The Vajont Dam and the Battle of Vittorio Veneto: Lessons for Today

Vajont Dam ~ Musem of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto ~ Beyond the Visit ~ Photos

   

Left: View from parking area toward Vajont dam with Schiara Group in background.

Center left: The shell like form of the dam from where the control room used to be.

Center right: Entrance to the Museum of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.

Right: Casa Fighera (Porta San Giovanni) - Serravalle Vittorio Veneto - with bullet marks from WWI.

Vajont Dam

It’s probably not on the top 10 list of the average visitor to Italy or even the top 100 for that matter, but sooner or later if you stay in Italy for any length of time, you’ll hear about the Vajont Dam and the infamous disaster associated with it, and then you’ll want to visit it. It’s an intriguing story—one that still has much to teach us.

On the night of October 9, 1963, over 2,000* people were killed, most by a large wave that crested the Vajont Dam and crashed down into the Piave Valley below, obliterating entire villages. The wave was created when a huge landslide plunged into the lake behind the dam. In many ways, the landslide was predicted and avoidable. But when money interests took over, data and warnings were ignored and suppressed. Today, the Vajont Dam stands as a disused monument to tragedy and hubris. The reservoir was never refilled, and the dam no longer serves any hydroelectric function.

* Plaques at the dam mention 1910 lives lost but many web sites indicate more.

Construction of the Vajont Dam (1957–1960) was a prestige project for SADE and later ENEL, leveraging cutting-edge design to supply power to Italy’s booming industrial north. By 1963, billions of lire, years of labor, political capital, and public expectation had been poured into the dam.

Geologists repeatedly flagged the mountain above the lake behind the dam, called Monte Toc, as unstable with a risk of a catastrophic landslide. Yet ENEL and government authorities suppressed reports and downplayed scientific appraisals. Their late, insufficient remedy was to lower the reservoir level and that came only days before disaster struck. 

The landslide was estimated at 260 million cubic meters. That’s over 100 football stadiums filled to the brim.

Visitors to the dam can just look from a distance, walk on the crest of dam, or take an in-depth tour. We walked on the crest of the dam in a short guided tour and then walked down on our own to where the lake used to be to lay our hands on the dam. The spot we touched on the dam’s wall was still over 100 meters above its true base. We were standing on the landslide fill.

After visiting the Vajont Dam, we wondered:

• What did we learn?
• How did we feel?
• What will we do?

We'll return to these questions later in the post, but on the subject of learning we were intrigued to find out that the criminal proceedings and archival records related to the Vajont disaster have been officially recognized by UNESCO. In 2023, the Archivio Processuale del Disastro della Diga del Vajont (Criminal Proceedings Archive of the Vajont Dam Disaster) was added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

Museum of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto

On the same day we visited Vajont we also visited the Museo della Battaglia di Vittorio Veneto. This museum, located in the town of Vittorio Veneto, deals with the decisive battle of World War I that took place around the town.

Why was it the decisive battle in WWI? The battle fought from October 24 to November 4, 1918, marked the final offensive on the Italian Front and led to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The battle effectively ended fighting on the Italian Front and contributed to the end of WWI just days later, with the armistice taking effect on November 4, 1918. The defeat shattered the Austro-Hungarian military and coincided with the political breakup of the empire, as various ethnic groups declared independence.

The defeat of the Austro-Hungarian military was called by the leader of the Italian forces, General Armando Diaz, “Caporetto in reverse”. The Battle of Caporetto, fought from October 24 to December 19, 1917, was a catastrophic defeat for Italy during World War I, where Austro-Hungarian and German forces broke through the Italian lines on the Isonzo front. Over 600,000 Italian soldiers either surrendered or deserted, forcing a chaotic retreat to the Piave River.

We are embarrassed to admit that we didn’t know that much about Caporetto or that Italy also changed sides in WWI. Our history teachers would be disappointed.

The town of Vittoria Veneto got its name in 1866 when two separate communities—Ceneda and Serravalle—were merged following the annexation of the Veneto region to the Kingdom of Italy. The new name honored King Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of unified Italy.

The museum of the battle is located in Ceneda. 

