Ossuary of Custoza: how to visit it, timetables and prices

The Ossuary of Custoza is a monument that looks like a tower and it is almost 40 meters high. It was inaugurated in 1879 by Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of Aosta, to preserve the remains of the fallen during the first and third Italian war of independence, in 1848 and 1866. The history of this monument is strongly linked to that of Don Pivatelli, parish priest of Custoza, who promoted its construction. Don Pivatelli was born in a town close to Villafranca di Verona in 1832, and in 1872 he became parish priest of Custoza, which was the background for many bloody battles for independence. Driven by the pity towards the soldiers who died for the freedom of their homeland without receiving any kind of recognition and that were left buried in mass graves, he decided to find a place to collect their remains.

He began to contact many people, including King Vittorio Emanuele II and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria asking them for help in creating a mausoleum worthy of housing the remains of those brave soldiers who lost their lives in battle.

Following the successful fundraising launched by Don Pivatelli for the construction of the mausoleum, an executive committee was created on June 25, 1876 that announced the competition for the selection of the best architectural works. 82 projects were submitted and two were chosen to be put to the judgment of the committee that in the end chose the project of the architect Giacomo Franco .

The first Italian War of Independence was fought between the 22nd and 27th of July,1848 between the soldiers of the Kingdom of Sardinia, led by King Carlo Alberto of Savoy and those of the Austrian Empire, led by Marshal Radetzky. The battle of Custoza was one of the decisive events in the War of Independence, as it determined the retreat to Milan of the Piedmontese army. Between the 24th and 25th of June 1866 the third Italian War of Independence was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Austrian Empire. Italy was defeated several times, including at Custoza, but Prussia won on the northern front and thanks the intervention of France, Austria had to surrender the Veneto region which was unified to the Kingdom of Italy

The ossuary of Custoza is an architectural work with an octagonal plan, surmounted by an obelisk almost 38 meters high. This monument is divided into three parts:
– The Chapel
– The Crypt
– The gallery

The Chapel contains an altar on which there is the portrait of Don Pivatelli, parish priest of Custoza and promoter of the Ossuary. Inside there are also four tombstones, two Italian and two Austrian, on which the names of the officers and non-commissioned officers who fell in battle are engraved.
The crypt is the place where the remains of both Italian and Austrian soldiers who fought in the battles of Custoza are collected. Various skulls, mostly anonymous, are arranged on stone shelves, while inside the glass urns you can see the remains of some Italian officers: Luigi Giordanelli, Stefano Messaggi and Carlo Alberi.
The gallery, placed at a height of about 13 meters and reachable through about sixty steps, is a place from which you can admire the whole territory in its width. Going along the gallery, you can access a room where all the artifacts found during the exhumation of the bodies were collected.
This monument is one of the most important symbols to commemorate the history of the town.