A marble roll of the parish’s First World War dead, shaped as a Roman sacrificial altar — and moved, before it was even built, from the basilica it was meant to honour.
At a glance
Two columns of names run either side of a raised central altar — the ara olocausta, the sacrificial altar of Roman tradition, chosen to stand for the sacrifice of the parish’s own fallen. Above, a stone garland strung between the years 1915 and 1918. Below, in Roman numerals, the same dates repeat: MCMXV–MCMXVIII. The plaque was designed in 1924 by Romeo Dall’Era (Venice, 1874–1963), sculptor and professor at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts.
Key facts
- Commissioned by: the Comitato Caduti Grande Guerra dei Frari, the parish committee for the war dead
- Designer: Romeo Dall’Era (Venice, 1874 – Venice, 1963), sculptor and art professor
- Proposed: May 1924, for the facade of the Basilica dei Frari itself
- Built as: a Roman-style sacrificial altar (ara), flanked by two panels of names under a garlanded pediment
- Location: the exterior wall of the State Archives (Archivio di Stato), beside Campo San Polo
- GPS: 45.43735, 12.32697 · Open in Google Maps
History
In May 1924 the parish committee for the Frari’s war dead asked the city for permission to raise a monument to the men who had not come home, and their first choice was the most obvious one: the facade of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, one of the great Gothic churches of Venice. Rome-born sculptor and Academy professor Romeo Dall’Era drew up the design. The city’s Commission for Urban Ornamentation said no — not to the memorial, but to the site. A modern marble plaque, however dignified, did not belong on a thirteenth-century church facade whose stone the commission was not prepared to disturb.
The compromise moved the memorial a few steps sideways, onto the exterior wall of the State Archives that faces Campo San Polo — still within sight of the basilica, still the parish’s own ground, but off the protected medieval fabric. The design changed with the move: what had been conceived for a church front became a free-standing composition, built up as a Roman sacrificial altar between two panels of names, with the years of the war cut into its base twice over, once in a stone garland above and once in Roman numerals below.
Sources
- Pietre della Memoria, Lapide ai Caduti della parrocchia Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (Venezia) nella Grande Guerra — pietredellamemoria.it: the 1924 committee request, Romeo Dall’Era’s original design for the basilica facade, and the Commission’s decision to relocate it to the State Archives wall
- On-site inscription, verified from the contributed photograph: the dedication text, the 1915–1918 dates, and the parish attribution (“Frari · S. Polo”)
- Coordinates cross-checked against OpenStreetMap Nominatim for Campo San Polo
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See this place and what’s around it →Record researched and written by Carla Szathvary for Cultural Heritage Online, 2026.
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