Fontana delle Anfore returned to former market site

Rome's revamped Piazza Testaccio has been unveiled, complete with its original Fontana delle Anfore which moved a few streets away to Piazza dell'Emporio in 1935.

The restored monument – designed for Piazza Testaccio by Roman sculptor Pietro Lombardi in 1926 – was returned to its original site at the express wish of local residents and is now the centre-piece of the square.

In addition there are new cobblestones, lights and benches in the piazza which served as an open-air food market from the 1920s until summer 2012 when it was relocated to its present 5,000-sqm site near the old slaughterhouse – now the MACRO museum complex – between Via Alessandro Volta, Via Galvani, Via Ghiberti and Via Beniamino Franklin.

The new covered market has improved hygiene and modern facilities, houses around 100 traders, and has almost 300 parking spaces.

In 2011 local residents formed a group to have a say in the future design of Piazza Testaccio and to avoid having a unsatisfactory project thrust on them by the city, as it claimed happened in other areas of Rome after markets were moved.

The group opposed a proposal for underground parking at the old market which was demolished in 2012 before renovation works got underway.

Photo La Repubblica