'Via Nazionale becomes Via della Costituzione', controversy in Rome

There is controversy in Rome after the proposal to change the name of Via Nazionale to Via della Costituzione. The idea is contained in a motion filed by the councilors of Roma Futura, Giovanni Caudo and Tiziana Biolghini, and could be a topic of discussion in the next session of the Capitoline Assembly already scheduled. "In Rome - we read in the document proposed by the representatives of the majority that supports Mayor Gualtieri - there is currently no square or street of the Italian Constitution, while there are plenty of streets dedicated to kings, popes and battles and no toponymic initiative in this sense has ever been thought of". The initiative is destined to cause discussion because Via Nazionale was built starting in 1873 to connect Termini station to the center of the city and has become a fundamental road artery of the Capital. "The name of Via Nazionale must not be touched by the ideological fury of the left", thunders the vice president of the Chamber of Deputies Fabio Rampelli of Fratelli d'Italia. "The road was built when Rome was not yet part of the Kingdom of Italy by Monsignor Merode. When Rome was annexed, it was renamed Via Nazionale precisely to honor the heroes of the Risorgimento epic and to remind posterity of the sacrifice made for the Unification of Italy. It is no coincidence that the noble road thus named descends towards Piazza Venezia and rejoins the monument to the Unknown Soldier. Do they want to dismantle that too? The left continues to want to erase the history of our country, blinded as it is by fasciophobia even when the twenty-year period has nothing to do with it". "I recommend doing this operation on Via Palmiro Togliatti, a dual carriageway on the outskirts of Rome named after someone who declared he was ashamed of being an Italian citizen and who much preferred being a Soviet citizen. Via Nazionale should not be touched - he concludes - if anything, the issue is how to revitalize it, after the green and red administrations have deserted it".