The Leader's retreat

Villa Adriana, Tivoli: the so called Maritime Theater, one of the most interesting building of the old roman Emperor'd Villa. It is reportedly the place where this philosopher Empire Leader used to retreat himeself apart from the crowd that used to follow him till to this complex that he built with the aim to spend some time away from Rome. This small "island", indeed, was connected by a removable bridge that his servants used to lift where he entered it.

Unfortunately, I cannot afford to have my own island were to easily ... isolate (sorry for the pun) myself from the ordinary things. When I need to unplug I rely on my ability to stretch my wake time over human sustainable limits, on the time "wasted" while commuting to work or traveling across Europe and, not to forget, on my family patience. Photography is one of my other "islands", riding my bike is yet another one. I spent two hours under heavy freezing rain, today, just to switch myself off for a while and regenerate some kind of batteries. I wonder if this is all worth.

The rest of the heroes

The picture below is from Villa Adriana, a UNESCO World Heritage site standing close to my youth town, Tivoli. I won't spend many words, here, to describe what this nearly two thousands years old villa means to me, as well as to the whole World. If I was some kind of an enlightened mind coming from another planet, though, I would put this place in the top-ten list of the sites to visit on planet Earth before going back home. I've been lucky enough to be grown few hundreds of meters away from there and still I think I haven't seen most of the thousands things to discover, after several walks through what remains of Adrian Emperor's retreat. Yet, it's not about the artistical meaning that I'm lingering upon, now. Rather, it's some kind of analogysm that I feel between the greeks' heroes statues surrounding the Canopus and myself.

Now, I think I'd better explain what I mean with my last words above, without crossing a limit: it is something relative to my current professional status.

I've been - or simply I felt I was - some kind of a princeps, a specialist in my role as digital design team leader for a while. Five years are quite a long time in the modern professional world. After such a time frame anyone would aim to make a change, to walk out of its "comfort zone" and try something else. So I did after an even longer time: I dared to step up and apply for a manager's position, to compete with my previous promoters, to point a finger and tell what I didn't like of the previous management behaviour and ... having dared to fly, I fell.

There's nothing better that a good walk in a forgotten place to restore ourselves and make order in our thoughts. Villa Adriana is not really a forgotten place. Yet there are days when the only people walking in are closed in their own worlds and the Villa looks like being yours.

Save Villa Adriana

"We appeal to Prefect Giuseppe Pecoraro, the Extraordinary Commissioner for Refuse of the Regione Lazio, to reverse the decision to install a landfill for refuse at Corcolle-Villa Adriana-San Vittorino. This is an area of immense cultural and natural value not only for Italy but for all of humanity.To speak only of the most obvious site that requires our watchful and eternal protection, we note that Hadrian's Villa is only a short distance from the proposed landfill. This unique UNESCO World Heritage Site is visited each year by hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the world. It is unconscionable that it or its immediate surroundings should suffer degradation of the kind that the proposed landfill clearly represents.

Local authorities have already made known their willingness to find an alternative solution. The Province of Rome has announced its firm opposition. The Ministry of Cultural Property and Activities has also properly expressed its concern.

We, the undersigned archaeologists, scholars, scientists, and members of the general public from all over the world now join with an increasingly large number of Italian citizens to raise our voices in protest of the project to create a landfill at Corcolle-Villa Adriana-San Vittorino. We hope that it is not too late for reason and a decent respect for the past to prevail.

We also appeal to Corrado Clini, Italian Minister of the Environment, to announce immediately that the proposed project for a landfill at Corcolle has been once and for all abandoned; and that Hadrian's Villa will be respected and protected."

Save Villa Adriana. Sign the petition.

Thank you.