Italians being tourists in Italy
It was a warm day in April when I decided to visit the “Orange garden” in #Rome with my crew. It is a romantic and relaxing place close to Circo Massimo metro station, with a terrace from which you can admire an amazing landscape.
Sure to wander around in a not too crowded place, I went out super casual with my gym pants and a white t-shirt. Imagine my astonishment when I saw hundreds of people dressed up like "humans" and then I was there…in pajamas. After all, who could expect such a high interest for an orange grove?
LOCATION OVERVIEW
The historical background of Orange garden
I am writing about the park Savello, commonly called Orange garden, up to Aventino hill. It is one of the evocative places in Rome, realized by the skillful architect Raffaele De Vico in 1932.
The route
Starting from Circo Massimo, you walk uphill through a rose garden where you can smell the freshness of roses just blossomed and stroke their petals still wet with dew.
At the edge of the hill, you can feel the scent of the bitter oranges coming out from the gate of the park. Beyond the gate, you can admire the greatness of the S. Pietro Basilica dome from a terrace.
The interesting peculiarity is the prospective change of the panorama: the closer you are to the terrace, the smaller the dome seems; and vice versa, the further you are from the terrace, the bigger the dome seems. That is a very strange trick.
The unexpected queue
But now let’s stop talking about swot's affairs and move outside the Orange garden. Beyond the bitter orange trees, the bucolic environment, the Dome, I felt there was nothing more to see, until I stumbled upon a keyhole in a door near the park.
To my surprise, there was a line of people crowded around it. So I took myself and my pajamas to check it out. Maybe someone was giving sweets for free.
SOMETHING STRANGE
The mysterious door
I discovered two facts: the first was that someone really was giving something to eat, but not for free; and the second was that the food didn’t come out from the door.
The door belongs to the Villa del Priorato di Malta which is home to the Grand Priory in Rome of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an order of chivalry, which remains a sovereign entity. In 1765, the entrance of the Priory was renovated and finally the magical keyhole appeared.
Marketing coming from the past
I queued up at the door, thinking about what kind of reason could make all those people wait in line to peek through a keyhole.
Indeed, when I touched the limpet with my brow, I realized that waiting had really been the best value for my time, because the view was breathtaking.
The brilliance of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, who modernized the entrance of the Priory, was able to conceive such a powerful marketing weapon which attracts visitors so far. The keyhole is the lens which focuses exactly on the S. Pietro dome. It stands out mighty and clear on the horizon. The gaze is guided by two parallel tree lines which frame the dome in a celestial composition.
The winning marketing mix
In 1700, Piranesi invented a product (the keyhole) exploitable until now for free. He gifted us a unique experience, a window to the sanctity which is able to promote tourism in all the Aventino hill area.
So my dear readers, if your friends ask you to visit a certain keyhole in Rome, don’t dress up in pajamas, because there may be much more people than you expect!
WHAT DO YOU THINK
Do you believe it is possible in the modern era to replicate such a masterpiece to promote tourism in an area during the next hundreds years?
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