"He died on Santa Maria della Pietà" Weekend One of the things I like about this neighborhood, Oldtower, a suburb of Rome, is the proximity of the former mental hospital of Santa Maria della Pietà. Born in 500, was the largest asylum in Europe, until it began to fall into disrepair after the law Basaglia (but I think that the last patients were discharged in 1999).
is now a beautiful park
, decadent hard but kept alive, with over 30 pavilions, many still in a state of neglect, some restored and put back in place. In a
do yoga and aikido, in another coffee joint, in a much more is bilbioteca, the historical museum of the mind and
(I have not yet visited, but it seems that it is a reconstruction of the asylum, where you realize what it meant to enter and exit not more). Museum with some schools in Rome, last year, they did a project called
Different from whom? , to familiarize young people with the reality of the hardships and mental health.
Now it seems that the 'La Sapienza university
has bought some pavilions and intends to move to the new Faculty of Education. The area is perhaps reassess, will be animated by the cultural point of view (perhaps open up some library).
But some of those '
ex-Laundry Association that for years fighting for the protection and enhancement of Santa Maria della Pietà, believe there is something wrong. The association knows that the end would do, but that's not the problem:
"New networks, and more modern than those felled under the old mental hospital will share the district and the park. Each individual subscriber will have his rag and decide freely what to do. Motorists privileged through and through the former botanical garden already turned into relief roads and car parks, as long as no runner, no mother, no child, no rider will have the courage to walk. "
In other words, it would destroy the dream of
Basaglia , to a mental hospital open to the public, the public in the district, but not eliminated in its historical identity and unity in its archeology.
