The ANNOTICO Report
Traditionally, the responsibility for maintaining and restoring
But today, it lies with the government, who with serious concerns about social
priorities and a constrained budget, is forced to reluctantly assign a lower
priority to preservation.
Likewise it is difficult to arouse the populous who share the government's
priorities, but furthermore, the Italians being surrounded
and immersed in the sheer amount of precious art and artifacts, and SO
many Historical ruins, could not be faulted for being blase.
It's not unusual for Romans to have archeological digs in their
backyards. In fact no matter where you dig in
I tend to agree with a body of advocates who say bringing in money from the
private sector is the key to solving the problem. Currently, Corporate Sponsors
are permitted to "Adopt" certain Restoration Projects, allowing the
tarpaulins surrounding the scaffolding of restorations to carry the
"message" of the
restrictive laws.
You certainly don't want the Colosseum to be renamed
and emblazoned with "The AT &T Colosseum"
in 20' high Letters, as we in the US are prone to do, BUT a
Tasteful and Refined homage to the Corporation/Sponsor -Renovator at the
Entrance, and permitting the Corporation to refer to its Civic Mindedness
in its ads, would not be onerous, and a mutually
Please be sure to read a subsequent Report: "Saving
("
ROME'S FALLING ARCHES
The Colosseum and other treasures of the
archeologically rich city need more funding and less abuse,
or they may soon be history.
By Tracy Wilkinson
Times Staff Writer
June 5, 2006
Running is not a bad idea. If
OK, that's a bit of an overstatement. But the landmarks that define this
legendary city are in serious disre! pair, the victims of monumental neglect, shrinking budgets
and the wear and tear of Mother Nature and heavy-heeled visitors.
"
The Italian government is halfway through a vast, year-long engineering a! ssessment of hundreds of
archeological sites in the
Using endoscopes and other sensitive machinery, investigators thus far have
detected waterlogged foundations, crumbling walls invaded by roots and weeds
and fragile tunnels.
"We have a very sick patient," Angelo Bottini,
the state superintendent responsible for all archeological sites, said from his
office above the 500-year-old Palazzo Altemps.
"We have to determine what is most at risk."
Recent calamities include:
• A 35-foot wall on the Palatine Hill, where Roman emperors built
their lavish villas, collapsed. Fortunately, it fell in the middle of the night
and not during the day, when it probably would have crushed tourists.
• Parts of the Colosseum,
ancient
• The breathtaking Golden Palace of Nero,
opened to the public with great fanfare a few years ago, was shut down when
authorities decided they could no longer guarantee visitors' safety.
• The Castel Sant'Angelo, the ancient papal fortress overlooking the
• The private Protestant Cemetery, resting place of the great
Romantic poets Shelley and Keats, among other notables through the centuries,
was in fast decline until the World Monuments Fund and the Bulgari
jewelry dynasty stepped in a couple of months ago to help.
Italian cultural authorities sometimes give the impression of having a finger
in the dike, rushing from one crisis to another as they plug the holes in the
country's vast archeological patrimony.
The biggest problem is money. Even though
Traditionally, the responsibility for maintaining and restoring
One nonprofit organization, CittaItalia, launched a
fundraising campaign last year that it hoped would break through the
indifference, using pictures of Michelangelo's sculptural masterpiece the David
minus a leg and
CittaItalia says donations are up, but figures won't
be released until the end of June.
In addition to money, consciousness also needs to be raised, advocates say
— among indifferent Italians and clueless foreign visitors alike.
The Colosseum, in a sense, is straining under the
weight of its own success. At what is by far the most popular single attraction
in
"This is not a social center. It's not an airport terminal. It's an
archeological site, a ruin. It must be valued as such," Piero Meogrossi, the architect in
charge of the Colosseum, said as he stood against the
gray dimpled boulders of the open-air stadium built nearly two millenniums ago.
"It needs to be cuddled," said archeologist Rosella Rea, another
member of the 12-person staff that oversees the monument.
