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02 September 2019The antiquity takes its revenge on modernity. The steel chimney of what was to be the future McDonald's, so sparkling as to be out of tune with the nearby Pantheon, will not take the place of the old chimney. The special superintendent of Rome Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape ad interim, Daniela Porro, in fact canceled, in self-defense, the opinion of the previous superintendent who had authorized the replacement of a chimney on the roof of a building, in Piazza della Rotonda, corner Salita De 'Crescenzi, facing the Pantheon.

After the blitz of the traffic wardens who had forced the multinational to remove the chimney, after the stop of the Historical Town Hall to the transfer of the license bought by the company, a new tile arrives on the opening of the fast food which, without the chimney, does not could open because unable to dispose of kitchen fumes.

The story of the steel chimney, which had appeared for some time on the roof of a historic building just a few meters from the Rotonda, had been at the center of controversy for weeks because on the ground floor of the building, in the rooms previously occupied by a bank, it should have to open a McDonald's. To report the appearance of the steel chimney had been a private citizen and the case had been relaunched by the press, underlining how the new chimney had an impact on the skyline of Saint Ivo alla Sapienza by Borromini.

In the document issued by the interim superintendent Daniela Porro, which follows an address of the Directorate General for Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape directed by Federica Galloni, the property of the building is asked to send, within 30 days, the documentation attesting the lawfulness of the flue.

Hard times then, at least in Rome, for McDonald's: a month ago the Mibac always intervened to cancel, in self-defense, the authorization procedure for the construction of a fast food restaurant in the archaeological area of ​​the Baths of Caracalla. Fast food was supposed to open in Via Baccelli, the road that runs along the Baths, within the 35 thousand square meters currently occupied by a historic nursery.

Meanwhile, Codacons, which expresses satisfaction with the Mibac provision, asks for "sanctions against the officials who in the first instance had authorized the flue in question without noticing the damage caused to one of the most beautiful and important areas of Rome".