The Victor Emmanuel II National Monument or Vittoriano, improperly called Altare della Patria , is a national monument built in honor of Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a unified Italy, located in Rome, Italy. It occupies a site between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill. It is currently managed by the Polo Museale del Lazio and is owned by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities. From an architectural point of view it was conceived as a modern forum, an agora on three levels connected by stairways and dominated by a portico characterized by a colonnade. The complex process of national unity and liberation from foreign domination carried out by King Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, to whom the monument is dedicated, has a great symbolic and representative value, being architecturally and artistically centered on the Italian unification: for this reason the Vittoriano is considered one of the national symbols of Italy. It also preserves the Altar of the Fatherland , first an altar of the goddess Rome and then also a shrine of the Italian Unknown Soldier, thus adopting the function of a lay temple consecrated to Italy. Because of its great representative value, the entire Vittoriano is often erroneously called the Altare della Patria, although the latter constitutes only a part of it. Located in the center of ancient Rome and connected to the modern one thanks to streets radiating from Piazza Venezia, it has been consecrated to a wide symbolic value representing - thanks to the call of the figure of Victor Emmanuel II and the realization of the Altar of the Fatherland - a lay temple metaphorically dedicated to a free and united and celebrating Italy - by virtue of the burial of the Unknown Soldier - the sacrifice for the homeland and for the connected ideals.

More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Emmanuel_II_Monument