Abstract

In this article, painter Max Guala’s experience during the Great War is reconstructed for the first time by connecting the words of his war diaries with the images of 162 graphic works now preserved in the Historical Collections of Milan. The first-person narration and the narrative elaborated by the history museum are two moments of the same memorial process that transformed ego-documents into civic monuments for eternal preservation. The museum history of the Guala’s words and images allows us to reconsider this process, to overcome the grand narrative and reflect on the museology of history.