Fabrizio Bellomo on the loss of authenticity in Italian street food and architecture

Fabrizio Bellomo, a Bari-born artist and filmmaker, critiques the commodification of vernacular Italian culture in a 2019 article for Artribune. He draws parallels between the forced replacement of Ape Piaggio three-wheeled food trucks with anonymous kiosks in Florence and the transformation of rural architecture into sanitized interiors. In Bari, ordinances against street vendors reflect a broader trend of replacing authentic, grassroots practices with decorous, capital-friendly facades. Bellomo cites Pierpa', a Florence lampredotto vendor, who was forced to abandon his Ape Piaggio while Milan sees a proliferation of similar vehicles. He also points to Borgo Egnazia, a fake Puglian village built for the ultra-wealthy, as an example of neovernacular architecture that strips away the messy reality of peasant labor. Referencing Tommaso Fiore's 1920s writings on Alberobello's trulli and Alessandro Leogrande's 2015 commentary, Bellomo argues that what tourists and tour operators call 'authentic Italy' is a hollowed-out aesthetic, while the real authenticity—rooted in agricultural toil, street food, and working-class life—is suppressed. He concludes that the most authentic Italy now exists in hidden, uncomfortable places like the gang-master system in Capitanata or the industrial decay of Taranto, not in the sanitized 'Club Med' villages of the 1990s.