Piazza di Spagna & Trevi Fountain
Since the 18th century, this area, with popular sights such as the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain as well as numerous lesser-known churches and piazzas, has been a favourite with visitors from all over the world. Families can alternate sightseeing with visits to the Pincio Gardens and Villa Borghese. The area also offers plenty of good opportunities for window-shopping and people-watching.
Spouting lions on the Fontana dell’Obelisko in Piazza del Popolo, with Santa Maria in Montesanto church and Via del Corso beyond
Highlights
Piazza di Spagna
Watch passers-by while sitting on the magnificent Spanish Steps in the Piazza di Spagna, one of the most famous piazzas in Rome (see Piazza di Spagna).
Santa Maria del Popolo
Marvel at works by Bernini, Caravaggio and Raphael, and hunt for skeletons in this art-packed church (see Santa Maria del Popolo).
Pincio Gardens
Hire roller skates, a go-kart, bicycle or electric car and have fun riding around the Pincio Gardens.
Trevi Fountain
Help the poor and guarantee a return to Rome by throwing a coin into this majestic fountain (see Trevi Fountain).
Time Elevator
Let kids see, hear, smell and feel history nibbling at their toes at the Time Elevator.
Palazzo Barberini
Visit the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica to see Raphael’s famous La Fornarina, then gaze up at the spectacular illusionistic ceiling of the palazzo’s Grande Salone.
The Best of Piazza di Spagna & Trevi Fountain
Families relaxing in the idyllic grounds of the Pincio Gardens in spring
The Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain make the most immediate impact in this area, but there are many other attractions to seek out such as the Quirinal Hill, home to several ingenious churches as well as the Italian president, and the Time Elevator, where children can enjoy a 5D trip through the history of Rome. This wealthy area teems with elegant people, but many of its attractions are free.
A taste of la dolce vita
Window-shopping in the designer boutiques along the streets around Piazza di Spagna – most famously Via Condotti and Via del Babuino – will doubtless appeal to fashionable teenagers, although they will be able to buy more for their money in the mainstream shops that line Via del Corso. Those seeking a lesson in elegance and élan might want to take a seat in one of the cafés on Via Condotti and check out the clothes, manicured nails and make-up of passers-by. Or, head to the cafés of Piazza del Popolo, also popular with the idle rich. To simply watch people enjoying themselves, head to the Pincio Gardens – a favourite with Roman families for a stroll at weekends or on summer evenings.
Ecclesiastical treasure hunt
The churches here house some of the area’s great treasures. Step into Santa Maria del Popolo and see Caravaggio’s ground-breaking paintings: The Crucifixion of St Peter and The Conversion of St Paul. Also check out the chapel with two pyramids designed by Raphael and a theatrical sculpture by Bernini, as well as more than the customary number of images of skulls and skeletons. Those in the mood for more chills and thrills could pay a visit to the catacombs below the church of Santa Maria della Concezione on Via Vittorio Veneto, which are decorated with the bones from more than 4,000 skeletons. For a change of tempo, drop into two of the city’s sophisticated Baroque churches San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane by Borromini and Sant’Andrea al Quirinale by Bernini.
Fountains and piazzas
This area has some of Rome’s most striking piazzas and fountains. There is the vast oval Piazza del Popolo, with its trick symmetrical twin churches and a lion-and-obelisk fountain; Piazza di Spagna, dominated by the famous Spanish Steps; and the huge Piazza del Quirinale, overlooked by the presidential palace and an obelisk flanked by ancient Roman statues of Castor and Pollux leading horses. Even more varied are the area’s fountains. Marvel at the Fontana della Barcaccia in Piazza di Spagna, designed by Bernini’s father, the Fontana del Tritone and Fontana delle Api on Piazza Barberini by Bernini and, most flamboyant of all, the Trevi Fountain, occupying an entire palace wall and half a piazza.
