The many mysteries of the monument to the poet who is NOT portrayed in the statue dedicated to him.

The monument to the poet Gabriele Rossetti in the center of the homonymous square is undoubtedly the center of Vasto. However, until a hundred years ago, this was a peripheral place, namely the esplanade outside the walls built in place of the Roman amphitheater, where the livestock fair took place periodically. Also, try asking any Vasto resident the name of the character depicted in the statue. Everyone will be able to answer you. However, if you ask what he wrote, very few will remember the title of one of his works.

This strange situation has very specific historical and cultural reasons. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the square was called the esplanade of the Castle and was located in front of the Castle Gate, the entrance to the city next to the Caldoresco Castle, later incorporated into the Palmieri Palace still visible on the north facade. With the expansion of the inhabited center outside the walls and, above all, with the creation of the Adriatic highway that connected Trieste to Otranto passing right through the center of Vasto, the esplanade there became the place of connection between the old and the new city.

During the early years of the fascist regime, it was believed that the new center of Vasto should assume the monumental and martial appearance that befitted it. On the occasion of the completion of the Sinello aqueduct, a large fountain was created, and the square was arranged with flower beds and connected to the system of large avenues that led from Villa Principe di Piemonte, now Villa Comunale, to Palazzo d’Avalos.

To name the square, the monument to Gabriele Rossetti was placed at its center, who, although he had died in exile and poor in London in 1854, in the following years had become one of the symbols of the Italian Risorgimento for his adherence to the Carboneria, his studies on Dante, his fight against the Bourbons (he had taken refuge in London because he was sentenced to death following the revolts of 1821), and also for his anticlerical spirit.

It was thus decided to create the statue that had been talked about for years but for which the necessary funds had never been found. The Neapolitan sculptor Cifariello was commissioned to do this, and he created a portrait of a late 19th-century Gabriele Rossetti, intent on reading the Divine Comedy, surmounted by an eagle ready to take flight and completed by medallions of his four children, most of whom had become famous in England as poets or painters. The bronze works were placed on a stone stele, and the entire complex was inaugurated by His Royal Highness, Prince Umberto of Savoy, on September 12, 1926.

Three years later, the fascist regime signed the Lateran Pacts, and the Catholic religion returned to being the state religion. Rossetti, due to his anticlericalism, was eliminated from all Italian anthologies and almost forgotten.

Thus, in Vasto, Rossetti remained in the names of many places, as well as in the statue that should represent his likeness but, compared to portraits made by various painter friends while he was alive, shows no resemblance. This is because, according to gossip, the portrait had been made for a monument to another poet that had been ordered and then canceled. The sculptor Cifariello thought it best to recycle it, giving our Rossetti the appearance that everyone attributes to him today!