The next morning after visiting the museum, we walked around Serravalle. We passed under Casa Fighera (Porta San Giovanni) and read about the bullet marks on the building that were still clearly visible. While the Battle of Vittorio Veneto was not fought in town (Serravalle), Austrian troops fleeing town continued to fight against the Italian soldiers who chased them together with civilians who had taken up arms. These fights, which resulted in 5 deaths, 14 wounded and the capturing of a thousand prisoners, have left clear machine gun marks on the south-facing façade of Casa Fighera.

After leaving the museum, the same questions popped up about what we learn, what we feel, and what we do after this museum experience, just like they had at the Vajont dam earlier.

One of the people that popped up in the museum is Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876 – 1944). We have always liked painters like Giacomo Balla (1871 – 1958) and Umberto Boccioni (1882 – 1916), who were influenced by Marinetti’s Manifesto del Futurismo (1908). By name alone the “manifesto of futurism” sounds attractive and interesting. But upon closer inspection not so much. Two themes and calls to action in the manifesto are the glorification of war as a “purification” and the “sole hygiene of the world,” and urging the demolition of museums and libraries to make way for progress. We would not even be visiting this museum today if Marinetti had his way? Marinetti appeared on an informational panel discussing people who wanted Italy to enter WWI (Interventionalists) and those who didn’t (Neutralists). You can guess what side Marinetti was on.

Beyond the Visit

What did we learn?

We learned that the Vajont dam is an engineering marvel. The Vajont Dam at 262 m (860 ft) was the tallest dam in the world when it was completed in 1960 and still one of the tallest double-curvature arch dams ever built. Its slender, 3.4 m crest width contrasted dramatically with a 27 m base, showcasing an audacious use of space and materials. Rather than relying on sheer mass, the dam’s double-curvature arch transfers water thrust laterally into the canyon walls. This geometry reduces concrete requirements compared to gravity dams and exemplifies advanced structural theory applied in the 1950s.

The dam withstood the wave caused by the landslide and still stands today.

No, the problem wasn’t with the dam but with the behavior of the humans involved. Specifically, with these biases:

• Sunk-cost fallacy. Decision-makers felt compelled to realize returns on sunk investments: halting the reservoir would have meant admitting costly mistakes and delaying power generation.
• Confirmation bias. Cherry-picking data that supported safety.
• Groupthink and political pressure. Engineers and officials rallied around the project’s success to avoid embarrassment.
• Normalcy bias. The unprecedented wouldn’t actually occur.

In the WWI battle museum, we learned about people and places involved, and why this was a turning point in WWI. The museum takes you back to 1917 and 1918 with audio, visuals and artefacts that give you an idea of the hardships and loss of life due to the battle and the larger war. It’s such an effective way of communicating facts and stories. 

The museum calls the objects on display (in Italian) cimeli. A cimelio is a relic (historical object) or an antique or memento (emotional value). In the museum, the cimeli, what we called artefacts, are both historical and emotional.

Some of the same biases mentioned above as well as others were also at play in this decisive battle and the larger war. For example:

• Overconfidence Bias. Despite dwindling morale and resources, Austro-Hungarian commanders underestimated the effectiveness of the reorganized Italian forces and their Allied support. This led to poor defensive preparations and a failure to anticipate the scale of the offensive.
• Groupthink. The high command, dominated by aristocratic and conservative elites, often suppressed dissenting views. Strategic decisions were made in echo chambers, ignoring warnings from field officers about troop fatigue and nationalist unrest within the ranks.
• Status Quo Bias. Even as the empire was fracturing politically, military leaders clung to outdated strategies and rigid hierarchies. They failed to adapt to the rapidly changing battlefield and political landscape, including the rise of independence movements among Czechs, Slovaks, and South Slavs.
• Confirmation Bias. Some commanders interpreted temporary Italian setbacks as proof that their own forces were still capable of holding the line, ignoring broader signs of collapse—like mass desertions and logistical breakdowns.

In short, we learned a lot about biases on this visit to the Vajont Dam and the Museum of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.


What did we feel?

