PHOTO | Unesco plaque for the portico of San Luca, waiting for the funicular

The porticoes of Bologna, a UNESCO heritage site: Mayor Lepore and Cardinal Zuppi unveiled the plaque, waiting for the funicular which is part of the tram project to arrive

BOLOGNA – Even the portico of San Luca now has its UNESCO plaque. Waiting for the restoration work to be finished, which has been going on for years now. And that the ancient cable car will also return in the near future. Speaking about it is the mayor of Bologna, Matteo Lepore, who this afternoon discovered the plaque together with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi. The portico of San Luca, explains Lepore, “will also be the subject of the redevelopment project of the stadium and the cable car project, which I remember is part of the blue line of tram, the one we are already planning and which must be financed through the next tender from the Ministry of Infrastructure, in which we will participate”.

That stretch of tram, the mayor is keen to highlight, “will connect the historic center with Casalecchio, the Unipol Arena, Casteldebole and the Barca area. And that project also includes the design of the cable car, therefore the restoration of this connection, for a valorization of the portico, of the San Luca hill and also for a different use of the accesses for cars and pedestrians”. Thanks to the cable car, Lepore claims, “we will also be able to see the upstream part again and perhaps create a beautiful pedestrian square, with car access only for residents. We’ll see about it”.
Everything still at a standstill instead, regarding the redevelopment of the stadium. “We are waiting for the definitive economic-financial plan from Bologna – explains Lepore – in these days the club is obviously busy with the team, so we will take a few more weeks to see each other again”.

In the meantime, the portico of San Luca in recent days “has been visited by over 100,000 people for Cesare Cremonini’s project – reports the mayor – and soon it will be seen by hundreds of millions of spectators thanks to the Tour de France. It’s also nice to see how the restoration work is progressing and is almost completed. I think the people of Bologna can be proud of it.” It is true, however, that the work of renovating the portico of San Luca “is also proceeding with a certain slowness – Zuppi confesses for his part – it is one of the first things that we thought about with President Bonaccini, because it was precisely necessary. It is clear that It takes time. And since it’s so long, when we finish on one side we start again on the other, because there’s always something to fix. It’s a bit like life, which always requires a lot of maintenance and this always creates some problems.”

The porticos, the archbishop continues in his thoughts, “are the corridors of the house in Bologna and must be looked after by the people of Bologna, by the various condominiums. That of San Luca is the one that most characterizes the city, the longest, the one that unites the high with the low, which allows you to enter a spiritual dimension a bit like the Camino de Santiago”. The porticoes of Bologna are a symbol of “protection – adds Zuppi – in a city that wants to protect, welcome, that does not want to lose a fundamental dimension of life which is the meeting”. The metaphor of the porticoes is used by the president of the CEI to also talk about his pilgrimage trip to the Holy Land, from Thursday 13th to Sunday 16th June. “It’s a bit like a portico that we want to unite us with the Holy Land – explains Zuppi – where there is so much suffering and there is nothing else to do but be close, show attention, make that pain our own and ask that become peace and coexistence”.