After the war, many identified the Vittoriano only and exclusively with the fascist regime and its imperialist rhetoric. Distorted and critically flattened, the Monument suffered harsh criticism, closure to the public and a sentence during a trial for “aesthetic offence”
As the stage of the fascist regime, after the war the Monument had to deal with a deep critical escalation. Ironically, the cutting remarks shouted at the time by Giovanni Papini and other futurists, in turn accused of fascism, gained credit. It therefore became fashionable to refer to the Vittoriano through avant-garde or futurist insults, from "cream cake" to "typewriter".
View of the Vittoriano in the mid-20th century
The Vittoriano in the mid-twentieth century, courtesy of the Central Institute for Cataloguing and Documentation
At 17.30 on 12th December 1969, in conjunction with the massacre at Piazza Fontana in Milan, two bombs exploded inside the Vittoriano. The attack caused serious damage to the structures, although no victims. Security reasons then advised closing the Monument, but in fact they cut it out of the visiting circuits and accentuated its isolation from the public.
The front page of La Stampa dedicated to the attacks of 1969
The critical decline of the building continued in the years following the assassination attempt in 1969. The lowest point was reached in 1986, when nearby Palazzo Venezia housed a sort of 'trial' of the Vittoriano, whose ultimate goal was its demolition. “Extraneousness and oppression of the surrounding city” was the accusation of some intellectuals and critics.
Architect Bruno Zevi was among those indicting a strange ‘trial’ against the Vittoriano, held at Palazzo Venezia in 1986, the goal of which was its demolition