Pier Luigi Penzo died over the Rhône in 1928, trying to reach France after a mission to search for the survivors of Umberto Nobile’s crashed airship Italia; the stadium of Venice’s football club and this monument in the Giardini di Castello both carry his name.
At a glance
Pier Luigi Penzo was born in Venice on 5 May 1896 and died near Valence, on the Rhône in France, on 29 September 1928, when his aircraft struck a high-tension wire during an emergency landing. He was returning from operations connected to the search for Umberto Nobile’s airship Italia, which had crashed on the Arctic ice in May 1928 while also involved in efforts related to Roald Amundsen’s rescue flight. In June 1932 the city raised a monument to him in the Giardini di Castello (the Giardini della Biennale), placed beside an existing memorial to another Venetian, the explorer Francesco Querini.
Key facts
- Born: Venice, 5 May 1896, as carved on this monument — his tomb at San Michele gives 6 April 1896
- Died: near Valence, France, 29 September 1928 — his plane hit a power line attempting an emergency landing on the Rhône
- Context of his death: search and rescue operations connected to Umberto Nobile’s airship Italia, downed on the Arctic ice in May 1928
- Monument unveiled: June 1932, Giardini di Castello, Venice
- Sculptor: Francesco Scarpabolla (1902–1999)
- Legacy: Venice’s municipal football stadium, built in 1913, was dedicated to Penzo in 1931
Beside Francesco Querini’s marble
The monument’s own inscription places Penzo deliberately alongside another Venetian lost to exploration: “Accanto al marmo di Francesco Querini, qui vuole onorata e compianta l’ala del veneziano Pier Luigi Penzo, sorvolata sull’Artide, caduta nel Rodano” — “Beside the marble of Francesco Querini, here the wing of the Venetian Pier Luigi Penzo, flown over the Arctic, fallen in the Rhône, wished to be honoured and mourned.” Querini had died decades earlier on the Italian polar expedition of the Duke of the Abruzzi; pairing the two men’s memorials framed Penzo’s death during the Italia rescue effort as a continuation of the same Venetian tradition of polar and aviation exploration.
Getting there
The monument stands in the Giardini di Castello (Giardini della Biennale), reachable from the Giardini vaporetto stop.
Sources
- On-site inscription, photographed at the monument, giving Penzo’s dates, the circumstances of his death, and the sculptor’s signature “F. Scarpabolla.”
- voicemap.me, “Monuments to Pier Luigi Penzo and to Francesco Querini” — on the pairing of the two memorials.
- iamnotmakingthisup.net, “The Garden of the Forgotten Venetians: Pier Luigi Penzo” — on the 1932 unveiling and sculptor.
- Stefano Vigolo, who photographed the monument.
Photo gallery
Photograph contributed by a Cultural Heritage Online member.
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See this place and what’s around it →Record researched and written by Stefano Vigolo for Cultural Heritage Online, 2026.
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