Mussolini's white elephant

Il Vittoriale—universally known as "The Wedding Cake" or "The Giant Typewriter"—is Rome's hideously ugly monument you gotta love anyway

Variously derided as "The Wedding Cake" or "The Giant Typewriter," the Monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II—Rome's blindingly white elephant of a commemorative pile of marble devoted to modern Italy's first king—became a whole lot friendlier in 2000 when they decided to reopen it to the public, free of charge.

Now you can scramble up the snowy white steps of "Il Vittoriale," past the guards on the eternal flame to Italy's unknown soldiers and numerous self-important relief carvings of events during Italy's 1860s/1870s Risorgimento unification movement, to the monstrous colonnade at the top.

Here, the views sweep across central Rome to the front, and across the Forum and Imperial Fori behind.

Piazza Venezia
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This material was last updated January 2007 . All information was accurate at the time.

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