In a word, sad. Sad for the loss of lives. Sad for waste of resources in both the war and dam. Sad for the fact that – in our understanding of the Vajont disaster – that there has never been a formal apology that explicitly admits the decision-making errors or psychological biases behind the collapse. Sad for the fact that wars continue today.

Re: war. Yes, things are better on average as Gapminder is quick to point out, but it sure doesn’t feel like that sometimes.

Also, we felt fear. Fear that we are repeating similar errors and biases in major projects and policies today. Case in point, the US (again) pulling out of UNESCO to cite just one small example relevant to our discussion here. How are we supposed to learn if we can't preserve accounts and records of what has happened and that isn’t supported by one of major world powers?

What will we do?

This is the hardest and most embarrassing question to answer. Well, we created this post, and we are thinking about where we might be operating on biases in our everyday lives.

But the nagging question is what we’ll do going forward? Beyond voting for candidates and supporting initiatives we think are good, are we putting any skin in the game? Will we join with others in causes to prevent another manmade disaster and war?

During our visit to Vajont, we heard a story of how an operator was on the crest of the Vajont dam the evening of the disaster. He was using a searchlight to check the status of the mountain at the moment a wave washed him away. While it’s true that operators often used spotlights and visual inspection to check the movement of the mountain, the operator story seems to be an apocryphal story. However, the image stood out in our minds: someone shining a light in the face of an oncoming 250-meter wall of water. Sometimes, we feel that helpless, that overwhelmed by what is coming at us. What do we do?

Photos

   

Left: A memorial to a family killed in the disaster
Center left: Before and after the disaster.

Center right: Looking down from the crest of the dam into the gorge,

Right: Schematic of the dam.

  

Left: Looking up at the crest of the Vajont dam.
Center: Touching the dam where water used to be, but still above the ultimate bottom of the dam by 100 meters or more.

Right: Technical data about the Vajont dam.

  

Left: The dam from below.

Center and right: Walking on the Vajont Dam, Italy.

 

Left: Chiesa di Sant'Antonio da Padova al Colomber - inside. (Vajont Dam)
Right: Chiesa di Sant'Antonio da Padova al Colomber - outside. (Vajont Dam)

 

At the Museum of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto - examples of cimeli (war items).

 

Examples of rooms in the Museum of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.

 

Left: Propaganda poster against the Austro-Hungarian.
Right: The Italian Interventionists and the Neutralists in World War I.

Walking Around Palmanova, the Fortress City in Friuli-Venezia Giulia

The Rule of the Lion | Fortifications | Our Visit

When I first saw an aerial view of Palmanova a couple of years ago, I was intrigued by its beautiful star-like pattern. Recently, we decided to spend some time in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a region in the northeast of Italy that includes Palmanova. Being based in Udine for a few days with a rental car, it was a given that we would visit Palmanova to investigate.


Palmanova walking map, brochure with map and routes.

The Rule of the Lion

Between the 15^th and 17^th centuries, the Republic of Venice's mainland domains included parts of Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Croatia, and Montenegro. Today, key fortifications of the former domains are recognized by UNESCO in the Venetian Works of Defense. Palmanova, Bergamo, and Peschiera del Garda are three present-day Italian cities that once were part of the of Venice's mainland domains, domini di terraferma. The city-fortress of Palmanova was created to defend the eastern borders of the Republic, while Bergamo was fortified by Venice in the same period to defend the western border. Others cities and locations in the list of Venetian defenses include Zadar and Korčula in Croatia, and Kotor and Dulcigno in Montenegro. Palmanova became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2006 and Bergamo in 2017.

The first stone for Palmanova was placed on October 7, 1593 to commemorate the 22^nd anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, in which the Christians defeated the Ottoman Empire. The Venetian Empire was one of the main powers on the Christian side. As suggested by Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller, “Palmanova was justified as an anti-Ottoman defensive measure” even if the real problem in the late 16th century was coming from Austria.

Being under Venice’s rule, you would think the city should have some reliefs of the Winged Lion of St. Mark, Venice’s symbol, especially above the city gates, but none were to be found. That's because when Napoleon walked into the city during the War of the First Coalition in 1797, he declared war against Venice and he had all the lions removed.


