Tempio Ossario, Catholic war memorial church in Bassano del Grappa, Italy
The Tempio Ossario is a Catholic memorial church in Bassano del Grappa, built in a Venetian Gothic style with Romanesque traces. It stands on a base of seven steps of white stone from Pove del Grappa and is topped by an octagonal dome flanked by two 60-metre bell towers. The facade, 28 metres high, is divided by two pilasters into three sections and has a central rose window about 10 metres in diameter, made of San Gottardo stone, with two smaller rose windows above the side doors. The interior has a Latin cross plan, 75 metres long and 37 metres wide (43 metres at the transept), covering about 1,400 square metres.
Construction began in 1908 as a planned cathedral but was interrupted by World War I, leading to a complete redesign as a military memorial. The building was finished in 1934 and repurposed entirely as a place to honor those who fell in the war.
The soldiers buried here fell on Monte Grappa in 1917–1918, and most belonged to the 'ragazzi del 99', conscripts called up at eighteen after Caporetto. All are named because they died in field hospitals, and over two hundred received silver or bronze medals for military valour. Four gold-medal officers and Prince Umberto of Savoia-Aosta, Count of Salemi, are also buried here.
The temple stands on a base of seven steps in white stone from Pove del Grappa, reached from Bassano del Grappa's centre; the two bell towers rise sixty metres. About 8,000 visitors come each year, many on pilgrimages organised by veterans' associations or soldiers' families. The building depends jointly on the parish, the municipality and the Ministry of Defence.
Among the more than 5,000 soldiers buried here are four officers awarded the gold medal for military valour and Prince Umberto of Savoy-Aosta, Count of Salemi, grandson of Vittorio Emanuele II and brother of the Duke of Aosta. Eighty-seven servicemen who died in Germany and Russia, and civilians killed in the bombing of Bassano, also rest in the memorial.
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