In Nervesa della Battaglia there’s  a small chapel: it remembers  the point where Francesco Baracca, the “ace of aces”, in 19^th  June 1918 was shot down by the Austrians while he was machine-gunning the decks of boats on the Piave to prevent the advance of the Austro-Hungarian army.

In 2008, a Spad XIII flew over the places where the Battle of the solstice has been fought: a single-seat biplane fighter identical to the one of Baracca, but this specimen is not released from the workshops of the Societe de Production des Aeroplanes Deperdussin, closed for over a century. Giancarlo Zanardo, born in 1939, has built himself.

Pilot by passion, with more than 2,500 flight hours, Zanardo has built replicas of vintage aircraft that he then gathered in Jonathan Collection, founded by himself, the only non-profit organization of its kind in Italy, an association of philologists which houses these wonderful flying machines in a hangar of the original World War, in Nervesa della Battaglia, close to the War Memorial on the front of the Piave and the chapel of Francesco Baracca, to whose memory is dedicated the structure.

In the hangar Bessneau you can feel the passion for the air and for the flight, but you can relive the history above all, in an area leading to bloody clashes and heroic deeds. The purpose of the foundation is  to spread the historical memory and to promote aviation flight activity as historical and social value, bringing to life the thrill of flying with crafts of almost 100 years ago, rebuilt with care and precision: from the Wright Brothers Flyer, the first airplane in the world that flew in 1903, to the Fokker triplane fighter DR.I, famous because used by the “Red Baron”, until Blériot XI, one of the most famous aircraft in aviation history, the protagonist of the first crossing of the Channel and the first war flight. A flying museum definitely not to be missed.

Campo d’Aviazione Francesco Baracca

Via Fra Giocondo, 8A

31040 Nervesa della Battaglia, TV 

From April to October: Saturday, Sunday and holidays

10:00 – 12:30 / 14:30 – 19:00

Flying demonstration Sunday afternoon