Degradation in Rome knows no borders. It extends to all latitudes without giving anyone discounts. Not even in the most suggestive corners of the city. One of these is certainly the monumental fountain that embellishes Mazzini square, in the heart of the Della Vittoria district.
A “garden fountain”, as the architect Raffaele De Vico defined it when he designed it, in the first half of the twentieth century, inspired by an ancient nymphaeum. “This was one of the most elegant districts of the city, now it is reduced to a dunghill”, says Mrs. Isabella Colace, historical resident and president of the Mazzini Committee, pointing to the mural that stands out on the travertine of one of the columns. “It has been there for years, a sign that no one has ever taken care of this place,” he notes frowning. Nobody has ever even been interested in the restoration of the fountains, from which a drop of water no longer flows, and of the marine sculptures that adorn the pond, shattered at least two decades ago.
And where the vandals couldn’t, they thought about it neglect and abandonment. “The river breccia mosaic of the pavement has deteriorated in several places: it is our past that disappears”, continues Isabella. The present, on the other hand, is made up of yellowed flower beds and bushes, beer bottles scattered here and there and piles of cartons that in the evening turn into makeshift beds. “At least two people sleep here now”, explains our interlocutor. You are careful not to go through these parts when it gets dark. “I don’t feel safe, with all the alcohol they drink …”, she says. The bivouac also continues along Viale Mazzini, as they tell bottles of glass and litter that surround the benches.
Some are the preserve of the nomads that populate the Montemario nature reserve, a stone’s throw from the courtrooms of piazzale Clodio. Several dozen people who, evacuation after eviction, have always camped back. “During the day – he continues – they come out of the bush and come down here to rummage through the bins or ask for alms”. “The degradation is not only the work of drifters and nomads – Isabella is keen to specify – but also of apparently normal people: students or employees who stop on the benches to eat”. A stone’s throw from the Corte dei Conti, for example, someone has just eaten a light lunch, leaving the scraps on the ground: a jar of yogurt and apple peels on which an army of pigeons and crows now feast. They are not the only animals that inhabit the area.
“While the mayor Raggi is thinking of reapplying, the neighborhood has become the zoo of Rome: mice, seagulls, and maybe we are also waiting for the wild boars to come down from Montemario”, he comments sarcastically Luca Aubert, Roman exponent of the League and former councilor of the first municipality. “This territory – he reports – is becoming the periphery of the historic center”. “We urgently need a discussion table with the garden service, Ama and local police to solve the many critical issues that daily destroy the image of one of the most prestigious areas of Rome”, he insisted.
“The residents are desperate,” Isabella vents. The appeal is to “enforce the law”. “Only in this way can ours become a city again civil, now it is no longer – he adds looking around – it seems to be in the Third World “.
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