Schilizzi Mausoleum

In 1880, the wealthy Livorno banker Matteo Schilizzi moved to Naples and called upon one of the most illustrious architects, Alfonso Guerra, to build a family tomb in neo-Egyptian style to represent his power. He chose Posillipo, which was not yet very urbanised and therefore very green, so that the tomb would be clearly visible from the entire city. However, in 1889, the project was interrupted and Schilizzi died shortly afterwards.
When Alfonso Guerra died in 1920, his son Camillo, also an architect, had the intuition to transform the building into a military monument to house the remains of those who had fallen in the recent Great War. Thanks to the interest of personalities such as Armando Diaz and Benedetto Croce, but above all thanks to a popular collection, the municipality of Naples managed to purchase and complete the mausoleum, with the addition of the lower crypts, where the fallen of World War II and the heroes of the Four Days of Naples were buried.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar
• Photos: Ferdinand Bovenschen