Vita Gazette

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Getting lost in Rome

Anna Maria Tardiolo If you happen to get lost in Rome, don’t go back! Let yourself be guided by the labyrinthine alleys into squares with considered by tourist maps.

It often happens that when you visit a city, you get lost. Even just a few steps away. Maybe if you take a look at this or that building, you leave the pre-established route and find yourself in places not considered before. A bit like it happens along the journey of life. When this happens in a place other than the known one, we instinctively tend to go back to resume the itinerary studied, seen on the map, studied.

Well: if you happen to get lost in Rome, don’t go back! Let yourself be guided by the labyrinthine alleys into squares with considered by tourist maps. Be amazed to find yourself in front of little-mentioned architectural jewels, parts of history inevitably set aside in the corner of memory, exactly as a child would do when discovering the treasure chest hidden long ago, after an exhausting treasure hunt.

La Biblioteca Angelica

By doing so it could be very likely, for example, that you could find yourself in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II and there, in a corner of its garden, discover the Alchemical Door. Even if you don’t know its history, find yourself admiring the statues of the Egyptian god Bes flanking, one on each side, a door surmounted by a patacca with depictions of esoteric symbols dating back to the seventeenth century, even at first glance in the middle of the very central , colorful and multiethnic piazza Vittorio, well! this alone would leave you pleasantly surprised.

If, on the other hand, it was already known that this is the only surviving of five doors present in the Villa Palombara, residence of the Marquis Massimiliano Savelli Palombara and that according to the legend the well-known alchemist Francesco Borri passed through this door after spending the night in the gardens of the villa looking for a mysterious herb capable of producing gold, leaving behind it specks of gold to confirm the success of the alchemical transmutation, you would be even more fascinated.

It could also happen that while you are walking towards the Trevi Fountain, entering the alleys of Via del Corso, you come across Galleria Sciarra. A precious artistic jewel, made at the end of the 19th century, a representation of the Liberty style in Rome. Being the covered passage of a private courtyard, wanted by Prince Maffeo Barberini Colonna di Sciarra who thus intended to connect his private residence with the activities he owned, the newspaper the Tribuna and the Quirino theater, the vault is covered by iron and glass . In perfect Art Nouveau style. The light of day, therefore, floods the spaces, enhancing, like a giant bull’s eye, the frescoes on the theme of the “Glorification of the Woman” that decorate the walls of the courtyard.

Every corner, every gate, could hide a treasure chest waiting to be opened! For example, crossing the small gate at the side of the Basilica of Sant’Agostino in Campo Marzio could reveal to the eyes a cultural heritage of immense value, in addition to the beauty of the place itself: the Angelica Library. The first European library open to the public. Founded in 1604 by the Augustinian bishop Angelo Rocca, from which it takes its name. Being a library, in fact, part of the ministry of culture since 1975, it will not be possible to access the rooms easily but to look out to them, to be invested by the scent of the books kept in them, to observe the light that illuminates as the hours pass one after the other the walls covered with volumes, it is an experience to live!

Just as it is going to one of the most peripheral districts of the city that have become places of interest for international writers: Tor Marancia, Il Pigneto to name a few. They are to the point that in 2015 the first map of Roman Street Art was created! The murals by young artists have literally changed the face of these neighborhoods, bringing out their true beauty.

For all these reasons and only an infinitesimal part of them have been mentioned, get lost! Let yourself be guided by beauty like a treasure map and go in search of buried chests to discover!

Tor Marancia
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