Imagine standing before a steel giant that outlasted two world wars: the British Ordnance BL 6-inch 26 cwt howitzer, known in Italy as the Obice da 152/13. More than a simple artillery piece, it distils history forged by desperate necessity. At the start of the Great War, the British recognised their guns lagged behind the Germans. They forged this new weapon to propel over 40-kilogram projectiles nearly nine kilometres.

The history of this giant is closely intertwined with Italy's. After the dramatic retreat from Caporetto in autumn 1917, the Royal Army needed to replace lost guns. Around eighty of these howitzers arrived in Italy to defend the final, decisive Piave line. It was a formidable weapon for its time. Its massive wooden wheels had a double rim for all terrains. On compact ground, the gun glided quickly on the main rim. In trench mud, the wheel would sink, letting the larger rim grip and provide stability. A complex hydraulic system handled the violent recoil when firing.

This metal "veteran" was so well-built that it continued to serve the Italian army until the early stages of World War II, then ended its career in coastal defence. The specimen we can admire today in Rovereto is no ordinary cannon, but a sort of "identity card" engraved in metal. Reading the marks stamped on its carriage and breech, we discover that it was born in 1917, forged in the steelworks of Glasgow and Manchester. Donated to the Italian War History Museum in 1949, it remained outdoors for a long time, in the castle moat. Today, after meticulous restoration in Piacenza in the 1990s, it has found its ideal home: the evocative galleries of the former air raid shelter in Rovereto, where it dominates the section dedicated to the First World War, ready to tell the story of its long journey to anyone who stops to gaze upon it.