Views of Palmanova. Left: Moat on north side of city. Center left: View north from second line of defense, west of the city.  Center right: View southwest from the city wall near Porta Aquileia. Right: View of bastion just south of Porta Udine.

Fortifications

While Bergamo and Peschiera del Garda were existing cities that were fortified, Palmanova was purpose built as a city-fortress. But it’s not without a nod to elegance or utopianism. When I read up on Palmanova, I was surprised to find its planning was woven with a thread of utopianism as discussed in The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance: Skeptics, Libertines, and Opera. Palmanova even resembles the visionary and never built city of Sforzinda.

History and utopianism aside, to a tourist there is something appealing and comforting about the protected and geometrical orderliness of Palmanova. Roads inside the walls either follow the outer wall shape or are radial roads that lead to the hexagonal Piazza Grande. Three of the radial roads are the only ways in and out of Palmanova:

• Porta Udine – direction northwest
• Porta Cividale - direction northeast
• Porta Aquileia – direction south

The city gate names tell you where they lead to. Left: Porta Aquileia. Center Left: Porta Udine. Center Right: Porta Cividale. Right: View of Porta Udine from the Roggia di Palma.

For your visit, it might be helpful to keep a few military fortification terms in mind. This is my “unschooled” 101 cheat sheet on fortification terminology:

• bastion (baluardo o bastione) – A projection from a curtain wall and used to protect the curtain wall and adjacent bastions. Usually arrow shaped. Also called a bulwark.
• cavalier (cavaliere) – A raised part within a fort or bastion so the artillery place there can fire over lower structures.
• curtain wall (cortina) – A wall between two towers or bastions.
• faussebraye (falsabraga) - A lower defensive wall outside of a fortification.
• lunette (lunette) – Similar to a ravelin, a fortification with a half-moon shape. The lunettes at Palmanova are a type of terreplein as well.
• moat (fossato) – A ditch filled with water providing a line of defense around a fortification.
• rampart (muro di cortina) – A bank or wall made of earth and masonry used to provide an obstacle to attacking forces and absorb and disperse energy of cannon fire,
• ravelin (rivellino) – A fortification that is detached from the main fortification and located in from of a curtain wall and bastion. The ravelin’s goal is to divide approaching forces and attack them before reaching the more vulnerable curtain wall, bastion, or entrance.
• terreplein (terrapieno) – The top part of a rampart. Some of the terreplein of Palmanova today are park spaces.

Keep in mind as you walk around Palmanova that with increasing fire-power, there came changes and additions to the fortification. For example, towers connected with walls are fine when dealing with an enemy equipped with bows and arrows, but not so good if the enemy has cannons. Therefore, the tower and wall configuration gave way to star-shaped forts like Palmanova. Star-shaped forts have an intricate arrangement of ramparts, bastions, ravelins, lunettes, and other structures for blunting the artillery of the enemy as well as protecting the artillery of the fortification from being destroyed.

In the case of Palmanova, there are actually three defensive lines (or walls) surrounding the city. The first defensive line started in 1593, took about 30 years. The second two we can assume were added to keep pace with military advances or attackers. A second defensive line (ravelins) was added between 1658 and 1690, and a third line (lunettes) added during the French occupation. Even if the French removed all the lions, they did see the need to beef up defenses and keep enemies as far as possible from the city. Less lions, more lunettes.

I remember reading somewhere (sorry I forgot where) that several plans were submitted for Palmanova, each slight variation in details and number of sides. In the end, the distance a cannon could fire to protect another bastion was a determining factor. So, nine sides it was and not less. In English, what do you call a nine-sided polygon? A nonagon. In Italian, the equivalent word is ennagono, with accent on the “a”. (See Italian Words with Tonic Stress on Third-From-Last Syllable.)

Our Visit

We visited Palmanova on a Monday, market day, so the city was buzzing with activity. Mid-morning, we grabbed a table at Caffetteria Torinese on the edge of Piazza Grande and watched people going about their shopping while trying to stay cool. Italy was also in the midst of an intense heat wave. We weren’t exactly excited about leaving the shade of the café and getting all sweaty walking the perimeter of the city. But that’s what we were there for. (If you had to do it again, a crisp fall day would be the optimal time to visit Palmanova.)

