Giuseppe Sacconi

Giuseppe Sacconi designed the Vittoriano, the enormous white monument to Victor Emmanuel II that dominates the centre of Rome. Born in Montalto delle Marche in 1854 into a family of the local gentry, he studied architecture in Rome and worked on the restoration of medieval churches in the Marche, where his real expertise lay. In 1884 he won the second international competition for a national monument to the first king of a united Italy, beating nearly a hundred entries. He was thirty and had built almost nothing. The site chosen was the northern slope of the Capitoline, at the end of the Corso, and the clearance was brutal: a medieval quarter, the Tower of Paul III, part of the Ara Coeli convent and other structures were demolished, and the hill itself was cut back. Archaeologists and preservationists protested at the time. The design is a vast portico of Corinthian columns above a stepped terrace, with an equestrian statue of the king and, later, the Altar of the Fatherland. Sacconi chose botticino marble from Brescia rather than Roman travertine, so the monument is brilliant white and does not weather to the ochre of the rest of the city — one reason Romans nicknamed it the wedding cake and the typewriter. He drew on classical models such as the altar of Pergamon while intending an explicitly secular temple of the nation, set against the papal city. Construction ran from 1885, and he supervised it until his death from illness in 1905. It was inaugurated in 1911 for the fiftieth anniversary of unification, and the Unknown Soldier was placed there in 1921.

• Lived: 1854 CE – 1905 CE
• Nationality: Italian
• Roles: architect