Statue of a Triton guiding a sea horse, Trevi Fountain
Party in the piazza
Plan a trip to Rome in February, during the Carnival, when the focus of attention is the Piazza del Popolo. Catch the spectacular equestrian shows, free entertainment from fire-eaters, acrobats and tightrope-walkers, and costumed parades and events for children (such as a gladiator school!). Be sure to pack fancy-dress clothes for children, and be prepared to buy them a bag of coriandoli (paper confetti) to throw over each other (and unsuspecting passers-by) so that they can join in the festivities.
< Piazza di Spagna & Trevi Fountain
Piazza di Spagna and around
Azaleas in full bloom on the Spanish Steps, with the Trinità dei Monti church in the background
Known as the Tridente, this area is defined by three streets – Via di Ripetta, Via del Corso and Via del Babuino – that cut straight through this part of the centro storico, converging at Piazza del Popolo like an arrowhead. Much of the area is pedestrianized – Via del Corso is closed to cars, but not buses, in the evenings, and there are plans to further pedestrianize the zone. The main points of interest with young children are the Spanish Steps and the Pincio Gardens. Join in the early evening passeggiata, when Romans strut their stuff on the designer shopping streets: Via Condotti, Via del Babuino and Via del Corso.
2. Keats-Shelley Memorial House
9. Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto
Bar Canova, a popular restaurant on Piazza del Popolo
1. Piazza di Spagna
Fancy-dress party on the bow-tie piazza
Fontana della Baracaccia
Overlooked by russet-, cream- and mustard-washed palazzos, the bow-tie-shaped Piazza di Spagna is one of the most famous squares in Rome. The area around the square has been popular with visitors since the days of the Grand Tour – poets Keats, Shelley and Byron, and composers Liszt and Wagner chose to live here. These days the area is known for its designer-clothes shops – an entire day can be spent here watching people walk by in all their designer finery.
Key Sights
1. Piazza di Spagna Known as the Ghetto degli Inglesi (English Ghetto) in the 18th century, Piazza di Spagna has been the meeting place for visitors to Rome for almost three hundred years.
3. Spanish Steps
5. Rampa Mignanelli Also known as the secret steps, this flight is located to the side of the Spanish Steps.
7. Colonna dell’Immacolata
8. Antico Caffè Greco
9. Via Condotti This cobbled street is the hub of the designer shopping zone.
10. Via delle Carrozze In the 18th and 19th centuries, this was where the carriages of wealthy locals and visitors would be repaired.
11. Fontana della Barcaccia Designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his father for Pope Urban VIII in 1627, this fountain shows a boat that appears to be sinking. It is decorated with bees from the pope’s coat of arms.
Left
Spanish Steps Middle Interior of Antico Caffè Greco Right Colonna dell’Immacolata
Kids’ Corner
McItaly
In 1986, McDonald’s opened its first Italian branch in the Piazza di Spagna to great furore. To fight the invasion of fast food, the Slow Food Movement was set up. Fed up with criticism from Italian slow foodies, McDonald’s launched the McItaly burger made of Italian beef and served with artichoke sauce and Asiago cheese or smoked pancetta in a rectangular, ciabatta-like bun, in 2010. The slogan “McDonald’s speaks Italian” did not convince the nation, and the burger was soon discontinued – but the outlet continues to pull in the fast-food-loving Romans.
Plotted plants
In 2008, giant plant pots were placed at strategic points on the Spanish Steps after several people attempted to copy a car chase from the British comic film The Italian Job (1969). In the film, a gang of hapless crooks attempting a gold heist drive a Mini down the steps of the Gran Madre di Dio church in Turin, northern Italy.
Beached boat
According to legend, the Fontana della Barcaccia was built after the Tiber flooded in 1598, leaving the city under 1 m (3 ft) of water, and beaching a boat in the piazza.
Forced enlistment
You might have ended up in Madrid had you walked across Piazza di Spagna in the 17th century. This was because it was Spanish territory and foreigners were in danger of being forced to enlist in the Spanish Army.