Three paths to explore the perimeter of Palmanova are:

• Lower loop of the moat - anello basso del fossato, signed green, 4 km
• High loop of the ravelins - anello alto dei rivellini, signed yellow, 4.3 km
• Mixed panoramic loop - anello misto panoramico, signed red, 6.3 km

In the end, we walked two-thirds of the perimeter. We went out the Porta Udine (6 o’clock on a watch face), and walked around, clockwise, to enter back in the city at Porta Cividale (2 o’clock on a watch face). Along the way, we doubled-back on the east side of the city to discover some ravelins and tunnels, effectively doing a mix of red and yellow paths.

Palmanova sits in the flat part of Friuli-Venezia Giulia not far from the upper part of the Adriatic Sea called the Marano Lagoon. In fact, after visiting Palmonova in the morning, we drove to Grado, an island in the lagoon, for lunch. Our first pick for lunch south of Palmanova, Mulino delle Tolle, was closed.




Examples of signs around Palmanova explaining walk and biking routes and historic itineraries including "La Strada Coperta" - "The Covered Road" and "Sulla strada di ronda" - "On the Patrol Route".


Signs and indications around Palmanova. Left: Itinerario storico - "Sulla strada di ronda - riservetta francese per le polveri". Center left: Sign pointing to a lunette built by Napoleon. Center right: A sign showing the red route. Right: Signs shows the red and green routes.


Features of the fortifications of Palmanova. Left: A bastion near Porta Aquileia. Center: Investigating a ravelin west of the city - second defensive line. Right: La Caponiera Francese - north of the city.


Left: Outside, walking around the moat, on the second defense line. Right: Inside a tunnel in a ravelin of Palmanova.

A Hike from Italy to Austria and Back: Passo Volaia and Monte Rauchkofel

Overview | Hike Details | Flora

Left: Route from Rifugio Tolazzio to Passo Volaia and on to Rauchkofel.  Right: View west after coming down from Rauchkofel.


Left three images: Views of and from Monte Rauchkofel including view of Lago Volaia. Right image: Stencil on the wal of Rifugio Lambertenghi-Romanin.

Overview

Length: 11 km (6.8 miles)
Duration: 6 hours walking + 1 hour for lunch
Elevation: Starting and minimum elevation Rifugio Tolazzi @ 1.370 m (4,494 feet), maximum elevation Monte Rauchkofel @ 2460 m (8,070 feet)
Location: Italy, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Udine, Plan di Val di Bos and Austria, Lesachtal

Hike Details

I was drawn to this hike because it seemed like it would be fun to cross the border from Italy to Austria while hiking, have lunch, and return. What’s more, we were in Udine for a few days where the weather was hot, hot, hot, so a day in the mountains seemed like a good idea. Why sweat it out in the Friulian plain when the mountains were beckoning?

This hike took us by three rifugi (or mountain huts), Tolazzi (starting point in Italy), Rifugio Lambertenghi-Romanin (still in Italy, just before the lake), and Wolayerseehütte (Austria, on the other side of the lake). The lake at the pass is called Lago Volaia in Italian and Wolayasee in German.
The hike is in the Carnic Alps (le Alpi Carniche). The word Carnic likely comes from the Roman name for this area, which in turn likely came from the name of the tribe that once inhabited this area and The tribe also lends its name to the Carnian age/stage in the Triassic period.

We arrived at the start of the hike (Rifugio Tolazzi) in car from Udine. From the parking lot of Tolazzi to the pass, it’s a bit of a slog on sentiero n° 144, but things pick up once you reach Rifugio Lambertenghi because in only a few more meters you reach the pass and the beautiful Lago Volaia. We went around the west side of the lake to reach Wolayerseehütte, where we ate lunch. After lunch, we continued east around the north end of the lake on our way to Monte Rauchkofel, following for a while the Geotrail Wolayersee before splitting off and heading to the peak (OAV 438). After the Rauchkofel peak, we came back down and joined up with the Geotrail again for a bit heading to Valentintörl, a pass at 2138 m. On this trail, OAV 437, there are some cables and handholds that are useful for some steep sections. From the Valentintörl pass, it was back to the east side of the lake and back to Rifugio Lambertenghi to start the final descent.

