Italian professor defended Lima’s colonial balconies
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In 1950s Lima, Peru, Florentine professor Bruno Roselli dedicated himself to preserving the city’s colonial balconies as Lima modernized.
Roselli arrived in Lima after World War II and taught art history at San Marcos University and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. He saw the balconies, inherited from Spanish and Moorish architectural traditions, as essential to the character of the city and began rescuing pieces from demolished buildings.
Roselli used his limited income to rent a warehouse to store salvaged balcony parts, but often lost them when he couldn’t afford the rent. He relied on his university students to alert him to buildings slated for demolition, and passionately defended the structures, even those from the 19th century, believing they represented the soul of Lima’s colonial architecture. After a devastating earthquake in 1940, Lima authorities began demolishing damaged buildings, and Roselli’s efforts to save the balconies became more urgent.
Though many considered him eccentric and nicknamed him “The Madman of the Balconies,” his work inspired Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa to write a play with the same title. Roselli died in 1970, disappointed that he couldn’t save more of the balconies he loved.