2. Keats-Shelley Memorial House
A Romantic death
A room in the Keats-Shelley Memorial House, furnished as it was when Keats lived there
In November 1820, the English poet John Keats came to stay in this dusky pink house, the Casina Rosa, on the corner of the Spanish Steps. Keats was suffering from consumption and was sent to Rome by his doctor, in the hope that the warm, dry climate would help him recover. But the ship from England was delayed by storms, and by the time Keats and his friend Joseph Severn arrived, the weather had turned cold. Keats was further weakened by a starvation diet of anchovies and a piece of bread every day, and died the following February. His death inspired poet Percy Bysshe Shelley to write the poem Mourn not for Adonais. In July 1822, Shelley himself was drowned in a boating accident. Keats, Shelley and Severn are all buried at the Protestant cemetery in Testaccio.
In 1906, the house was bought by an Anglo-American association and preserved as a memorial and library in honour of English Romantic poets. The museum is furnished as it would have been in Keats’ time and houses a collection of memorabilia associated with him and other key Romantic figures. However, all the original furniture was burned on the pope’s orders after Keats died.
Kids’ Corner
Who’s who?
Who died while on a diet of bread and anchovies?
Who killed Keats?
When he arrived in Rome, John Keats was deeply upset by a bad review in the Quarterly Review magazine. Fellow poet and friend Byron was furious with the critic and wrote the following obituary:
“Who killed John Keats?”
“I”, said the Quarterly,
So savage and tartarly,
“It was one of my feats.”
Test the legend – and your ears
It is said that Keats could hear the gentle sound of water falling into the Fontana della Barcaccia in Piazza di Spagna from his deathbed. It reminded him of lines from the 17th-century play Philaster (Love Lies a-Bleeding). This went on to inspire Keats’ epitaph: “Here lies one whose name is writ in water”. Stand as quietly as you can in the bedroom in which Keats died. Can you hear the sound of water?
3. Babington’s Tea Rooms
Tea time
Display window at the famous Babington’s Tea Rooms
It is inevitably crowded with tourists from all over the world, but few want to leave Piazza di Spagna without a taste of Babington’s. In 1893, two young Englishwomen, Anna Maria and Isabel Cargill Babington, came to Rome with £100, intending to start a business. As Rome was full of English people, they decided to set up an authentic English tea room – at that time the only place people could buy tea in Rome was from a pharmacy! It was so successful that they soon set up another branch on St Peter’s Square which is, however, no longer open. There are now three branches of Babington’s in Tokyo.
Kids’ Corner
4. Trinità dei Monti
Michelangelo’s wardrobe artist
Assumption of the Virgin, Trinità dei Monti
The best thing about the church of Trinità dei Monti is the view of Rome from the platform in front of its twin bell-towered façade. The church’s interior has two paintings by Daniele di Volterra, a pupil of Michelangelo. Volterra was given the job of painting clothes on the nude figures of The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, when Pope Pius IV objected to their nudity. This earned Volterra the nickname of “Il Braghettone” (the breeches-maker). Look out for the swirling drapery around the figures in his Descent from the Cross (1545) here. The figure on the far right in his Assumption of the Virgin (1555) is believed to be Michelangelo.
Kids’ Corner
Who’s who?
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Who had the job of dressing Michelangelo’s nudes?
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>> Answer
5. Villa Medici
A prison and a school
The imposing cream and brown building of Villa Medici on Pincio Hill
Built in 1540 and bought by the Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici in 1576, this villa was used as a prison for those who fell foul of the Inquisition. Its most famous prisoner was scientist Galileo Galilei who is remembered in an inscription on a column just beyond the villa.
The villa is now home to the Académie de France à Rome, which was founded by Louis XIV in 1666 to give a few select painters the chance to study in Rome. Nicolas Poussin was one of the first advisers to the academy and French Neo-Classical painter Ingres was a director. Alumni include eminent French painters such as Fragonard and Boucher. After 1803, when the academy moved from Palazzo Mancini on Via del Corso to the Villa Medici, musicians were also admitted; renowned French composers Berlioz and Debussy came to Rome as students of the academy.
