This contribution intends to provide an initial and brief analysis on the theme of the misfortune of Italian post-unification monuments, proposing a reading by genres, architectures and perceptions. Starting from the monumental tendencies of the first half of the 19th century, the paper finds in the inauguration of the monument to Giordano Bruno the main thematic paradigm shift in monumental sculpture of the time, as well as the beginning of an unfortunate theme, also favoured by the Giolittian age, which will culminate in Fascism's appropriation of the main figures of the Italian Risorgimento. The last lines of the text also propose to dwell more on a critical reading of the figures of the post-unification political class in the 1920s and 1930s, decades that also inaugurated a new genre and a new architectural way of constructing the sculptural monument.