The Fiat vs. the Forum

Mussolini's grand Via dei Fori Imperiali and its modern traffic patterns interfere with plans to institute central Rome's would-be grand Archaeological Park

The entire area we often refer to as "Downtown Ancient Rome"—the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Imperial Fori, and Markets of Trajan—is one of Rome's most important and contentious archaeological zones.

In the 1920s, Mussolini ordered much of the district hastily excavated. Then he had the archeologists restore some of it but rebury the rest in order to lay the fat boulevard Via de Fori Imperiali right down the middle of it for showy military parades.

This was all part of the dictator's overt campaign to visually and symbolically link the glory of Imperial Rome with his own megalomaniacal idea of a new, Fascist empire. Parades could go from the Colosseum, past the Roman and Imperial Fori, and end at Piazza Venezia, where the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument celebrated the new country of Italy and, more importantly, Mussolini gave crowd-rousing speeches from his office in the Palazzo Venezia.

Today Via dei Fori Imperiali is a major traffic artery, and its vital role in the city’s infrastructure is an as-yet unsurmounted obstacle to plans to create a vast, single archaeological park out of the entire area.

This proposal is close to the hearts of archaeologists, much of Rome's tourism authorities and industry, and Rome's popular, outspoken, sometimes controversial but often progressive former mayor, Francesco Rutelli.

As an interim compromise, Via dei Fori Imperiali is now closed to traffic on Sundays—great for strolling and biking—and in 1998 they began excavating even more of the area under what has been a triangular bit of greensward between the boulevard and the Imperial Fori–hugging Via Alessandrina.

Opening the Markets of Trajan to the public is but the first step in a scheme to eventually link of as much of the area as possible. The plan settled upon for now calls for Via dei Fori Imperiali to slowly become a raised viaduct as archaeologists excavate down all around it, punching a series of tunnels under the road, allowing visitors to wander from one side to the other.

They'll still need to deal with the long-term traffic-associated problems of pollution and dangerous vibrations, but it looks as if the dream of an archaeological park may not be impossible after all.