The highlight of the villa is the Stanza degli Uccelli, a pavilion in the garden frescoed with birds, flowers, fruit and trees. The garden also features an Egyptian obelisk standing on four bronze tortoises and an unsettling group of statues, the Niobidi, laid out on the lawn. The story – a Greek myth – goes that Niobe was so proud of having 14 children that she persuaded the people of her town to stop worshipping the goddess Leto, mother of only two, and to worship her instead. As punishment Leto commanded her twin son and daughter, Apollo and Artemis, to shoot Niobe’s children with arrows.
Nowadays the villa is used for exhibitions and concerts, and the grounds and some of the interior can be visited on guided tours. The views are spectacular, stretching right over the city to St Peter’s and the Alban hills beyond.
Kids’ Corner
Point and shoot!
In the 17th century, Villa Medici narrowly escaped being destroyed by a cannonball, shot for a lark by Queen Christina of Sweden while she was visiting the Castel Sant’Angelo. The ball landed in the centre of a small fountain in front and can still be seen.
6. Ara Pacis
Imperial children
Overgrown ruins of the Mausoleum of Augustus
Constructed under Emperor Augustus, the Ara Pacis, or Altar of Peace, is one of the most significant monuments of ancient Rome. It was erected in 9 BC to celebrate the peace and prosperity Augustus had brought to the Roman Empire after his victorious campaigns in Gaul and Spain. Since 2006 it has been encased in an ultramodern building of glass and travertine designed by New York architect Richard Meier.
Carved along the sides of the altar are figures in a long procession – lictors (guards), augurs (soothsayers) and flamines (priests) – followed by Augustus and his family members, including several children. A scale model of the Ara Pacis with a key helps to identify the characters, while a huge Caesar family tree makes it easier to work out who is related to whom.
Visible from the Ara Pacis is an overgrown brick cylinder that is actually the Mausoleum of Augustus, where the emperor and his family were buried. The mausoleum is currently undergoing restoration and there are plans to re-open it – exactly 2,000 years after Augustus died in AD 14 – as part of a pedestrianized Tridente zone.
Kids’ Corner
Go figure!
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Look at the procession on the long side of the Ara Pacis. Can you guess: (a) which one is Augustus? (b) who is the man following Augustus with his toga covering his head? (c) which child is holding onto Agrippa’s toga while someone pats his head? (d) how many children can be found altogether?
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Look at the Imperial family tree and find out how many wives Augustus had.
Birth of the Ara Pacis
The first fragments of the Ara Pacis were discovered under a palazzo on Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina in the 16th century. But removing it would have destroyed the palace, so the altar was left where it was until 1937. In order to remove it without the palace above collapsing, 33 ft (10 m) of water-logged soil beneath it was frozen. The altar was then re-assembled in its present location beside the Tiber.
7. Santa Maria del Popolo
Demons and skeletons
Façade of Santa Maria del Popolo
According to legend, the church of Santa Maria del Popolo occupies the site where Emperor Nero’s nurse and girlfriend secretly buried his body after his death. They planted walnut trees over the grave, and for centuries the ravens nesting there were believed to be demons fleeing from Nero’s soul. In 1099, the pope decided to exorcise the site, dug up the walnut trees and had a chapel built. Santa Maria del Popolo replaced this chapel in the late 15th century, and over the years popes and aristocrats commissioned artists such as Raphael, Pinturicchio, Caravaggio and Bernini to paint many of the church’s excellent works.
Key Features
1. Chigi Chapel
2. The Kneeling Skeleton
3. Daniel and Habakkuk This is a dramatic two-part sculpture by Bernini, with Daniel in a niche on one side of the chapel, and Habakkuk and the angel in a niche on the other side.
4. Cerasi Chapel The chapel is famous for two canvases by Caravaggio – The Conversion of St Paul, which shows the saint sprawled on the ground under the rump of a horse, and The Crucifixion of St Peter, in which the saint looks in horror at the nail that skewers his hand.
