In carrying out this photography reportage – the first since the one led by English archaeologist J. H. Parker’s team during the second half of the 19th century – I constantly tried to focus on two aspects: photographing the monument and investigating its relationship with the city – which varies according to the area of the city crossed by a particular stretch of the wall. I was aware of a strong and basic difference between the conditions I was working in and those experienced by the photographers who worked for Parker: today the city often closes up every single space so that I found myself frequently engaged in close combat with “the walls”: they were the subject. But in many parts the walls open up, leaving space for the contemporary city and here the sudden relativity of their dimensions gives them an element of abstraction. The photographs also document the dialogue of the ancient walls with some major examples of Rome’s modern architecture: the council houses of San Giovanni, the thin strip between the Corso Italia viaduct and Via Campania, Porta Maggiore and the water tank building built in 1935 by engineer De Vico, and finally as they stretch towards the immense structures of industrial Rome and its landmark, the Gasometer.
