Emperor Diocletian's Palace Built Anew in Florence

How History keeps rhyming

The curse of mass tourism has turned Florence into a huge amusement park where tourists can enjoy overpriced accommodations, bad food, and long lines to access crowded museums. Above, you can see the transformation of the old city theater (“Teatro Comunale”) into one more shopping center plus luxury B&B apartments. One day, though, this huge building may well be occupied by Florentine commoners in search of refuge from the collapse of the Global Empire. It will be just like when Roman peasants found refuge in the palace of Emperor Diocletian after the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Diocletian Palace, located in the town of Split, Croatia, is an ancient palace built for the Roman emperor Diocletian at the end of the third century AD. It was designed as a luxurious retirement residence for the emperor and covered an area of about 30,000 square meters.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the palace was abandoned, but the local population sought refuge within its walls during times of invasion and turmoil. Over the centuries, the palace gradually transformed into a city, with houses, shops, and churches being built within its walls. Still today, the features of the ancient palace can be seen in the layout of the modern city called “Split.” (The name may come from the Latin term “palatium,” meaning “palace.”)

We don’t know if the old Emperor Diocletian would have been happy to know that his luxurious palace would be used by commoners as their residence, but he did them a favor. In turn, we don’t know if the Medieval inhabitants of Split knew that they were living in the palace of an ancient Roman Emperor; probably not. The Emperor was buried in an expensive porphyry sarcophagus in his mausoleum inside the palace, but over the centuries, the sarcophagus was shattered, and Diocletian’s remains scattered around — maybe they are still somewhere in a basement in some house of Split. It is history marching on!

Now, the story of how the Municipal Theater in Florence may well follow a destiny similar to Diocletian’s Palace in Split.

Excerpt from Kelebeker Blog, by Miguel Martinez

Let's turn to the story of the Municipal Theater in Florence.

It is on the other side of the river, but it takes me less than a ten-minute walk to get there.

A few years ago, it looked like this, meek but elegant:

At some moment, the City of Florence, with Matteo Renzi as Mayor, sold the theater, a century and a half of history, to a bank called the Cassa e Deposito Prestiti.

That institution immediately put it up for auction, in 2014, for half its value, and it was bought by

"Ilaria Niccolai's Nikila Invest. Niccolai is the leading name in the Mall system that runs from Leccio Reggello to Fasano, in the province of Brindisi, via Sanremo."

But the Right-wing opposition discovered (and it's a good thing the opposition exists, whatever its color) that Nikila was, in turn, a partner in Party srl, of which Laura Bovoli, Matteo Renzi's mother, was a director and where the mayor's dad then had a 40 percent stake. Tiziano Renzi (Matteo Renzi’s dad) was the "marketing manager" of Nikila.

One of Nikila's partners was later arrested; and today “Nikila Invest” is in liquidation, for the glorious price of 15,000 euros.

At some point, the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti bought back the theater from Tiziano Renzi's partners and, in 2020, sold it to an investment fund, the British Blue Noble, which put the money in the Texas-based Hines, which is part of the Global thing.

Hines is headquartered in this pleasant place:

The Teatro Comunale is located in a highly protected UNESCO Area, where it is strictly forbidden to put a solar panel on the roof of my home.

As I pass by Corso Italia day by day, I see the theater being completely demolished except for the facade, which absurdly remains standing. They also demolished many buildings around it.

They dug a hole many meters deep in the center.

And then, at great speed, they build an eight-story building there.

I have to admit that there is a lot of work going on here.

In front, they re-glued the old facade of the theater for us and stuck posters explaining the mission of their speculation, which, if it sounds like a joke to you, means you are not up to date: (translated, it says “a new way of living a home in Florence for all. A new square, public areas, and pedestrian passages accessible to the community — Hines”)

This will create 156 luxury apartments for short rentals, the Teatro Luxury Apartments, with 170 parking spaces that will allow guests to drive their SUVs into the limited traffic area (ZTL).