Monday,
May 05, 2008
Italians "Preserve" Roman Archeology
While Modernizing Cities
The
ANNOTICO Report
All
over
It
is Admirable how the Italians have been able to "Preserve" the
Archaeological Gems by "incorporating" them into the New buildings in
esthetic and ingenious ways.
For
Instance, a portion of the "Servian Wall"
found far below the surface was incorporated into the underground shopping mall
of the train station so that
it is a focal point of the McDonald
The "Servian" Wall at
The
improvements which are being rapidly carried out, especially in the
neighborhood of the Central Railway Station, supply us daily with discoveries,
valuable artistically, scientifically, and geographically. It may be said that
not one, but two Romes are being reconstructed at
this moment - the modern, with its boulevards, squares, and churches; the
ancient, with its temples, thermae, aqueducts and
theaters.
Rodolfo Lanciani, Letter from
The passage
above, written on January 15, 1876, by the archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani and published in The Athenaeum, an English journal of the fine arts, captures the spirit of excavation and modernization
that characterized
As government
offices and their associated civic servants crowded into the new capital,
Among the
monuments to be excavated and studied in this time was an impressive tract of
the Republican or "Servian" Wall on the
Esquiline Hill. Running a course of about 100 meters and
standing up to nine meters in height, the wall fragment is made of large tufa blocks, some of which still bear quarry-marks in the
form of Greek letters. Late nineteenth-century excavators believed this tract
to be part of the wall attributed by Livy (1.44) to
When, in 1938,
the Romans found in necessary to improve their public transportation system
with the construction of a new train station, the architect, Angiolo Mazzoni, was forced to
contend with this hulking mass of ancient wall and he did so by building today
The
ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed (With Archives*) on:
Blog: www.AnnoticoReport.com
Italia
Italia Mia: www.ItaliaMia.com *
Topix.net:
www.topix.net/world/italy
Annotico
Email: annotico@earthlink.net