Sacrario dei Caduti Partigiani

The Sacrario dei Caduti Partigiani occupies the north-west wall of Palazzo d'Accursio, facing Piazza del Nettuno in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna. It consists of an extensive display of thousands of small photographs of men and women of the Bologna area who died fighting in the Resistance between 1943 and 1945, together with plaques and inscriptions. It began in the days after the liberation of Bologna on 21 April 1945, when families and comrades pinned portraits and notes to the wall, creating a spontaneous memorial; it was later formalised by the municipality, and in the following decades was expanded with marble plaques and a more organised arrangement of the photographs. The wall is located at the political centre of the city, beside the town hall and next to Piazza Maggiore, so it records the connection between civic institutions and the Resistance. Bologna was an important centre of partisan activity in the Apennines and the surrounding plain, and the city was a target of German reprisals, which left a legacy of memory linked with other sites such as Monte Sabbiuno and the Certosa ossuary. The memorial is open-air and always accessible, and no ticket is needed. Because it is exposed to weather and pollution, the photographs have been conserved and in some cases replaced with reproductions, while the surrounding stone has been cleaned. Visitors often leave flowers, particularly on 25 April, Italy's Liberation Day, when ceremonies are held in the square and a procession passes. The documentation behind the wall, including names and biographies, is kept by the Storia e Memoria di Bologna project, which publishes records of each person. A visit takes only a few minutes, but the images give a human sense of the scale of loss in the area, and the wall is often passed by visitors heading to Piazza Maggiore without recognising it.