Antonio Forcellino's Quarantine Letter from Home

In a series of letters published by Artribune during Italy's COVID-19 lockdown, architect, writer, and restorer Antonio Forcellino describes his quarantine in Rome's Testaccio neighborhood. Forcellino, known for restoring Michelangelo's Moses, struggles to concentrate in his studio—a former porter's apartment—now eerily silent without the usual sounds of upholsterers, students, a tire repair shop, and the pizzeria Remo. He shares his studio with his wife, an architect, while his teenage son returned from Milan. Until churches were closed by the Vicariate, Forcellino found solace working on Raphael's frescoes at Santa Maria della Pace. He receives videos of Neapolitan friends playing music from balconies. At 6 PM, the courtyard erupted with Italy's national anthem, moving him to tears. He must finish a book for Laterza by March but struggles to focus, checking his phone for signs of life from fellow prisoners across the country. The letter ends with Eduardo De Filippo's phrase "Adda passà a nuttata" (This night must pass).