The grave of the Venetian aviator who died in France in 1928, on his way home from the search for Umberto Nobile’s airship Italia: a stone pillar with his bust in flying helmet, a group of eagles on top and a Latin epitaph.
At a glance
Pier Luigi Penzo is buried on the cemetery island of San Michele, in the field reserved for the military. He died on 29 September 1928 near Valence, on the Rhône, when his aircraft struck a power line during an emergency landing: he was flying back to Italy after taking part in the search for the survivors of the airship Italia and for Roald Amundsen. Venice named its football stadium after him in 1931 and raised a second monument to him, in 1932, in the Giardini di Castello. The tomb is the more personal of the two: his portrait, his dates, and a Latin motto about living and dying.
Key facts
- Who: Pier Luigi Penzo, aviator, veteran of the First World War
- Died: near Valence, France, 29 September 1928
- Born: Venice, 1896 — the two monuments carve two different days, see below
- Where: San Michele cemetery, military field (Campo militari), as listed by the City of Venice
- The epitaph: Ut mortuus viveret vixit ut moriturus — “he lived as one who must die, so that in death he might live”
- GPS: 45.44741, 12.34765 · Open in Google Maps
What you see
A square stone pillar rises from a low base. Halfway up it carries a bust of Penzo in flying helmet; at the top, a capital carved with oak leaves supports a group of eagles with outspread wings. On the front of the base is the inscription, in capitals: PETRUS ALOJSIUS PENZO, the motto, and the two dates in Roman numerals, the second followed by the year of the Fascist era, E.F. VI. Below them is a bronze medallion. Behind the tomb, in Stefano Vigolo’s photograph, runs the brick wall of the cemetery with its family tablets, and above it the rotunda of one of the island’s chapels.
Two monuments, two birthdays
The date of death is the same everywhere: 29 September 1928, which the tomb writes as XXIX·IX·MCMXXVIII. The date of birth is not. The tomb reads VI·IV·MDCCCXCVI, that is 6 April 1896. The monument in the Giardini di Castello, unveiled in 1932, says he was born in Venice on 5 May 1896, and that is also the date given by the Italian Wikipedia and by Wikidata. We have not found a record, such as the birth register, that settles which of the two is right, so we report both as they are carved.
Related
- The monument to Pier Luigi Penzo in the Giardini di Castello — unveiled in 1932 beside the memorial to Francesco Querini
Sources
- The inscription on the tomb, read from Stefano Vigolo’s photograph of 10 November 2019
- Comune di Venezia, Defunti illustri sepolti nel cimitero di San Michele: Pier Luigi Penzo, aviator (1896-1928), Campo militari
- Wikipedia (Italian), Pier Luigi Penzo: born 5 May 1896, died at Valence on 29 September 1928, during the rescue operations for the Italia and for Amundsen’s Latham 47
- Venice: I am not making this up, The Garden of the Forgotten Venetians: Pier Luigi Penzo: the two different birth dates on the two monuments
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