In the summer of the same year, after the first battles on the Isonzo, the front remained blocked on Calvario . It was for this reason that in November the Italian high command made the painful decision to bomb the city. "The first 280 mm howitzers thundered on the city on November 17. From the rows of abandoned and silent houses, shaken by the explosions, columns of smoke and tongues of flame rose towards the sky amid the crackling of the fires..." After captured Gorizia in August 1916, the bombings continued incessantly by the Austrian troops.

At the end of 28 months of war, the city's urban fabric was completely destroyed: 680 houses razed to the ground, 824 partially demolished, and 1,279 damaged. Very few remained intact.