Sacrario incompiuto, Pinzano al Tagliamento

The Pinzano Ossuary is a mausoleum designed by landscape architect Robert Tischler, which remained unfinished and was supposed to hold the remains of about thirty thousand German and Austrian soldiers who fell in World War I. The German government chose as the construction site a hill called Pion, located not far from the Pinzano Bridge, from where a spectacular view of the Tagliamento River could be enjoyed. The design of the building was completed in 1937, and in 1938 a full-size mock-up of the mausoleum, made of wood and reeds, was built to assess what the completed work would look like. The following year construction work on the structure, made of stone, began. About sixty workers were used for the work, many of them from Pinzana, employed by a company from Thiene that specialized in mausoleum construction. The exterior facing blocks came from the Somplago quarry in the municipality of Cavazzo Carnico, while those for the interior, of more valuable material, came from quarries near Verona. These stones were transported by train to the Pinzano station, then by rollers to the top of the hill. The largest monolithic blocks are columns weighing about 18 tons, and measuring about 6.4 x 1.4 x 0.8 m.

Work, which continued even during the World War, was interrupted following the armistice of September 8, 1943, and the site became first garrisoned by German, then Cossack troops. In September 1944 a local group of partisans occupied the now-empty emplacements as German troops withdrew from the site. Unlike the Pordoi Ossuary, the one at Pinzano was never finished, although the main structure appears nearly completed. This was partly because of the strategically important location of the hill on which it stands, which during the Cold War came under military rule and was fortified. When the tense period ended, the military left but the building was by then covered by trees and brambles. To this day it is in a state of neglect, although recently a cleanup of vegetation has been carried out and the site has been secured by the municipality, pending consideration of its possible recovery.