Martignacco

After the Great War Martignacco set about finishing its church, and the parish accounts say exactly how it managed. The cash box did not go beyond eight thousand lire. In December 1923 an offering of maize was collected, and it gave an excellent result despite the severe drought of the past season. In May 1924 the columns of the central nave arrived at last: each weighed twenty-eight quintals and had cost two thousand lire. In October of the same year, in the presence of king Victor Emmanuel III, the bronze monument to the Italian infantryman was inaugurated, blessed by the archbishop of Udine.

The king, after all, had been living close by. During the war he had settled at Torreano, in the villa of a private citizen, signor Linussa, with queen Elena and their daughters: and for that reason the villa changed its name and became Villa Italia. Through it passed king Nicholas I of Montenegro, who was Victor Emmanuel's father-in-law, the prince of Wales who would become Edward VIII, and Raymond Poincaré, president of the French Republic. In October 1917, to the many refugees crowded into the presbytery of Martignacco was added the archbishop of Udine, who had come on foot from the city under torrential rain; the next day the Austrians arrived, hoisted their flag and made the presbytery the seat of their provisional command. In January 1918 the bells were requisitioned: they were thrown down from the bell tower and carried off on a lorry, and with them went a good number of the organ pipes, destined to become gun barrels. The old parish church, built in 1504 and with a front painted with architecture that is not there, spent years as a hay barn: it was reconsecrated in 2022.