Padua, Italy.
Tempio della Pace is a neo-Romanesque church and war shrine in Padua, built of red brick with white marble accents. Its square main hall is topped by an octagonal lantern and flanked by four slender corner bell towers. A continuous ambulatory around the hall holds marble ossuaries, and the eastern entrance leads to an atrium with two chapels.
Padua's residents vowed to Saint Anthony during World War I to build a votive temple if the city was spared from battle. The first stone was laid on 9 May 1920 to a design by Antonio Zanivan, but work stalled until state funding arrived on condition that the church also serve as an ossuary for war dead. The remains of 5,401 soldiers were transferred there on 20 June 1934. A bomb damaged the left flank on 30 December 1943, and the restored church reopened on 19 March 1949.
The full name is Tempio Antoniano della Pace e dei Caduti in Guerra, linking Saint Anthony with the war dead. The church is also known as Chiesa del Santissimo Nome di Gesù. In the right-hand chapel of the entrance atrium are buried 900 civilian victims of the air raids on Padua and 100 unidentified people, moved there on 8 May 1960 through Maria Zattarin Trevisan.
The site is open year-round and easy to reach since it sits near the train station. The main building and both small chapels are accessible to visitors, though quiet reflection is expected.
The planned 100-metre bell tower topped by an angel statue was never built; the design was simplified when funds ran short. The marble walls of the ambulatory hold the remains of 5,401 soldiers, while the right-hand chapel of the atrium shelters 900 civilian victims of the air raids on Padua and 100 unidentified dead.
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