Spunti di classicismo nei monumenti siciliani ai caduti della Prima Guerra Mondiale

After the end of World War I, all the Italian municipalities began to raise commemorative monuments to the soldiers dead in the immense conflict. An aspect deserving of special attention, in these memorials, is the very considerable use of forms and elements derived from the Greek and Roman antiquity. Single iconographies and typological patterns, properly refashioned, could well fit these new celebratory contexts too and strengthen their meaning. Sicily seems to be a good case study to show the potential of such an analysis: in the towns of this region, as in the entire national territory, there is a great many monuments where we can recognize figurative motifs drawn from the classical world. Of special interest are some cases, in which not only generic motifs shared by many other Italian memorials were refashioned, but also elements directly derived from the material vestiges of the antiquities of the island.