Intervista all'imprenditrice Claudia Cremonini (Gruppo Cremonini) - TG 09.06.2010

Exactly, let's start from the beginning. To make our viewers understand: in 1990, 1985, the group bought a palazzo that was the former Cinema Trevi. It was the 1980s, the cinema was disused, and we bought the entire building with the aim of renovating it and making it a center also for catering. For years it remained like that until the mid-1990s, when we decided to renovate it. We had to maintain the original use, which was a cinema. To do this, we presented a project with a cinema and restaurant, because our main activity is catering. However, when we placed the first crane to renovate the area, we found the walls you are seeing now, which represent imperial Rome, emerged during these works. When the first crane hit this wall, the Superintendence arrived. And at that point, for an entrepreneur—any entrepreneur, any private person—knowing there are archaeological finds underground: you either do a survey and then, with the Superintendence, know what might be found under Rome's surface—another Rome essentially—so you do surveys and then you can't do anything, or, as happened in our case, my father decided to fully finance the excavation. So all 450 square meters of archaeological area that emerged were financed by our group and brought to light a cross-section of a residential settlement from imperial Rome of the first/second century AD. There are traces of a real senatorial domus, all these findings.

Because our palazzo is located next to the Church of San Vincenzo, a church commissioned by Cardinal Mazarin, who was the uncle of Laura Martinozzi d'Este. On its facade, the numbers of Cardinal Mazarin are indicated. Moreover, our palazzo is near Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi, where Laura Martinozzi d'Este presumably lived her early years. So certainly that area was where Laura Martinozzi d'Este probably spent her youth.

Yes, exactly. We presented a book dedicated to Laura Martinozzi d'Este, the duchess who governed Este for 12 years, with Dr. Roberta Iotti and Sonia Cavicchioli. We presented it in Rome. While for us the story may be more well known—though even in Modena it's not that well known—I assure you that in Rome they were pleasantly surprised and impressed by this link between Modena and Rome.

Absolutely. It was a surprise. Thanks to the Cremonini Group, Rome too was able to retrace some moments of Modenese history, of Estense history, particularly that related—if I'm not mistaken—to the second half of the 1600s, because Martinozzi was regent duchess of Modena precisely in the second half of the 1600s.

The palazzo includes a bookstore with an attached restaurant-bar that we manage, offering brunch, newspapers, and internet point in the afternoon. It's a very usable way to read a book, use a computer, and eat something. Below, we have maintained a cinema hall named after Alberto Sordi, because when we inaugurated it, Alberto Sordi had just died. It is the official hall of the National School of Cinema, chaired by Professor Alberoni. Here they screen not commercial films but restored auteur films, so international directors and films. And then there is the archaeological area, which was the lucky cherry on top that made the palazzo complete. Our viewers can go to Rome, to this Spazio Cremonini al Trevi, and admire those ancient vestiges we saw in the video earlier. Absolutely. The site is managed by us; we were the only private company to take over management of a public site. Of course, everything under the street surface is state property, but they left us the management of the entrances.