Return the Colosseum to its original form, making it an arena again. It would seem a boutade, put like this, and instead it is an idea that is making its way, at least according to the Minister of Cultural Heritage Dario Francheschini, who entrusts this idea of his to a tweet, as often happens: "The idea of archaeologist I like Manacorda to give back its arena to the Colosseum. All you need is a little courage”.
The archaeologist Manacorda, in a study that appeared in the Archeo magazine, spoke, in fact, of the wooden reconstruction of the arena, to make it walkable again, so as to cover the labyrinth of the underground, now open to the sky. To enrich his thesis, Franceschini also posted on Twitter some images of how the Colosseum would look (and how it looked).
A fascinating idea, certainly, but which is already dividing the so-called experts, digging a deep gap between different conceptions of archeology. Restoring the arena could enrich the Colosseum experience, restoring vigor to a monument, in any case, one of the most visited in the world, and allowing new paths inside it and, perhaps, making it the arena capable of hosting very high-profile events in the most suggestive of the frames.
The idea of Manacorda-Franceschini, abandoning necrophilic architecture to give new life to what is ancient, will have to be evaluated by a technical table to establish methods, solutions and costs, but it already registers illustrious adhesions such as that of the president of the Superior Council of cultural heritage Gaetano Volpe and the former superintendent Adriano La Regina (who, however, calls for prudence on maintenance costs and expenses), but also dry failures, such as that of the art historian Tomaso Montanari and Salvatore Settis.
To find out what the new form of the Roman amphitheater will be, and especially if there will be, perhaps we will just have to wait. The Colosseum has been here for two thousand years anyway, he's in no hurry.
