Florence, Giani changes the road to the tunnel under the Arno: « No longer a tourist passage but a rediscovery project »

No longer a tunnel ready to divert hordes of tourists from the historic center of Florence to San Niccolò and the Oltrarno, but A « suggestive internal stop of a cultural project » who should have his heart In the former water factory in Oltrarnoa stone’s throw from Torrino, « where we will make a water museum ».

To announce the correction of route of the Tunnel project under the Arno (who immediately worried the residents) chesi was also clashed with gods technical limits – The parallel tunnels have a diameter of three meters e they are compatible with the passage of Massimo one person at a time – It is the governor of Tuscany Eugenio Giani, who just two summers ago launched the idea: « We will make a project voted on the cultural experience and the rediscovery of the places and the Florentine identity and no longer a passage in a tourist function », he told the Tyrrhenian.

Palazzo Vecchio seems in harmony, as shown in the approval in the Commission (with the votes of Pd, Avs-Ecolò, IV and Fdi) of the motion that commits the mayor and the junta «a consider the tunnel project within a unitary vision for the enhancement of the Arno « . The motion also indicates the need to « organize public meetings to get to know the citizenship of the project, monitor The impact that it could have on the livability of San Niccolò for tourist overcrowding and provide for direct involvement of the President of Q1 in the work tables with the bodies in charge of the realization ».

However, no reference to the museum’s proposalunderlines the councilor of SPC, Dimitrij Palagi, « of which there is not even a trace in the single programming document (DUP) or in the programmatic lines of the mayor: was Palazzo Vecchio informed? ». In short, attacks Palagi, « cannot decide one, it is public money and Florence belongs to those who have lived it, live it and live it ».

History

The passage under the Arno, over 250 meters long and placed five meters below the level of the river, was born in 1500, connecting the large underground rooms of the Torre della Zecca where the florin was coined Taking advantage of the strength of the water with the opposite bank of the Arno, near the San Niccolò door-to-current, the only remaining of its original height.

Made of bricks, wide enough to make us pass a couple of people, The tunnel was certainly used in the nineteenth century as a passage to inspect the pipes of the « water factory », As the Florentines called the first aqueduct made in San Niccolò.

Even if it was abandoned at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the system of the aqueduct entered operation, it was still passable before the Second World War and It was used by partisans to move safelywhile in the 1950s In the basement of the tower on it hosted a circle of the PCIcomplete with bar counter that still exists.

In 1956 the tunnel was closed for safety reasons And since then there has been no more maintenance and the waters have invaded it.

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