Ricerc@Sapienza

Moving beyond traditional approaches to housing policies in the field of urban history, this chapter shows how the symbolic and ritual dimension entered into play in the establishment and development of the Villaggio San Francesco (Village of St Francis), a social housing complex built on the outskirts of Rome in the post-war period as the outcome of the collaboration between a committee composed of citizens from Rome’s upper-middle class, which had launched a public fundraising campaign to pay for the work, the Catholic Church and the Municipality.