About
A small Italian chapel is adorned with the skulls and bones of thousands of soldiers.
The Ossario di San Martino is a small chapel that holds the remains of more than 1,200 skulls and 2,000 bones. These belonged to soldiers who fought during the pivotal 19th-century European battle of San Martino in 1859 during the Second Italian War of Independence. The battle was seen as an act of resistance by the unified forces of Piedmont and Sardinia, joined by the French army, against their Austrian oppressors. This ferocious civil war resulted in heavy losses on both sides, including many northern Italians.
