Italians Lighthouse: A Green, White And Red Beacon On Gianicolo Hill
The Italians lighthouse was erected in 1911: it was donated to Rome by some Italian expats to Argentina in order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the “Unity of Italy” (1861), the architect was Manfredo Manfredi and its style is “neoclassical” as the Vittoriano monument in Venezia square.
The lighthouse beacon has the three colours of the Italian flag: green, white and red; at first the lighthouse was permanently on, nowadays on special occasion only.
The balcony the lighthouse is erected on, used to have a special history in Rome in the 20th century, as it was used by mothers and wives, fathers, children and brothers as a parlour.
Down below it, less than 350 feet away, stands what used to be the most important jail of Rome until the 60s: “Regina Coeli” jailhouse.
So, imagine those people shouting short messages as: “the baby is born!”, “uncle Antonio died!”, and so on…
That balcony was in fact used by prisoners’ families to communicate with their loved ones, if not directly, at least by using the typical word of mouth of prisons.
The practice, although prohibited, was tolerated by law enforcement agents, provided it was not used for trivial reasons, but only for important communications (births, deaths, marriages, separations).
During the fascist regime these “transmissions” were used by the resistance to communicate with political prisoners, detained in “Regina Coeli” jailhouse.
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