Colosseum closed due to snow damage

shows the sad state that Romans and Italians take towards upkeeping their national heritage monuments - I have always been struck at how poor shape many of these edifices are in.

Thanks for posting this interesting and sad state of affairs.

Rome was not built in a day but apparently it may be destroyed in a day's snowfall.

Rome surely was not built in one day, give them some time.

Italy has 44 of the 725 cultural (requiring maintenance) as opposed to natural (requiring protection but not generally maintenance) World Heritage sites or 6% of the total. Its budget is far from being 6% of the total budget of the 153 nations that have World Heritage sites.

The restoration of the Colosseum was postponed due to court cases brought by unions and interest groups. The courts have now given the go-ahead.

Weather conditions over the last two weekends in Rome and throughout Italy were extreme.

our friends who wee in Rome for the rugby this weekend tried 3 times to get into the colosseum but it was closed each time.

they had more luck with the match and had a great time.

it was the first time they had been to Rome and they are already talking about going back - despite the weather they had a terrific trip.

7000 visitors a day
x 12 Euro entrance fee

= 2.5 million Euros in receipts per month
= 30.7 million Euros in receipts annually.

Restoration cost = 25 million Euros.

I realize there is some cost to operating the facility on a daily basis but is it 2.5 million Euros per month? Wouldn't it make sense to allocate a portion of the fee receipts specifically to the restoration?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/07/17/italy-s-ancient-monuments-and-cultural-heritage-crumbling.html

The above article reveals how the cultural budget has been cut in half in the last three years, but the entrance fees surely have not.

This does not seem to be a practical approach when ones considers the revenues brought to Italy by tourists. However, Governments generally take fees like this into general revenue first and spend the money as they wish; too often on what is politically expedient. The squeaky wheel gets the grease - everywhere.

The lack of attention to these sites has been going on for much longer than the three economic crisis.

Aramis, I believe I read that entrance fees don't necessarily stay at the particular monument to be used exclusively for its maintenance and upkeep. Fees are pooled (perhaps on a city or province basis) and are allocated to support all of the monuments in that city/province. I can't even guess how many monuments benefit from the Colosseum revenue. Consider the Pantheon which charges no entrance fee and is nearly as old as the Colosseum.

as they say in Italy at many major architectural treasures "the scaffolding has been there so long that it is now considered to be a part of the facade!"

I recall a few yrs ago an Italian poster said that the scaffolding was rented from private companies
by the government? I recall he/she implied it was a kickback scheme?

A few years ago a car crashed into one of the iron gated arches at the 'Mouth of Truth' church http://rometour.org/data/church_of_santa_maria_in_cosmedin.jpg

I believe only the left half of the gate was dislodged and fell inside on the floor with a bucketful of brick and cement fragments.

So a couple of sheets of thick plywood, a couple of 8ft 2x4's, threaded steel rod and some nuts and washers. This was done by maybe 2 guys in 1.5hrs and the damaged archway was sealed tight.

Pick up the iron gate easy (1 man could do it if need be) and take it away to be repaired. Sweep up the small bit of brick and cement and you are good to go.

Or just leave the iron gate and rubble where it is and build a temporary wooden fence blocking off that section and the Mouth of Truth. Then build a small free standing billboard and put the front page of a newspaper showing photos of the accident.
I saw this 4 months *after* the accident happened!

I assume this was under the Church authority but this IMO also seems to be the mindset of government archaeological agencies.
When it breaks, don't fix it just close it off and moan about the loss.

I remember for yrs reading about how weeds growing out of the sides of the Mausoleum of Augustus were ruining the brick and mortar with their roots and the weed's expansion.
It's not like you'd need a team of highly trained archaeologists to deal with this but rather 2 blue collar gov't employees with a latter, hand clippers and a weed spray that wouldn't allow the roots to regrow that also wouldn't be harmful to the structure.
Regards, Walter

"This does not seem to be a practical approach"

Um, we are talking about the Italian government, right?