The soldier’s rest

Strada degli Artiglieri (The Gunners’ Path)

A monument in Rovereto to be explored by walking: at every step, a name and a memory

A 2 km long itinerary dotted with tombstones dedicated to fallen gunners, to be “read” like the pages of a book on the sacrifice of many generations of soldiers, from the Risorgimento to the World Wars.

More than a hundred tombstones, 228 stories. The Strada degli Artiglieri [Gunmen Road] in Rovereto connects the city to Mount Zugna, where the Italian-Austrian front used to run during World War I. A 2 km long itinerary, awe-inspiring in its eloquent simplicity, to remember the sacrifice of many soldiers awarded the Gold Medal for Military Valour, fallen in one of the conflicts that brought so much bloodshed to the last two centuries, from the Risorgimento wars to the Second World war.

The startpoint of the itinerary is the Santa Barbara chapel, dedicated to the patron saint of artillerymen. At the end of the walk, in the vicinity of a wood, there are the signs to a nearby cave, where the Trentino irredentist Damiano Chiesa was captured in 1916, to be then executed.