Largo San Rocco takes its name from the ancient Church of San Rocco (15th century), which was incorporated into Palazzo Sabatini during the 19th century.
Looking up, our attention is drawn to the War Memorial, placed here on July 9, 1990, after standing for nearly seventy years in Piazza Guglielmo Marconi. The monument, erected on the site of a former fountain from 1880, was inaugurated on June 6, 1921, in memory of those who fell during the First World War. It is inspired by a verse from Giacomo Leopardi dedicated to the heroes of Thermopylae: "Your tomb is an altar, and here mothers will show their children the noble traces of your blood."
The monument originally featured a statue of a mother guiding her child to the altar, encouraging him to reverently touch the “sacred stone.” Although created by the renowned Roman sculptor Aurelio Mistruzzi, the statue was criticized at the time for being “rather monotonous.”
In 1943, it was removed and donated to the Homeland, along with the iron fence that once enclosed the entire monument.