Romans’ mood darkening over new streetlights
The welcoming night-time glow of the Eternal City is turning a harsh white and the locals are not happy
NO VISIT to the Eternal City is complete without an evening stroll along a softly-lit cobbled lane or through a piazza bathed in the golden light of traditional lanterns mounted on the facades of centuries-old palazzi.
But the romance of Rome is being drastically eroded, campaigners say, by a plan to replace the city’s yellow sodium lamps with cheaper LED lights which give off a harsh, white glare.
Rome city council says the new lighting will save millions of pounds in energy bills, but locals and heritage groups are mounting spirited resistance to the scheme, saying it diminishes the ambience of the winding streets and cobbled squares of the historic centre. “It’s a big mistake,” said Salvatore Nicastro, a waiter at a café in Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere, an area of winding streets on the banks of the Tiber. “The old lights are characteristic of the historic centre,” he said. “They create a romantic ambience; a memory of the era of La Dolce Vita of 50 years ago. If the council wants to save money they’d do better to stamp out the corruption we all know goes on.”
A local residents’ group, Vivere Trastevere, or Living in Trastevere, is urging inhabitants of the area to place a candle in their windows as a silent protest against the new lighting system.
“Rome’s historic centre now resembles a morgue,” said Nathalie Naim, a local politician. “They have stripped away the welcoming atmosphere of Rome’s most historic areas.”
The lights are being installed not only in Trastevere but also in other historic neighbourhoods, from the old Jewish ghetto, also on the banks of the Tiber, to Monti, a district of medieval streets near the Colosseum, and the Esquiline Hill, one of Rome’s fabled seven hills. Eventually around 185,000 lamps and street lights will be replaced with LED fixtures, with the work costing €48 million (£40 million).
Elizabeth Minchilli, a tour guide and food writer, described the new lights as “horrendous”. She said: “They are dismantling the old light fixtures, taking away the frosted glass and leaving the metal structure glass-less and damaged. If you are having trouble understanding the difference that has resulted, I can only compare it to a candle-lit dinner versus the frozen food aisle of your local grocery store.
“I would have hoped that more thought would have gone into the aesthetics of the final outcome.”
Heritage groups have appealed to Virginia Raggi, the mayor of Rome, and Dario Franceschini, Italy’s culture minister, to stop the installation of the new lights. Since being elected last summer, Ms Raggi has struggled to bring order to Rome’s myriad problems, from public buses that burst into flames spontaneously as a result of bad maintenance, to corruption in the council and the chaotic collection of rubbish.
The new lighting was approved in 2015 by a predecessor of Ms Raggi, but activists say it is now up to her to reverse the decision.