Romans are so scandalous! I don’t
mean the Papacy either, I’m talking about Rome today. During my walk with Linda
Nolan, our docent for the Popes in Power walk, I saw something that caught my
attention. I saw roof gardens. Ok, maybe not so surprising, but Linda did point
out that the garden I saw was illegal. What? Illegal? She called this Abusivo, in other words, doing something
illegally and no one saying anything about it. I was shocked that no one is
saying anything about this; however, Linda pointed out so many more in the same
neighborhood. Graffiti is just the same.
Apparently, Rome has been through a
crazy history where facts and gossips lead to complication. All of these
complications which are mainly due to the Papacy caused many Romans to neglect
the history behind all these artworks left all over Rome. The roof gardens are
just an example of how some Romans want to be against such a corrupt Government.
Rome is a bit like San Francisco because the buildings have a certain required
height and so does San Francisco. People do follow the laws and they don’t add
on unless they buy that open space in SF, while in Rome, some people ignore the
laws and do what they want in exchange, which is making gardens on roofs
because there wasn’t much space for gardens. We can guess that the managers
were probably bribed. If not, they would just act as though they knew nothing
about it. There would be big and long trees just growing on the roof and not a
single word uttered about it. This topic gets even stranger when we see a
garden being built on the roof off the Palazzo Farnese. The
historic structure is so big and so high that it’s crazy Rome would make changes
to it; especially since this could damage the roof.
This isn’t the only problem
in Rome because graffiti swept Rome quickly and now almost everything has
graffiti on it. Graffiti is breaking the laws and people who do graffiti should
be fined. All the graffiti that are drawn on ancient things like in St.
Clemente shows us that people tend to ignore what the Rome today is all about;
which is preserving history and not destroying it.
On one side of the scale, we see
the rich people only getting richer and the poor just getting poorer. The raft
of the bridge in these two groups leads Rome into a decline in the Ancient and
Medieval Rome. There are some who want to bring back Ancient Rome while there
are the others who has faced such a cruel past and don’t want to go back. In
return, they damage the city the way they know how and that is by graffiti or
things that are noticed but not stopped.
- Susan Vang
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