Resumen de Le mura invisibili
Massimo Malagugini, Stefano Saj
The Genoese city wall, with its more than 20 kilometres of linear development, is the most extensive systemof urban fortifications and the second largest if we also consider the Great Wall of China, which stretchesover eight thousand kilometres and crosses different cities and nations. This extension could easily exceed30 kilometres if one considered all the sections related to the seven walls that were erected to defend thecity at particular moments in its history. Subsequent extensions of the defensive rings followed the naturalexpansion of the city mainly northwards and westwards, until the construction of the so-called Mura Nuovewhich, in the first half of the 17th century, clearly delineated the limits of the city. They followed the naturalconformation of the two major ridges that descend from Monte Peralto down to the sea. Thus, sectionsof walls built in different periods were added and integrated, leading to a true ‘stratification’ of defensivestructures that today, in some parts, are hidden by later urban developments.Thanks to the work started over thirty years ago by a group of Genoese speleologists, it has been possible to‘rediscover’ some sections of the ancient fortifications that lie, forgotten, underground in the contemporarycity. These are curtain walls that were buried as a result of the great 19th century works; elements that arenow inadequate for the city’s renewed defensive needs; true ‘invisible walls’ that, for the moment, onlyshow themselves to the eyes of the speleologists who descend into the hidden belly of the city.The survey, study and systematisation of this hidden heritage, as well as its guided enjoyment, can becomean important driving force for the development and dissemination of knowledge of the underground part ofthis city that already holds the Strade Nuove and the Sistema dei Palazzi dei Rolli as Unesco heritage sites.
