In Ielardi’s photos the journey on the Appian Way between Rome and Brindisi-Corriere.it
A secular journey. Outside the routes of the Via Francigena or of the most celebrated Way of Santiago de Compostela. But not for this without myths to recall, history and feelings. And then, there is enough walking. Perch there Via Appiacultural itinerary and great historical-social program for over two thousand years, a path of 630 kilometers. Travel time? A little less than a month. 29 days to be exact. Respecting stages of 6-7 kilometers, with stops and resumption of the journey, from Rome a Toaststhe two vertices of the Regina Viarumconnected by a project, a journey on foot made from 26 September to 25 October last year by Giulio Ielardi, Roman, backpacker photographer, alone among streets, ruins and villages to rediscover one of the oldest streets in Rome. What remains of those days? All. More than fifty photographs and the heart of the Roman exhibition Still Appia. Photographs by Giulio Ielardi and scenarios of changeuntil the next October 9 (Walking Daythe event promoted by Federtrek to promote the spread of the culture of walking) in the complex of Capo di Bovewithin the Appia Antica Archaeological Park.
shadow carousel
Walking in history
A dream more than 600 kilometers long
a project that I had in mind for some time. I have to think about it right after I finish reading the initiated book Paolo Rumiz, Appia: a fantastic tale of his journey. And I wanted to do it too. Until I proposed it to the managers of the Appia Antica Archaeological Park: after all, the body invested by the instituting decree from the Ministry of Culture with the coordination of the enhancement of the whole Regina Viarum, up to Brindisi, recalls Giulio Ielardi, the photographer walker: Like everyone else, I’m not a specialist, from travel charts and things like that, but I wanted to tell these paths, describing them with pictures. Another photographer thought of the words, Francesco Zizolawinner of the World press photo of the year 1996author of the texts of the catalog (published by Gangemi) of the exhibition organized by the Appia Antica Archaeological Park and curated by the architect Luigi Oliva and from Simone QuiliciPark director.
Steps of history among the shopping centers
And so, after having talked via social media with anyone interested in the project, opening both the Instagram profile @apiedilungolappiais the Facebook page The Appia on foot, from Rome to Brindisi, Ielardi left his home in the heart of Trastevere to leave for Brindisi. Before setting out, there were many who told me that I would be disappointed, that the ancient route could not be found, but the purpose of my journey was to try to understand if a relationship between the ancient and the contemporary was still possible, observes the I photograph. That relationship with the past, impossible to erase, he found, for example, in front of two columns with two lions at the entrance to a shopping center or on the outskirts of Genzano, in front of the classic and evocative sign of a tobacconist. After all, even the false story that still speaks to us: The beginning and the end of this adventure are two false historians: from the milestone of San Sebastiano gate in Rome, to the copy of the capital of one of the two terminal columns of the Via Appia at the port of Brindisi. But it matters little since, crossing four regions (Lazio, Campania, Basilicata And Puglia) of original and fantastic finds one after the other.
That fairytale paving
A fabulous place? I found it in Lower Lazio, between Funds And Itri, with three kilometers of paving. Dreamlike. And immersed in the Sant’Andrea valley, says the photographer, describing this passage not by chance, a bit symbolic of the meaning of travel: Mine is not a work of denunciation, nor of tourist production. simply a look at a path that should be constantly put back at the center of a discourse and for which something is needed. Which happened in those three kilometers of paving, left to light thanks to the restoration by Simone Quilici and the intervention of Parco dei Monti Aurunci and where, until a few years ago, in that same valley floor there was an illegal landfill.
Grand Tour of contemporaneity
But the start with a bang at the beginning of the Appian Way, in the stretch that goes from Rome to Frattocchie, a fraction of the Municipality of Marino, about twenty kilometers from the capital: a journey through time along a sort of open-air museum: you walk on the paving, perfect, to then arrive at a point, in Frattocchie, which I define hyperspace. End of the paving and beginning of an asphalted road that brutally interrupts the contemplation of a journey. This is where the clothes of a traveler on the Grand Tour stop to put on those of the contemporary world, says Ielardi. After all, we have already said: the path of the Regina Viarum is not Santiago, although it is much wider. Why not a path equipped and described down to the smallest detail. For, crossing more than 90 Municipalities and four regions, a national asset. At least it should be. Hard not to think as soon as you get to Santa Maria Capua Veterein Campania, and you are faced with the remains of a Roman amphitheater in the midst of decay: a Colosseum left to the neglect of time and men.
All roads lead to Brindisi
The same goes for Basilicata, a Venousthe city that gave birth to the poet Horace, or in Puglia, where the Via Appia seems to stutter or become more rural, plunging between farms and sheep tracks. As well as, walking among the remains of a Roman villa a Sinuessa, in Campania, the ancient colony founded by the Romans in 296 before Christ, one wonders where the grandeur of a great piece of ancient history has ended. Seventy kilometers before Brindisi, the end of the journey, there Taranto: I got there along the Statale 7, the Appia Nuova, and I found myself a stone’s throw fromex Ilva, the largest steel center in Europe, between red dust and industrial rather than archaeological memory. A visual screeching attenuated by the descent towards the port of Taranto: it seemed to me that I was living in an eighteenth-century view of a watercolor by the German painter Jakob Philipp Hackert. Yet another piece of recognisability of our identity: for the series: the Appia are us, explains the photographer, whose image at the end of the exhibition is a giant picture of a shopping center on the outskirts of Brindisi, with the inscription, Brundisium Via Appia and the stylized drawing of a Roman aqueduct. End of a great, little civil adventure. Walking.
April 26, 2022 (change April 26, 2022 | 00:46)
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