Despite the satellite images included in this post showing snow on the trail, we did not run into any snow at this time of the year.

If you have time or you don’t want to climb Rauchkopfel, you could spend some time exploring the signs of World War I around the lake as explained in the Itinerari della Grande Guerra site. World War I is associated with trench warfare, and on Passo Volaia you can explore a recovered WWI trench on the south end of the lake. In fact, CAI trail 144 bring you right into the middle of the trench from where you can go east or west inside the trench. The prominent war monuments on either end of the lake are the Monument to the Carinthian Volunteers, north of the lake, and an iron cross and stone altar, south of the lake.  Carinthia refers to the southernmost Austrian state. The rifugio Lambertenghi-Romanin is dedicated to two soldiers who died at the pass during WWI.

Left: Signage at Valentintörl Pass. Center: Sign near the Wolayerseehütte showing start of Geotrail. Right: List of stops on the Wolayersee Geotrail.


Left: High meadow view near Rauchkofel with the white of Eriophorum or cottongrass. Center: High meadow view near Rauchkofel with the genera Rumex, Aconitum, and Adenostyles. Right: View from Valentintörl toward the backside of Coglians - Hohe Warte group.


Left and center: Trail and wildflowers with view looking west. Right: Another view of the hike, annotated.


Left: Bratwurst, sauerkraut, grated horseradish, and potato lunch at Wolayerseehütte. Right: Dessert, a type of strudel, at Wolayerseehütte.

Flora

A list of species that is useful for the Alpi Carniche can be found at Sistema informativo sulla flora delle Alpi Carniche meridionali (Ampezzo-Sauris) and the Checklist Flora per Regione.

Key:  [Family] Genus species – Common name in English (Common name in Italian)

[Asteraceae] Cirsium erisithales – Yellow Thistle (Cardo zampa d'orso)
[Asteraceae] Hieracium aurantiacum – Orange Hawkweed (Sparviere aureo)
[Campanulaceae] Phyteuma hemisphaericum – Globe Headed Rampion (Raponzolo alpino)
[Cyperaceae] Eriophorum sp. – Cottongrass (Pennachi)
[Gentianaceae] Genzianella campestre – Field Gentian
[Gentianaceae] Genzianella germanica – Chiltern Gentian (Genzianella delle Alpi Retiche)
[Orobanchaceae] Euphrasia officinalis – Eyebright (Eufrasia officinale)
[Papaveraceae] Papaver aurantiacum – Rhaetian Poppy (Papavero delle Alpi Retiche)
[Ranunculaceae] Aconitum lycoctonum – Wolfsbane (Aconito lupaia)
[Saxifragaceae] Saxifraga aizoides – Yellow Saxifrage (Sassifraga gialla)


Left: Cirsium erisithales – Yellow Thistle (Cardo zampa d'orso). Center: Hieracium aurantiacum – Orange Hawkweed (Sparviere aureo). Thistle with hoverfly, likely genus Eristalis.


Left: Needles of a conifer. Center: Eriophorum sp. - Cottongrass head. Right: Euphrasia officinalis – Eyebright (Eufrasia officinale).


Left: Genzianella germanica – Chiltern Gentian (Genzianella delle Alpi Retiche). Center: LikelyGenzianella campestre – Field Gentian with four petals. However, I've seen G. germanica with flowers having four and five petals on the same plant. Right: Phyteuma hemisphaericum – Globe Headed Rampion (Raponzolo alpino).


Left and center: Papaver aurantiacum – Rhaetian Poppy (Papavero delle Alpi Retiche). Right: Aconitum lycoctonum – Wolfsbane (Aconito lupaia).


Left: Salt encrustations on Saxifrage leaves. Right: Saxifraga aizoides – Yellow Saxifrage (Sassifraga gialla).