Voices of War in Peacetime. An exhibition in Treviso

Trenches of Mount Ermada

From the very beginning of WWI in 1915 till the battle and the rout of Caporetto in late October 1917, the Italian and Austro-Hungarian Army faced each other harshly in the front line in the eastern edge of Italy, in the region today called Friuli Venezia Giulia. Julian and Carnic Alps and Pre-Alps, the Isonzo and the Tagliamento areas, the Kast were the setting of numerous fights, which left signs visible still today. This is the case of the Mount Ermada open-air museum, one of the many in the area which feature the remains of war buildings and trenches of the First World War. Located in the municipality of Duino Aurisia, the Mount Ermada, together with the near river Timavo, was a sensitive strategic position for the Austro-Hungarian Army: With its three peaks and only 323meters above the sea level, the mount Ermada dominated the Carso range and assured so the control of the near city of Trieste. That's why the Austrian Army transformed it into an insurmountable bulwark against the Italian assaults. Thanks to the effort of several organizations on the territory, this Austro-Hungarian fortess was newly restored: the caves used as shelters and warehouses or the trenches represent one of the most suggestive remembrances of the WWI in the Karst, this calcareous plateau alongside the eastern border of Italy which combines in a unique way mountains, dolinas, caves and vertical cliffs over the Adriatic Sea. 

Today we would not like to suggest you a special itinerary in this places (at which more attention has to be devoted sooner or later even here); we’d like rather to recommend you at present a travelling exhibition entitled Voci di Guerra in Tempo di Pace (Voices of War in Peacetime), which recreates and tells the story of WWI in the Karst and on Mount Ermada in order to preserve and promote to a modern audience the WWI heritage in the Duino Aurisina municipality. Organized by the Italian based Gruppo Ermada Flavio Vidonis the exhibition travelled from the Castle of Duino and arrived recently in Milan, where it displayed a series of photographs and artifacts collected during long-lasting searches all over central Europe. The next stop, in a renewed and enriched version, will be Treviso, in the Sant’Artemio headquarters of the Province. 

The exhibition will be opened Friday, March 15^th, with a reading from letters of soldiers of the Great War and musical accompaniment. Three sections will be set up. The first one collects many photographs of the Karst and especially of the neighboring villages to Mount Ermada during WWI and other objects in order to depict the destruction that this region and its inhabitants suffered. The second section describes in details the restoring work of the trenches and of other military artifacts on the Ermada defensive line and offers so an anticipation of the itinerary which can be undertook at place. The third section is then dedicated to the near cemeteries and monuments, such as that of Aurisina. The exhibition is opened till March, 29^th.

Further information on times and locations here.