5. Stained-glass windows
6. Apse frescoes The frescoes on the apse ceiling were painted by Pinturicchio. In the centre is the Madonna, in the circular medallions are the four Evangelists and in the four curvy lozenges are four Sibyls. The borders depict fantastic freakish beasts – bring binoculars to see them.
7. Della Rovere Chapel Look for the Adoration of the Shepherds painted by Pinturicchio in 1490. The fresco shows Mary and Joseph in front of a hut with baby Jesus lying on a little pile of hay. The shepherd in front is Cardinal della Rovere, who commissioned the paintings.
Left
Stained-glass window Middle Chigi Chapel Right The Kneeling Skeleton
Kids’ Corner
I spy a skeleton
The church is full of skeletons. Can you find…
- A skeleton in a cage?
- A skeleton kneeling down with a coat of arms?
- A skull and two crossbones made of shiny bronze?
The little painter
Pinturicchio’s real name was Bernardino del Betto, but he was nicknamed Pinturicchio (literally, “the little painter”) because he was very short. He didn’t appear to mind – he even signed some of his paintings Pinturicchio!
Caravaggio’s bones
In 2010, scientists announced that they had found the bones of Caravaggio. He died aged 39 in the seaside town of Porto Ercole, but his remains had never been found. Scientists found just one set of fragments that were the right age, gender and height for Caravaggio. When the DNA was compared with that of possible male relatives in the town of Caravaggio it was discovered that they had certain genetic combinations in common – although scientists say they can only be 85 per cent sure it is him.
8. Piazza del Popolo
Welcome to Rome…
The Egyptian obelisk in the centre of the enormous Piazza del Popolo
The huge, oval Piazza del Popolo has an Egyptian obelisk flanked by water-spouting lions in its centre and a grand stone gate where the Via Flaminia, which runs all the way to the Adriatic Sea, enters the city. The outer face of the gate was decorated by Michelangelo with stone bobbles copied from the coats of arms of the Medici Pope who commissioned it. The inner face, decorated with “Chigi” jelly moulds and stars, was created by Bernini in 1655 on the orders of Pope Alexander VI Chigi. Chigi wanted to impress Queen Christina of Sweden, who had just converted to Catholicism and was coming to live in Rome.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, hundreds of wealthy (and many famous) travellers entered Rome through the piazza gate. However, their first taste of Rome may well have been terrifying – Piazza del Popolo was a place of execution, and the English poet Lord Byron arrived in 1871 to see three criminals being beheaded. Others made their entry to witness riderless horse races down the Via del Corso, in which the horses were given spiked saddles and fed stimulants to make them run faster.
Kids’ Corner
Baggage search
Travelling light was unknown in the days of the Grand Tourists. People often travelled with hundreds of trunks. When they entered papal Rome, the luggage had to be searched – a process that could take a VERY long time!
The queen who shocked a pope
Queen Christina of Sweden was a rebel and eccentric, who became a Catholic and came to live in Rome. The pope was delighted and gave her the Palazzo Farnese to live in and a giant firework-spewing dragon was “killed” in her honour on Piazza Navona. But she shocked the pope by removing the fig leaves that had been placed for modesty on the Roman statues in her palace.
9. Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto
Twin tricks!
Located at the southern end of Piazza del Popolo are two 17th-century churches, cleverly designed by local architect Carlo Rainaldi. Thanks to him it seems that the three streets cutting down through the centro storico, known as “Il Tridente“, form a perfect triangle, when they actually do not. To give the appearance of symmetry, it was essential that the twin churches looked identical despite the fact that the site on the left was narrower. So Rainaldi gave Santa Maria dei Miracoli (on the right) a circular dome, and Santa Maria in Montesanto an oval one to squeeze it into the narrower space, while keeping the sides of the supporting drums that faced the piazza identical. Stand in the centre of the piazza, in front of the obelisk, to judge this visual trick.
Kids’ Corner
Spot the difference
Look at the twin churches of Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto on Piazza del Popolo. What difference can you spot between:
- The bell towers?
