Rome it is a city that never ceases to amaze and surprise its inhabitants and tourists who are astonished every day by its beauty and richness of history and culture. Considered an open-air museum, today it continues to hide treasures that come to light after years and years of excavations. This is the case of the works on metro C, an ambitious project which also includes the opening of a underground museum unique in the world. Let’s find out in detail what it is.
Rome, eight-storey underground museum: yesterday’s project
The project relating to the underground museum and the C line in Rome is an idea dating back to the 2000s conceived for the Catholic Jubilee. It was a 700 million euro project and had the aim of connecting the Cathedral of San Giovanni in Rome and the Basilica of San Pietro in the Vatican City, so as to facilitate the journey for pilgrims visiting to collect indulgences by crossing the holy doors of churches.
However, this dream was never realized due to various problems related to the corruption scandal in city government and the large number of archaeological objectsaround 40,000 in all: from the stone fishing wells, ceramics, vases, walls and mosaics of Emperor Hadrian’s military barracks dating back 2,000 years.
Today’s project
The 2000 project was taken back into consideration a few years ago with the aim of being implemented within ten years. In fact, in Piazza Venezia work has begun which see the creation of an eight-storey underground museum as high as the Vittoriano.
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The idea is to have the main stop of the line in Piazza Venezia, with an eight-story underground museum. Engineer Andrea Sciotti, responsible for the metro museum complex, explained that this project can and must be carried out in this period of time.
Work has begun and over the past five years many artefacts have been removed from the site for restoration. Each object will have its own location, the same one in which it was originally found.
The project includes the construction of 27 escalators, six elevators and 66,000 square meters of archaeological exhibition space. The station’s three main entrances will connect the three museums around the square: the Vittoriano, Palazzo Venezia and the open-air ruins of the Roman Forum anchored by the Colosseum at the far end, which has its own metro station that will also house museums and exhibition spaces.
PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK
