A Grand Project will be implemented
for the relaunch of Ostia Antica as a tourist site, as was done
for Pompeii.
Some 32 million euros in public funds will be invested, the
site will be connected with the Roma Tre University - thanks to
an additional investment of 8 million euros, which will make an
ad hoc undergraduate course starting in the fall possible - and
there will be a campus for students set up by the Lazio regional
government in the two buildings of the former Hotel Enalc.
"For us this means moving to another level. We will start an
important restoration campaign, including for mosaics and
paintings, and research space," ANSA was told by Ostia Antica
archaeological park director Mariarosaria Barbera.
There will be a great deal of restoration works, as was the
case in recent years for Pompeii, as well as planning, said
sources at the culture ministry under Dario Francheschini, "to
reconnect the archaeological complex of Portus within a system
of a unified visit that highlights the landscape, the
historical-artistic value as well as its naturalistic one and
the diverse components of its interior, from the gate of
Claudius to the ancient ships and the archaeological park at
Trajan's port".
There is a great deal to be done in the new park, Barbera
said, and restoration will be the first priority.
"Not only of walls," she said. "We have a large number of
mosaics and frescoes."
In this Ostia is a unicum, the archaeologist said, since
-unlike Pompeii, which was buried by the a volcanic eruption in
the first century AD - the town near the capital, which was the
first highly populated Roman colony with some 50,000 inhabitants
in the second century, was "closely linked to Rome but
independent. Signs of Roman paintings go from the first imperial
age to the fourth century AD".
The funds will thus be used to restore and engage in research
as well as "fix up the new wing of the museum, which covers 84
hectares of the ancient city, a city that we see as alive like
Isola Sacra - which is the large monumental necropolis."
And then there is the port where, the director added, "we
will manage to open a museum of Fiumicino ships and conduct
important restoration work."
Ostia, she underscored, "means a river, a sea, trade and the
largest port system of antiquity."
The first step will be planning and making calls for
proposals, "since it is necessary to spend well".
Timelines will have to be complied with, but Barbera - who
previously was the director of the Colosseum and the Roman Forum
- is optimistic.
"In three years we will begin to see a great deal," she said.
At the same time, in the two buildings of the former Enalc
Hotel, owned by the Lazio regional government, a 50-bed student
dorm along with a university center of Ostia, linked to a new
undergraduate course from the Roma Tre University in Sea
Technology Engineering. It will be the first course of this type
in Italy."
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA