The Ossario di San Martino is a small chapel that houses over 1,200 skulls and over 2,000 bones that belonged to fallen soldiers who fought in a key 19th-century European conflict.
In 1859, during the Second Italian War of Independence, there was a great battle here, more commonly called the Battle of Solferino. It was fought out between Austrian and the Piedmontese army. Solferino was the largest battle since that at Leipzig in 1813. As a result of their defeat, the Austrians lost their grip on the region.
Originally built as a chapel, the Ossario di San Martino was later converted into an ossuary, which was opened in 1870. Thousands of bones and skulls from soldiers from both sides, exhumed from the mass graves in which they were buried, rest in a display behind the altar. The exterior walls contain plaques commemorating the fighters from different cities and regions who took part in the war.
Rosenborg Palace was built in the period 1606-34 as Christian IV’s summerhouse just outside the ramparts of Copenhagen. Christian IV was very fond of the palace and often stayed at the castle when he resided in Copenhagen, and it was here that he died in 1648. After his death, the palace passed to his son King Frederik III, who together with his queen, Sophie Amalie, carried out several types of modernisation.
The last king who used the place as a residence was Frederik IV, and around 1720, Rosenborg was abandoned in favor of Frederiksborg Palace.Through the 1700s, considerable art treasures were collected at Rosenborg Castle, among other things items from the estates of deceased royalty and from Christiansborg after the fire there in 1794.
Soon the idea of a museum arose, and that was realised in 1833, which is The Royal Danish Collection’s official year of establishment.