- The cupola towers on top of the domes?
- The size of the side of the supporting drums facing the piazza?
10. Pincio Gardens
Beautiful greens
Children go-karting in the Pincio Gardens
Located above Piazza del Popolo on a hillside, the Pincio Gardens have been so skilfully terraced and richly planted with trees, that from below, the zig-zagging road climbing to the gardens is almost invisible. Laid out in the early 19th century by Italian architect Giuseppe Valadier, its broad tree-lined avenues were frequented in the evenings by the wealthy of Rome, who came here to take a stroll or ride in their carriages.
One of the most striking features of the park is an Egyptian-style obelisk that Emperor Hadrian erected on the tomb of his lover, Antinous. Other attractions include a 19th-century water clock designed by a Dominican monk, which was displayed at the Paris Exhibition of 1889, and the Teatro dei Burattini, Rome’s main puppet theatre.
These days the park is still well visited, especially on weekends, and although many still stroll in their finery, carriages have been replaced by bikes, four-wheeler rickshaws, electric golf-carts, electric bikes, go-karts and roller skates – all of which are available for hire. The panorama is particularly beautiful at sunset, the ideal time to take a stroll.
Kids’ Corner
Don’t mess with Messalina
Messalina, third wife of Emperor Claudius, thought the Gardens of Lucullus on Pincio Hill were the most beautiful in Rome and had the owner condemned to death so that she could have them.
< Piazza di Spagna & Trevi Fountain
Trevi Fountain and around
The Trevi Fountain illuminated at night
The fabulous Trevi Fountain is the obvious main attraction here and can be easily reached on foot from Via del Corso and Via del Tritone. The Quirinal Hill itself has less immediate appeal, and is only worth exploring with older children interested in seeing more work by Bernini and Borromini, or the formidable art collection of the Palazzo Barberini. However, this area is easy to access – there is a metro station on Piazza Barberini, and the busy main roads cutting across the area are well served by buses.
3. Museo delle Paste Alimentari
A grotesque sculpture on the façade of Palazzo Barberini
1. Trevi Fountain
Sweet water and sea horses
A Triton and sea horse, Trevi Fountain
Built in 1762 by Italian architect Nicola Salvi in the flamboyant Rococo style, the Trevi Fountain is a creamy travertine extravaganza of rearing sea horses, conch-blowing Tritons, craggy rocks and flimsy palm trees set into the side of a palace. The fountain’s waters come from the Acqua Vergine, a Roman aqueduct built in 19 BC, and fed by springs 22 km (14 miles) from the city. Surprisingly, Trevi, the most famous fountain in Rome, is tucked away on the tiniest piazza. The narrow streets and alleyways surrounding it are glutted with gaudy souvenir shops and takeaway pizzerias that echo with the sound of gushing water.
Key Features
1. Palazzo Poli The Trevi Fountain is built into the wall of the Palazzo Poli, the central part of which was demolished to make room for the fountain.
2. Neptune
3. Tritons
4. The fountain’s pool
5. Tritons Neptune’s chariot is pulled by two sea horses – one wild, one calm – reflecting the changing moods of the sea – each led by a Triton.
6. Relief One of the reliefs on the first storey of the palazzo shows a young girl named Trivia – after whom the aqueduct was named – pointing to the spring from which the water flows.
Left
Trevi Fountain Middle Throwing coins in the pool Right Statue of Neptune
Kids’ Corner
Take a closer look…
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What is strange about the bodies of Neptune’s sea horses?
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What do the Tritons have instead of legs?
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What is Neptune’s chariot made of?
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What are the Tritons using as musical instruments?
Coins for the poor
The money thrown into the fountain is collected and funds a supermarket where the poor of Rome can get essential food for free.
