Rome, deserted and silent, is told

Of Christian Gattoni

A photographic exhibition (from 20 January, Zanardelli hall of the Vittoriano) and a book (arriving at the end of March) tell the story of the deserted Rome of spring 2020, in full lockdown. The target? Open the debate on livability, urban planning and mobility of the Eternal City

Imagine the Scalinata di Trinit dei Monti, completely deserted. No tourists perched on the steps, no litter on the ground, no selfies to dodge or group of teenagers to dribble. Even if it sounds like a post-apocalyptic movie scene, that was, in the spring of 2020 of the first lockdown, the reality of one of the symbolic places of Rome. To take us back to those surreal days of the beginning of the pandemic Rome. Silent Beauty, double project (with the patronage of the Municipality of Rome) born from the shots of the photographer Moreno Maggi: first of all, an exhibition organized with the VIVE Institute – Vittoriano and Palazzo Venezia, which will be set up in the Zanardelli room of the Vittoriano itself and will open its doors January 20, 2023 (and will remain open to the public, with free admission, until 28 February 2023, info here: vive.beniculturali.it). At the end of March, the exhibition will be followed by the publication of the volume of the same name, published by Rizzoli on behalf of the Italian construction and infrastructure giant Webuild.

Let’s not attribute Rome’s woes to overpopulation. When there were only two Romans, one killed the other. Giulio Andreotti’s now old joke still draws a smile, but our capital must deal daily not only with the Romans who live there, but also with massive tourist flows: according to the Bilateral Tourism Authority of Lazio (Ebtl), the 2022 tourist year in Rome will close with around 15 million arrivals Approximately (+172% compared to 2021, almost at pre-Covid levels). Our generation is the first to have to deal with tourism of these proportions, underlined the managing director of Webuild Pietro Salini during the presentation of the project, also highlighting two crucial questions: So how do we manage the number of people arriving in Rome? And what is the limit of exploitation of the cities of art?.

In this context, and trying to answer these and other questions on sustainability, urban planning and the needs of the community, the copyright images that make up the Rome. Silent Beauty. Taken by Maggi, an expert photographer of architecture and industrial photography, they give life to a real city walk, which in the exhibition (curated by Roberto Koch and Alessandra Mauro) it is further enriched thanks to videos and multimedia projections, thus allowing visitors to see Rome as very few have ever seen it: from Piazza Venezia to Castel Sant’Angelo, from Piazza del Popolo to EUR passing through the Imperial Forums, that Rome emptied of people, traffic and souvenir shops, fascinates with its beauty and its majestic geometries, but at the same time sparks the debate on its livability.

The philosopher Massimo Recalcati, in the speech contained in the volume Roma. Silent Beauty speaks in this regard of “unheard-of experience of the emptying and desertification of the city”. While the art historian Claudio Strinati underlines how, in solitude, unprecedented sensations and visions emerge: The fact of seeing everything without seeing anyone allows those who read the book to perceive the breadth of history in the best possible way, the great beauty of the spaces and monuments, the sense of refined decorum and profound spirituality that emanate even from the more remote corners but lovingly traced by this significant sequence of photographs.

December 21, 2022 (change December 21, 2022 | 17:46)

Rome, deserted and silent, is told