Cars parked in the square and tall grass… San Pellegrino thrown away

Viterbo – Neighborhood symbol of tourism in the city also left in a state of abandonment, with decay progressing around the main street which resists thanks to traders – PHOTO

by Daniele Camilli

The medieval quarter

Viterbo – Cars parked in the square, with grass and decay advancing around them. San Pellegrino thrown to the winds, a medieval neighborhood symbol of Viterbo tourism, a candidate city for European capital of culture. San Pellegrino is close to the flower festival that the mayor Chiara Frontini’s municipality has planned for the first week of May, with ancient houses and streets that date back to the year one thousand. 1089, to be exact.

A neighborhood that Bruno Zevi, in his Counterhistory of Italian Architecture, defined as “relevant and unplanned, convincing, bloody and unpredictable. A language capable of responding to an aspiration for popular freedom and democracy. Stimulating even in the third millennium.”

Viterbo – Piazza San Pellegrino

San Pellegrino, beautiful to look at, but only the street that bears its name. Thanks above all to the traders, artists and artists who work there. Because all you need to do is go upstream a little or go downhill a little and everything changes. And what you see is very similar to what you see throughout the rest of the city. Tall grass, pigeon guano, barriers, abandoned buildings. Carelessness. Abandonment. Degradation. Starting from Piazza San Carluccio, where the column placed there a few years ago by a business network, together with the seats, was defaced and some ceramic tiles torn away. Or from Via Cardinal La Fontaine which the medieval quarter runs alongside. Here, to put on a show, is an abandoned building that has been cordoned off for years. So much so that we got used to it. A kind of opening, an entrance door. With the orange plastic net to contain the grass on the ground which would otherwise overflow and invade the cobblestones.

Viterbo – The medieval quarter

Tourists arrive, in groups. They slip through the neighborhood. To then come across the cars parked under Palazzo degli Alessandri. Other examples, not of tourists but of cars, can also be found in the other streets nearby, where they should not be. Someone, this time a tourist, gets lost in the side streets, but immediately turns back, sometimes disgusted by what he sees.

Viterbo – The medieval quarter

Nettle plants, even of considerable size. At a certain point there was even a fig tree, empty buildings destined for the worst, a nice big hole covered by a pallet and surrounded by the usual orange net, barriers and a construction site overgrown with vegetation. Finally, at a certain point along the route, a door barred by a wooden board. Above there is a significant writing: “Narnia, closed for absence”.

Daniele Camilli

Photogallery: Deterioration of the San Pellegrino neighborhood

April 26, 2024