Museum of the Fighters of Morro de Arica

In June 1880, in the War of the Pacific, a Chilean officer arrived in Arica, then a Peruvian port, to demand the surrender of its garrison. Its commander, Colonel Francisco Bolognesi, replied that he had sacred duties to fulfil and would fulfil them until the last cartridge was spent. Two days later, on June 7, Chilean troops stormed the Morro, the steep headland above the town, and Bolognesi was killed there with many of his men.

This small museum in central Lima occupies the house where Bolognesi was born in 1816. The Ministry of War bought and restored it in 1974 and opened it to the public the following year. All ten of its rooms are given to that one battle and the soldiers who fought it, with their uniforms, swords, sabres and papers.

The painting most visitors remember here is La respuesta, The Reply, by Juan Lepiani, a Lima painter who returned again and again to the war. Painted in 1891, it shows Bolognesi among his officers at the moment of his answer. In 1994 a photograph surfaced that was said to show the same scene from life, and analysis showed it was a staged recreation of Lepiani's picture.