Il Vittoriale degli Italiani
Set on the shores of Lake Garda, in Gardone Riviera, the Vittoriale degli Italiani is one of the world’s most visited house museums, where history, art, nature and culture come together. Built between 1921 and 1938 at the behest of Gabriele d’Annunzio, the complex celebrates the poet-soldier’s “inimitable life”.
More than a house museum, the Vittoriale is a world of d’Annunzio’s own making, comprising buildings, paths, squares, gardens, waterways and an open-air theatre. It offers an immersive journey into the poet’s history and imagination, from the Prioria, his home, to the Regia Nave Puglia, from the Mausoleum to the Parlaggio, the amphitheatre overlooking the lake.
The Vittoriale is also a true open-air museum dedicated to contemporary Italian art. As visitors stroll along its paths, through its squares and beside its lake views, they encounter works by artists including Mimmo Paladino, Ugo Riva, Ettore Greco, Velasco Vitali and Mario Botta, in a continuous dialogue between memory, landscape and contemporary art.
The Vittoriale Park, awarded “Italy’s Most Beautiful Park” in 2012, is an integral part of the visitor experience: a spectacular garden of water features, rose gardens, panoramic paths and views across Lake Garda. From the Laghetto delle Danze, a violin-shaped lake, to the Giardino delle Vittorie, and the Roseto, with its varieties of roses associated with countries around the world that held significance for d’Annunzio, the park is a place to be savoured, where the landscape becomes part of the story.
The visit is completed by the museums and exhibition spaces that preserve and showcase d’Annunzio’s heritage: from the Museo d’Annunzio Segreto, revealing objects and memories long kept out of public view, to the Museo d’Annunzio Eroe, dedicated to the poet’s military experience; from the Museo l’Automobile è Femmina, with its cars and memorabilia reflecting his passion for motoring, to the Museo della Santa Fabbrica Gian Carlo Maroni, dedicated to the architect who designed the Vittoriale. These are joined by temporary exhibitions and new exhibition spaces, making the complex a place that is always alive and continually evolving.
The Vittoriale continues to be a place of assiduous creation and assiduous perfection, as d’Annunzio intended, and for this very reason it never ceases to look to the future, thanks also to the projects pursued by the Foundation’s president, Giordano Bruno Guerri.
An experience to discover where culture and landscape, history and contemporary art meet, in the heart of Lake Garda.
