Holidays in Rome: discovering the most beautiful Street Art of the Eternal City

Rome undoubtedly is an open-air museum, but not everyone knows that, in addition to sites of historical and archaeological interest, it is also able to offer a large number of contemporary works of art. We are talking about street art, as it is currently called, an art that has conquered Rome, making it an authentic concentration of colours, shapes and designs, result of the imagination of hundreds of "writers" from all over the world. If you want to get away from the museums and sites telling about the Republican, Imperial and Medieval Rome, take a look at over 350 murals located around the city.
All the works created in the last years have been included in a large map, by a project entitled "Change perspective. The street is your new museum ". This is the slogan of the campaign inaugurated over four years ago and in continuous expansion, thanks to the commitment and dedication of the associations that contribute to it, but above all to the great influx of visitors.
The map is available in all the tourist information points (the so-called PIT) of the Italian capital and it can also be downloaded by the website www.turismoroma.it. Loving or not street art, many of the works decorating the streets of Rome deserve to be visited!

The history of street art in Rome
People visiting Rome would never expect to find so colourful murals depicting the most varied subjects. And yet, the Eternal City hosts one of the largest "street art" collections in Europe.
It is an initiative of the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Municipality of Rome, through numerous announcements with the aim of recovering and embellishing the facades of over 300 buildings in the Italian capital. Among them, there is the project dating back to 2015 entitled "Creative Rome", organized and financed by the administration and aimed at guaranteeing the possibility for many world-famous artists to create their own works, leaving an indelible mark on the streets of Rome.
The project was just one of the several pieces leading to the creation of the great virtual map of the Roman street art. The latter, as stated by numerous political personalities of the Italian capital and more, is a real gift to the Roman citizens and to all those who appreciate the city.
Not only the municipalities of the historical centre of Rome took part to the project, but also the outskirts, including San Basilio, the Quadraro, Tor Pignattara, Tor Bella Monaca, Borghesiana and Tor Marancia, breaking into the Roman artistic stage as absolute protagonists, at least as much as the historical centre and Testaccio.

The project
Rome is a city in evolution, loving changes, especially those offered by the most recent artistic trends. The Italian capital follows the other big European cities, offering the possibility to many writers to transform anonymous or abandoned buildings into authentic works of art. In this way, entire neighbourhoods open up to tourism, bringing thousands of visitors closer to a type of art that is perhaps still too little known and valued.
Thanks to street art, it is finally possible to implement a low-cost redevelopment of the suburbs and neighbourhoods most subject to degradation.
The project was born in 2015 does not end by the map and itineraries dedicated to tourists, but it has recently been enhanced by the publication of a dedicated app, named "StreetArt Rome". The application can be downloaded for free by the App Store and is available in both Italian and English: it allows to locate the nearest works on an interactive map, based on your geographical location. The app also helps to calculate the route, creating authentic tourist routes on smartphones.
The association taking care of the Artribune platform is the developer of this simple but precious software: it has been spreading and sharing contents dedicated to art for years. The app was born by the need to create a guide from scratch, filling the information hole about this increasingly appreciated art form. In Rome, before 2015, no communication tool existed describing those works, indicating their exact position. Each of the works included in the Artribune license application has been photographed and accompanied by an informative text accurately describing them, both in Italian and in English.
To complete the project, there is also a virtual mapping that shows the exact position of all the works on the Google Cultural Institute. The latter is an online platform inaugurated in 2011, to collect works from all over the world, offering direct connections with the various national and international websites relating to the artistic, monumental and museum heritage of the various cities of the world. The title of the video presenting the campaign is "Ars in Via"; it was made by Made in Tomorrow and it tells the story of street art, from its origins to the contribution it can offer to any metropolis, town or city.

Roman street art artists
Just like most of the great European and world metropolises, even Rome can finally boast a collection of murals worthy of the name. And as mentioned in the previous paragraphs, if you see these works while walking through the capital, download the app and take a look at the personalities who made them and the messages they want to convey.
The authors of Roman street art are not only foreigners: in addition to names of like Clemens Behr and MOMO, even very talented Italian artists have being taking part to the embellishment of the Italian capital. Among them, we can't miss to mention Blu, author of a large mural in the Ostiense area, able to revive a former disused military warehouse; Alice Pasquini, author of a work considered one of the most beautiful in Rome (located in the San Lorenzo district); David Diavù Vecchiato, author of a mural in the Quadraro/Porta Furba area and some really unmissable staircases; Diamond, with its elegant yet provocative stylistic touch, author of splendid works depicting women with an unmistakable and refined allure.