Under normal conditions, the Via della Conciliazione should be one of the busiest avenues in the world. Although it is barely five hundred meters long, millions of people pass through it every year from all over the world to visit the Vatican.
As you will know if you are also in love with Rome, the Via della Conciliazione is the main access to St. Peter's Square. The journey, coming from Castel Sant'Angelo, could not be more majestic. On both sides of the avenue, flanked by travertine obelisks, palaces and churches ---Palazzo Torlonia, Palazzo dei Penitenzieri, Palazzo dei Convertendi, Santa Maria in Trasportina, Santo Spirito in Sassia--- and, in the background, the facade of the papal basilica of St. Peter. In the opposite direction, the view is equally splendid and, certainly, as can be read in many tourist guides, Bernini's colonnades give the impression of gigantic arms open to Rome and, by extension, to Italy. Hence the name of the famous avenue.
However, the origins of the Via della Conciliazione are much less luminous. In 1936, Benito Mussolini commissioned architects Piacentini and Spaccarelli to design a grand avenue connecting the Vatican with the city. The Duce himself struck with a pickaxe the first of a long list of buildings of the spina of the Borgo that had to be demolished to open the new street. Hundreds of families lost their homes there and were relocated outside the city. The construction of the Via della Conciliazione was not completed until 1950, five years after a group of partisans sent Mussolini directly to hell.
Last week, Eva Fernández, COPE correspondent in Italy, witnessed a movie scene on the Via della Conciliazione which she wisely recorded with her mobile phone and then shared on Twitter. In it, a rather large group of children appear playing ball carelessly in the middle of the avenue, under a spring sun, with the majestic facade of St. Peter in the background.
When I saw these images, I immediately thought of Elena Ferrante's books, even though the street game scenes she describes end in stone-throwing and do not belong to Rome but to her native Naples. I suppose they reminded me of Ferrante's characters because their childhood takes place in the fifties and seeing children playing in the streets and squares of the center of large cities is an image of what we call "from before." That is, from when there were practically no cars, much less mass tourism. Therefore, from a before that I have not lived, but that, before the pandemic, I had only seen in books and in cinema.
One of the effects of the forced confinement has been, precisely, the recovery of public space by residents also in cities. It has happened in Rome, but also in Barcelona. For a few weeks, adults and children once again made the Cathedral square, the Rambla, or the Plaça Reial their own.
Seeing children playing in the streets and squares of the center of large cities is an image of what we call "from before." That is, from when there were practically no cars, much less mass tourism.Do you know what this phenomenon made me think of? Now I'm going to surprise you: Chernobyl. Yes, months ago, I saw a documentary that explained how the ecosystems of the exclusion zone around the nuclear power plant, which had an accident more than three decades ago, have been recovering and in what way: bears, bison, wolves, lynxes, horses, and more than two hundred species of birds currently live in a space populated by lush forests where humans are totally forbidden to enter.
When the pressure drops, ecosystems ---forests, rivers, but also neighborhoods--- recover. I have also observed this these days in the last stretch of Diagonal before reaching Plaça de les Glòries.Do you see where I'm going? When the pressure drops, ecosystems ---forests, rivers, but also neighborhoods--- recover. I have also observed it these days in the last stretch of Diagonal before reaching Plaça de les Glòries.It has been closed to traffic for months and some ping-pong tables have been installed that are very popular among residents. When, in the afternoons, I pass through this section of the avenue closed to traffic, I see that it is always very busy. It is full of groups of people walking, playing, or simply chatting for a while in the shade of the large trees.
Let's keep this in mind when thinking about what role we want cars to have in the city, but also mass tourism.
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