Monumento al Marinaio d'Italia

The Monumento al Marinaio d'Italia is the rudder, about 53 metres high, that you can see from all over the harbour. It is reinforced concrete faced with carparo stone, and the people of Brindisi call it "la jatta 'ssittata", the sitting cat.

It commemorates the roughly 6,000 sailors who died in the First World War. Brindisi was chosen over La Spezia and Trieste because of its role in the Great War. The winning design, out of 92 entries, was by the architect Luigi Brunati and the sculptor Amerigo Bartoli, "Sta come torre"; construction took a year, and it was inaugurated on 4 November 1933 in the presence of the king.

The crypt holds the bell of the battleship Benedetto Brin, which sank in the harbour in 1915 and was recovered in 1968, a model of the ship and a statue of Saint Barbara. Since 2014 the monument has belonged to the city.

If you can go up, do: from the top you see the city, the harbour, the Adriatic and the airport. At weekends and on public holidays the motobarca from the centre stops right here.