The Tower of MezzaVia is situated on the Via Tuscolana, halfway between Rome and Frascati, at the point where the road forks off the Via Anagnona, for centuries a halting place for travellers and workers on the land. This factor, was best exploited in the past when the building was made into an inn, of rather dubious reputation according to the romanesque poet Augusto Jandolo.
The site on which the tower rises still has strategic importance. In recent years it has been exploited commercially, as it is near the Grande Raccordo Anulare.(Great Ring Road); So the surrounding countryside, with the exception of a green area immediately around it, a mere
remnant of the Campagna Roman, is made up of commercial centres, not particularly ugly, but in sharp contrast with the tower itself. Not far away, on the Via Tuscolana, pass interminable lines of indifferent motorists.
Nearby, the solitary Campagna Romana, celebrated for centuries by artists and poets, has been destroyed and replaced by quarters, some constructed illegally.
The green area immediately around the tower has hardly a clean spot and a lot of high grass. There are few trees and plants, which are often stunted.
The process of urbanisation in the nearby commercial area, has changed the mountainous parts and the level of the territory. The lane towards the cistern is littered with syringes and rubbish. Currently the tower is used as an emergency home, becoming very important for the large numbers of desperate people who, pushed by poverty, reach the metropolis in search of a better future.
The hopes of these men and women, entire families, are broken by the meagre prospects offered by our society. So every gorge, every corner that offers the least shelter, becomes for them an emergency landing place, rendering more acute the state of neglect of these places, as in the case of our tower.
On the inside of the medieval antemural which surrounds the tower, there are high heaps of rubbish
of every kind and colour, while huge rats like rabbits scavage round the carcases scattered on the ground.
In this state of health emergency, very often it is possible to see children playing among washing extended on the ground and the remains an open air kitchen.
The ruins of the medieval period and those of the Roman villa, where the tower has been built, have been humbled, their decorativeness utterly destroyed.
Disdain and abandon are now the only masters of this once important place.
The surrounding countryside falls more and more under the blows of savage urbanisation
which empties of meaning the few structures of the past miraculously left standing.
Citizen committees formed in neighbouring areas have proposed plans for the regeneration and re-utilisation of the tower for social and cultural purposes, from the moment that the monument became property of the Comune of Rome. For example, the premises of the tower would be an appropriate place for a small Antiquarium, (at present housed in the nearby commercial centre) which exhibits objects found in the zone.
But in principle seeing the deterioration of the monument, any form of re-utilisation which respects its structure and history, seems better than the present situation. Provocatively, we may ask what is the use of guardianship, unless accompagnied by a new use of the monument, collective if possible?
In conclusion, we have to restore to places like the Torre di Mezza Via, one of many examples of historical and cultural importance in our territory, a function and a value, also from an economic point of view. How can we become so indifferent, as to sit back and watch the disappearance from this countryside of such precious testimonies of our past?
