Museum Piazza – free entrance until full capacity
10 individual seats reserved for myMAXXI card holders writing to mymaxxi@fondazionemaxxi.it, by the day before the event
An enormous centre of power in antiquity and then with the Catholic Church, no other city is as “capital” as Rome. And yet it was with a mediocre majority that on the 23rd of December 1870 the parliament of the unified Italy voted to transfer the capital from Florence, in accordance with the wishes of Cavour as well as Garibaldi and Mazzini. An “inevitable” capital, but one beset by caustic jealousies.
An ever-contrasting image: matron and thief, civilizer and corrupter. Poor planning decisions and voracious speculation, even on the part of the Vatican, clog the centre and segregate the tumultuous immigration. A capital misunderstood by the intellectuals, defended only by Gabriele D’Annunzio and later by Antonio Cederna. “A suk” according to Goffredo Parise, “death itself” for Mario Soldati. This is the on-going and tormented story of two centuries in which Rome has grown 15-fold. Ungovernable without special measures.
Introduction and moderation
Pietro Barrera Fondazione MAXXI Secretary General
Speakers
Vittorio Emiliani journalist and author
Fulvio Abbate author
In collaboration with Il Mulino