New Approaches to Governance and Rule in Urban Europe Since 1500 by Simon Gunn Tom Hulme

Author:Simon Gunn, Tom Hulme [Simon Gunn, Tom Hulme]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781032237244
Google: AKC2zgEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Limited
Published: 2021-12-13T01:38:22+00:00

‘From the Mayor’s Hand, He Received a Rectangular Ticket With Just a Few Words on It’: Delivery of the First Homes

The first homes in the Villaggio were handed over on 4 October 1949, the feast day of St Francis of Assisi. Il Messaggero reported that 30 homeless families had moved into their new homes ‘in the Village named after the saint of solidarity, St Francis’, and that the ceremony, ‘organized on the day honouring the most saintly of Italians and the most Italian of saints, was attended by an enormous crowd’. From an altar with a portrait of St Francis, Mgr Traglia, Vice-gerent of the Vicariate of Rome, blessed the houses and their future inhabitants, underscoring ‘with lofty and noble expressions … the significance of this Village built with the contribution of the wealthy and the less well-to-do’. The history of the initiative and its expected developments were illustrated by the chairman of the Committee, Prof. Colini. Then Mayor Rebecchini spoke and, ‘to great applause’, recalled that the Municipality had ‘actively collaborated on this great work of charity’ by donating the land and overseeing the urbanisation work and utilities. Then, on a stage set up in front of the houses, with balconies bedecked with flags and flowers for the occasion, certificates assigning the dwellings were handed out: dwellings that had been ‘erected thanks to the generous gesture of the Supreme Pontiff who, by offering 50 million … ensured that other good-hearted people with a profound sense of humanity would step up with their own offers and with the value of their labour to implement the noblest work that has ever been done in the post-war period’.32

Figure 6.3 The ceremony handing over the first housing units.

Source: Comitato Romano Villaggio San Francesco, Villaggio San Francesco in Roma (Rome: Ars Graf, 1960), 64.

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