Red paint artist
In 2010, controversial artist and activist Graziano Cecchini, protesting at the €15,000,000 budget for the Rome Film Festival, threw red paint into the Trevi Fountain. His other actions include releasing 500,000 coloured balls down the Spanish Steps and, in September 2011, unrolling 20 m (66 ft) of cling film outside Palazzo Chigi to create a transparent wall on which he wrote “Don’t waste time, resign”, a message to the then Prime Minister Berlusconi. See him in action at www.tinyurl.com/7ju3a6v.
Big noses
In Rome, a small drinking fountain – of which there are hundreds – is known as a nasone, or big nose!
2. Time Elevator
Relive Rome
The Time Elevator, where viewers can take a virtual trip through Roman history
A multimedia cinema that presents 3,000 years of Roman history through vivid technology, the Time Elevator is not only fun, but educational too, making it an ideal rainy day activity. The multisensory experience takes visitors on a palpable journey through time, right from the days of Rome’s foundation, through the glorious days of the ancient Roman Empire, up to the period of the Renaissance with its masterpieces of architecture and art. The high-adrenaline trip culminates in a virtual aerial flight over the Rome of today.
The flight simulator has three panoramic screens with seats on special moving platforms and individual surround-sound headsets, which bring alive events such as the legend of Romulus and Remus, the betrayal of Julius Caesar at the hands of Brutus and virtually reconstruct historical Roman monuments such as the Colosseum and the Baths of Caracalla. Special effects simulate the sensation of winds blowing, water dripping and mice nibbling at your toes!
If kids have had enough of history, look out for screenings such as Escape from Bane Manor or for those with a scientific bent of mind, An Ode to Life, a spectacular 3D film on nature.
Kids’ Corner
Twin brothers
Castor and Pollux were Leda’s sons by a mortal king and the god Zeus, respectively. Legend says they were hatched from two eggs.
3. Museo delle Paste Alimentari
Pasta perfect!
If devotion to pasta can be showcased, this museum does it effectively – from its history, to how pasta is made, the machines used to mix and dry it, and how the myriad pasta shapes came to be.
Legend says that Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy from China. This is probably untrue – it is more likely that pasta was introduced by the Arabs when they invaded Italy in the 8th century and discovered that Italy had the perfect climate for growing durum wheat, which produces the best kind of flour for making pasta. Pictures in the museum document the history of pasta eating – it was originally eaten with the fingers. Also, there was no tomato sauce as tomatoes were not brought to Italy until the 16th century.
Kids’ Corner
Pasta trivia
- On average, every Italian consumes 28 kg (62 lb) of pasta a year.
- US president Thomas Jefferson is credited with introducing pasta to America after he tried macaroni on a trip to Italy in 1787.
- The world’s longest strand of spaghetti was created by Gino Cucchi in 2003 and exhibited at a fair in Toronto. It measured 154 m (503 ft).
Yankee Doodle
Yankee Doodle went to town,
Riding on a pony;
He stuck a feather in his hat,
And called it macaroni.
Ever wondered why the American revolutionary called his feather “macaroni” in this famous song? The wealthy American dandies who went on the Grand Tour to Italy in the 18th century were known as “macaronis” for their foppish clothes.
4. Piazza del Quirinale
A presidential piazza
Piazza del Quirinale, with the Roman presidential palace to the right
Located on the Quirinal Hill, the highest of Rome’s seven hills, Piazza del Quirinale has buildings on three sides and an open fourth side, which offers splendid views of the city. The centrepiece of the piazza is a fountain spilling into an ancient basin beneath an obelisk. The massive granite basin was once a cattle trough in the Roman Forum, and the obelisk was one of a pair that originally flanked the entrance to the Mausoleum of Augustus. On either side of the fountain are ancient Roman statues of the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux – patrons of horsemanship – each with a disproportionately small horse.
Pope Gregory XIII chose this site to build a papal summer residence and the Palazzo del Quirinale, as it is known, assumed its present form in the 1730s. The huge orange building is now home to the Italian president. On the other side of the piazza, the palace’s stables, or Scuderie, have been turned into a space for temporary art exhibitions.The flamboyant palazzo between them is the Palazzo della Consulta, seat of the Corte Costituzionale, the supreme court for consitutional matters – what goes on inside may be very boring, but the façade is rather interesting.
