Celebrities fight car park on Rome's 'secret Pompeii'

SOME of the biggest names in Italian culture and politics – film director Franco Zeffirelli, pop star Adriano Celentano and centre-left opposition leader Walter Veltroni – have waded into a row about building a car park on ancient ruins in Rome.

Pincio Hill is a neoclassical terraced garden designed by Giuseppe Valadier in the early 19th century, sitting on ancient ruins that conservationists have dubbed a "secret Pompeii".

City leaders chose Pincio two years ago for a seven-storey, 726-space car park to allow the narrow streets between Piazza del Popolo and Piazza di Spagna, one of Europe's smartest shopping districts, to be pedestrianised.

In a city whose drivers American travel writer Bill Bryson said "park their cars the way I would park if I had just spilled a beaker of hydrochloric acid in my lap", the row involves a choice between their passion for cars and pride in ancient culture.

Sandro Bondi, the culture minister and a poet, has accused the centre-left of turning Rome into "a supermarket for mass tourism".