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The half well

A whole vera da pozzo: this is how the one in Calle dell’Aseo must have looked before the wall cut it in half
A whole vera da pozzo: this is how the one in Calle dell’Aseo must have looked before the wall cut it in half Photo: Wolfgang Moroder, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

At the end of Calle dell’Aseo, where the calle closes against an enclosure wall, there rests against the wall something that should not exist: exactly half of a vera da pozzo (a wellhead). Its profile, step and perforated mouth are cut cleanly, like a cake in half; the other half continues beyond the wall, in a private courtyard invisible from the street. If this vera now touches a wall, the reason lies in the wall itself: it came later.

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