PPP Business Plan 09 03
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appraisal<br />
The very name ‘Foro’ probably comes from archaic Latin ‘Foras’, meaning “outside, away from<br />
home”, indicating the neutral character that the place had for strangers who came here merely to<br />
visit the marketplace here. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ruined Ancient sculptures<br />
and religious buildings remained submerged underneath the debris, and thus the area remained,<br />
until the nineteenth century, devoted to the sale of livestock, taking the name of Campo<br />
Vaccino.<br />
In 1921, a part of the original area of the Campitelli was detached to form the newly constructed<br />
Celio district. Nonetheless, since it contains the Capitol, the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum,<br />
it has certainly preserved its greatest touristic importance among the districts of the capital city.<br />
Moreover, it can be said that up to Vittorio Emanuele II, Rione Campitelli was consecrated by<br />
tradition to the Founding Fathers: just think of Romulus on the Palatine, Camillus on the Capitol,<br />
the emperors in the Forum, and Cola di Rienzo. Moreover, one could also evoke the legendary<br />
memories of the patron saints of Rome, all connected to this district: Saints Peter and Paul, Santa<br />
Francesca Romana, San Sebastian, and St. Michael the Archangel. The remaining one of the<br />
seven hills included in Campitelli, the Palatine, and it is indeed the soul of the oldest trades and<br />
settlements that led to the founding of the city. Unlike the Capitol, the Palatine is not adjacent to<br />
the Tiber: with its maximum height of 51 meters above sea level, it is located between the Roman<br />
Forum and the Circus Maximus, and welcomes visitors as an authentic open-air museum. Walking<br />
along the Via Sacra that starts near the Arch of Constantine is a unique experience every single<br />
time. But the essence of the city, the center of prominent political life, trade and rites, as well as religious<br />
practices was the Forum, which we now call the ‘Roman’ Forum but at the time was known<br />
as Forum Magnum.<br />
The Piazza del Campidoglio is still considered - just like it was two millennia ago - the geographical<br />
center of Rome, the reference point to count all road distances with respect to the city. One goes<br />
up there from Piazza Ara Coeli, via a staircase designed by Michelangelo in the mid-sixteenth<br />
century: the square is surrounded by a number of buildings of great historical and institutional<br />
prestige. The square itself was built following the design of Michelangelo, in terms of both its layout<br />
and the geometric pattern of the pavement. Moreover, the current structure of the Capitol is the<br />
result of a complex series of projects, constructions, conversions and renovations that took place<br />
between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries. On the northern side of the hill - impressive<br />
in its dazzling whiteness - emerges the Vittoriano, built between 1885 and 1911, and dedicated to<br />
Vittorio Emanuele II and the unification of Italy in 1870. Designed after the First World War also as<br />
a military memorial and home to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, it receives constant attention<br />
from tourists, and indeed precisely for this reason, nowadays it has been the target of heated criticism:<br />
since its visual impact is too massive and aggressive compared to the Antique monuments<br />
behind it, some have labeled it with allusive nicknames like ‘the typewriter’, ‘the wedding cake’, or<br />
‘the inkpot’. A few years ago some even came up with the idea to demolish it; but the outcome of<br />
the controversial debates arising was to finally accept the bulky monument as an entity adopted<br />
on its own right into the urban landscape of the capital.<br />
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