As they spoke, a young man sporting a mohawk
passed by, punching a wall scarred with graffiti, names scrawled by modern-day
visitors. Schoolchildren, tourists talking into their video cameras and parents
with baby strollers all competed for a better view. On an upper level, fans of
rival soccer teams began a shouting match, their obscenity-laced chants echoing
over the arena where gladiators once battled lions and one another.
Meogrossi and Rea could only cringe.
Maintenanc! e of the ruin,
they said, is a constant struggle: cleaning its stone facades, erecting metal
gates in its porticos so they don't collapse, sealing off upper tiers to
prevent rainwater from seeping under the foundation. These days, scaffolding
brackets the top level, and a center stage, built over where the lions used to
be caged, has sat unfinished for years.
"Every piece of the monument needs restoration," Meogrossi
said, caressing a brick corner and toeing a section of pavement. "There
are always other priorities, and the priorities come every hour."
Meogrossi does not predict that the Colosseum will implode any time soon. But he does long for
controls on tourism, such as restrictions on the size and frequency of crowds,
as an important way to limit the damage. But such measures are unlikely.
The fate of Nero's Palace has been especially abrupt. Known by its Latin name,
the Domus Aurea (Golden
House) was a grandiose construction complete with perfume-sq! uirting ceiling tiles, fountains,
gold and marble facades, man-made lakes and the most exquisite frescoes of the
day.
Upon Nero's death in AD 68, however, those who followed sought to wipe out the
hated tyrant's memory. The buildings were razed or buried, the marble and gold
dismantled, the lakes drained and filled. Emperor Trajan
built thermal baths on the site, and it eventually became an overgrown mound
across from the Colosseum.
It would be 1,400 years before the underground remains were rediscovered,
and longer still before recovery and restoration began. In 1999, 30 rooms of
the 150-room Domus Aurea
were opened to the public.
But former Culture Minister Rocco Buttiglione ordered
the site shut again six months ago when inspectors determined that leaking
water had precariously weakened the structure.
The disappointed staff at the Domus Aurea said money that was supposed to
"It was like your baby. You raise it and care for it," archeologist
Ida Sciortino said. "No one liked having to close."
Descending into the Domus, a visitor finds a network
of cool, humid, cavernous tunnels, pavilions and vaults, much of it still
embedded in a hillside. Ceilings are 30 feet high, and although the marble and
gold wallcoverings are long gone, frescoes are still
visible, some caked in dirt or calcium deposits produced by the humidity. Low
lighting on the rough interior brick and stucco gives the feel of a postmodern
art gallery, albeit one with quite a bit of scaffolding.
Workers are the only habitues these days at the
remarkable edifice. Recently, a team was installing a metal railing around an
especially rough patch of floor. A woman was using a large syringe to inject
mortar into the wall for reinforcement. The tip-tap of dripping water,
somewhere deep behind the walls, could be he! ard but not seen.
High-tech probes that looked like giant metallic praying mantises were placed
strategically to measure humidity and the direction of the wind: Circulating
air saps moisture from the walls, which in turn raises the humidity, a constant
evaporation that one engineer likened to a barely discernible veil of water.
"There is no other building in the world like this, 150 rooms preserved
from basement to ceiling," Sciortino said. "It is really a shame the
public cannot see it."
Forlorn tourists still show up at the locked front gate, unaware that the
Golden House is closed.
Buttiglione, before losing his job as culture
minister when a new government took office last month, estimated that nearly
$200 million would be needed to shore up the Palatine Hill, including the Colosseum and Domus areas. Bottini, the archeological official, said it would cost
twice as much.
Whatever the figure, the budget doesn't even begin to cover it. Ledo!
And the focus, he complains, is only on the several dozen most famous sites. There
are hundreds more that don't receive attention.
"Their very existence is in danger," he said. "We must intervene
today, to prevent disaster tomorrow."
http://www.latimes.com/news/
nationworld/world/la-fg-ruins5jun
05,0,1191523.story?coll=la-home-world
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