The name of the area, Pigneto, is due to the presence of a long row of pine trees, planted by the noble Caballini family and placed along the wall of the eighteenth-century Villa Serventi, while the main street of the district is the homonymous via del Pigneto, which runs zigzagging from a few hundred meters outside Porta Maggiore.
The old SNIA factory holds some turbulent history, risen on the ashes of an old factory established in the 1920s, one of the first big factories in Italy. An invasive construction policy in the surrounding area, led to an unexpected flood in 1992, and to the formation of a lake.
Recently, the people managing the occupied ex-factory have joined the locals to defend the lake Lago Ex-Snia and the surrounding area that has become a public park. The structure is covered in beautiful graffiti that you should check out.

Perfect place for Italian street activist Blu, one of the world’s “most famed, elusive, and renegade muralists,” who has “returned the art form to its social conscious and political roots.
He portrays a multitude of the oppressed. Men crushed and trampled, from battered shoeshine boys. From a submissive and conformist population. Every so often, however, someone comes out, manages to escape and runs towards freedom.  A theme fully connected with a Europe characterized by an increasingly precarious labor market.