Great World War Museum

The Museum of the Great War in Marmolada had a creator, Dr. Mario Bartoli, and a financer, Dr. Bruno Vascellari. Both men were pioneers in the world of Museums dedicated to the memory of the Fallen in the Great War and the Marmolada Museum was inaugurated on June 9th, 1990. Shortly afterward, many others began opening in different towns.

In 2015, twenty five years later, the Association Museo della Grande Guerra in Marmolada Onlus and the Marmolada Srl company, which had promoted the opening of the museum, decided to remodel the building to commemorate the centennial of the Great War.

The Museum Members’ Directive and the Scientific Committee also chose to change the exhibit: it isn’t just a display of artifacts, objects, weapons, uniforms and documents.

They also meant to give the museum a sensory significance: make visitors feel the atmosphere of the war as it was fought in places right above where the museum is located, at an altitude of about three thousand metres in the snow, making this museum the highest in Europe.

It gives visitors an idea of what it was like to live, fighting man against man and against the further forces of nature, which among these high peaks is often hostile, savage and sinister.

To achieve this effect curators relied on a compelling technique, setting up an interactive, multi-media and multi-sensory course that guides the visitor to experience what the weather conditions at high altitudes were like. They get the impression of ending up in the middle of the war, in the same situation as the soldiers from the past.