The
Rioni of Rome: Esquilino
Roman melting-pot
The historic open-air market was moved to a new indoor home a couple of blocks
east of the piazza
By Emiliano Pretto
january 2009
The Esquilino neighbourhood is named for the Esquiline
hill on which it stands. It lies south of Termini railway station
and centres more or less on the piazza Vittorio Emmanuele II.
Many have renamed the quarter “Chinatown”, but in
fact immigrants from more than a hundred different countries
crowd its busy streets and piazzas. A thriving commercial district,
Esquilino also boasts a vibrant cultural and artistic life including
the Orchestra di piazza Vittorio, an immigrant band which came
to represent the changing, multi-cultural face of modern Italy
and became internationally famous thanks to a 2006 documentary
by director Agostino Ferrente.
If you want to understand just how much Rome has changed in recent
years you have to visit Esquilino. Here the changes have been
radically different from the Boho-chic makeover that has transformed
the nearby Monti neighbourhood. Esquilino boasts no cutting-edge
alternative fashion ateliers or trendy watering-holes and nightspots;
it is full of dozens of restaurants featuring every kind of Asian
cuisine – most of whose customers are immigrants. There
are inumerable wholesale clothes shops; you’ll find Vietnamese
supermarkets, chinese barbershops, phone- and internet-centres
run by Indians. Immigration has been the driving force behind
the transformation of Esquilino. Of the 1,300 or so commercial
premises operating in the district 800 are Chinese-owned, around
300 are run by immigrants from other countries around the world
and some 200 are owned by Italians.
The gallery of Piazza Vittorio
Before becoming Rome’s most multi-racial
neighbourhood Esquilino was a prime example of grimey inner-city
degradation.
Its rebirth began with a massive city-funded project to renovate
and clean up piazza Vittorio. The historic (also by that time
decidedly shabby and unsanitary) open-air market was moved to
a new indoor home a couple of blocks east of the piazza.
The old market was the location for a key scene in one of the
most famous Italian films of all times: Vittorio De Sica’s
1948 neo-realist classic “Bicycle Thieves”. It is
one of the least disputed masterpieces in cinema, with one of
the least complicated storylines: an impoverished Roman man,
Antonio, is thrilled when he is at last offered a job: delivering
and putting up movie posters. But he needs a bicycle, and must
supply his own, so his wife pawns the family's entire stock of
bed linen to redeem the bicycle he had already hocked. On his
first day at work, the unlocked machine is stolen and Antonio
drops everything to go on a desperate odyssey across Rome with
his young son to get his bike back. They create uproar in classic
crowd moments: in the streets, at a church mass – and in
the piazza Vittorio market, notoriously a site where stolen goods
are re-sold.
De Sica's postwar fable, beautifully shot on street locations,
is still a joy to watch, and the scene in piazza Vittorio is
one of the most memorable.
The market has now moved on but the renovated piazza is still
the bustling heart of Esquilino – a quarter which now moves
to a multi-racial beat following the influx of immigrants from
Asia, Africa, the Balkans and South America. New luxury hotels
have been opened, theatres that were abandoned for years are
now back in business again. Artists have moved into the district
and gleaming loft conversions are being snapped up. And of course
nothing could be more emblematic of the Esquilino’s multi-cultural
renaissance than the Orchestra di piazza
Vittorio.
The second great symbol of the district’s new found vitality
is the Teatro Ambra Jovinelli. The Theatre was closed down and
abandoned for almost two decades following a fire. Renovated
and modernised it was reopened in 2001 and is now a thriving
centre for the best of Italian comic theatre, especially for
biting political satire. The Ambra Jovinelli’s artistic
director, tv host and comedienne Serena Dandini, recently emphasised
how vital the theatre’s reopening has been to the redevelopment
of Esquilino by both reinvigorating the neighbourhood’s
cultural life and creating employment.
In 2004 one of Rome’s most luxurious hotels, the Radisson
Sas Es Hotel, opened for business just across the street from
Teatro Ambra Jovinelli.
As we have seen many of the businesses in Esquilino are now foreign-owned.
But some historic Italian names are not just hanging on but flourishing.
None more so than gelateria Fassi (via Via Principe Eugenio,
65-67). Also known as “The Ice Palace”, Fassi’s
has been a family-run business since it opened in 1928. It is
Italy’s oldest and largest gelateria.
The owner, Leonida Fassi, the son of the gelateria’s founder,
makes light of the transformation that has swept Esquilino. Fifty-four
of the sixty shops that share the street with Fassi’s are
owned by Chinese, and the shop has immigrants among its staff,
he explains. “We went through some tough times with all
the changes in the area, but now business couldn’t be better.” And
good ice cream is delicious whatever language you order it in.
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Different languages, same music
Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio
The Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio was founded in 2002 by Mario
Tronco, a long-time resident of Esquilino who wanted to involve
the new residents in his quarter in a project that would make
new exciting music and a statement about the changing multi-cultural
face of Italy.
Most of the musicians in the Orchestra have come here from, among
other places, India and Tunisia, Cuba and Argentina, Senegal
and Brazil, Hungary and Ecuador; they’re joined by a few
Italians.
Their music is instantly recognisable and utterly unique: mixing
rhythms and styles ranging from gypsy, jazz, and latin, and traditional
music from Africa to India.
The Orchestra has produced 3 cds and performed in more than 300
concerts around the world.
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