Kids’ Corner
Justice is a façade!
On the façade of the Palazzo della Consulta, can you find…
- Stone dogs?
- Statues with scrolls instead of heads?
- A grimacing old woman with dragon wings?
- Sea shells?
5. Palazzo Barberini
House of high art
The Baroque trompe l’oeil fresco on the ceiling of the Palazzo Barberini
Home to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini holds one of the best collections of art in Rome, with paintings from the 13th to the 16th centuries including notable works by Filippo Lippi, El Greco and Caravaggio. Designed by architect Carlo Maderno, the palace was originally built in 1627 to serve as a grand palace for the family of Pope Urban VIII Barberini. Maderno died in 1629 and Bernini took over, assisted by Borromini.
The oldest pieces in the collection, on the ground floor, are icons and crucifixes – in most of them Christ appears as a symbol, stiff and triumphant, rather than as a human being. On the same floor are paintings that show how Renaissance artists began to imagine lives for biblical figures, instead of just painting them as symbols. In the Birth of John the Baptist by the Maestro dell’Incoronazione di Urbino, an elderly Elizabeth is being fed soup, wine and a tiny roast bird after giving birth. Set in a Renaissance room with a garden visible through the window is the Annunciation with Two Kneeling Donors by Filippo Lippi. The angel and Mary cast shadows, and through an open door a man and woman can be seen talking. It is almost if the Annunciation is happening in the kind of room Lippi’s patrons would have lived in. In the same exhibition room is a very peculiar Madonna and Child, also by Lippi – for some reason the baby is absolutely hideous!
The first floor has the palazzo’s most famous painting – Raphael’s La Fornarina, said to be a portrait of his mistress, a baker’s daughter from Trastevere. There is also a version of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein and three paintings by Caravaggio – one of St Francis; one of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection, and the third of Judith beheading Holofernes. Also on the same floor is the most striking of the many sumptuously decorated rooms – the Gran Salone. Its vast ceiling is covered with an illusionistic fresco by the Italian painter Pietro Da Cortona. Do not miss the fantastic sinuous oval staircase by Borromini.
Kids’ Corner
Can you find…
Lie down on the huge padded bench in the Gran Salone in Palazzo Barberini and look up at Pietro Da Cortona’s fresco. See if you can spot:
- Bees similar to the ones on the Barberini family’s coat of arms
- A figure about to fall into the room
- People sitting and standing on clouds
- Stone figures who start to seem real the longer you stare at them.
Fairy-tale palazzo
In the 19th century, an American sculptor called William Westmore Story lived in an apartment in Palazzo Barberini with his wife and children. One Christmas they had a children’s party, which featured family friend Hans Christian Andersen reading his story The Ugly Duckling, and the English poet Robert Browning reading The Pied Piper while Story played the flute and the children processed around the Gran Salone.
6. Sant’Andrea al Quirinale
A little architectural trickery
Façade of the San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane church
Designed by Bernini and known as the “Pearl of the Baroque“ because of its beautiful roseate marble interior, Sant’Andrea al Quirinale is possibly the most theatrical church in Rome. Bernini combined architecture, painting and sculpture to re-enact the martyrdom and subsequent journey to heaven of St Andrew. The church is oval in shape and set on its short axis so that the first thing that people see upon entry is the high altar niche in which sculpted angels appear to be positioning a painting of the saint being crucified on his diagonal cross. Higher up is a statue of the saint floating on a cloud, as if he has just slipped through the gap in the broken pediment behind him, on his way to heaven.
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, further along Via del Quirinale, is a tiny, enchanting church by Bernini’s bitter rival, Borromini. It has a springily curved façade, and column capitals licked by curling fronds and tongues of foliage. Inside, an octagonal courtyard leads to the oval church. Look up at the oval dome. Its coffering of crosses, hexagons and octagons get smaller as they reach the top, creating the illusion that the dome is higher than it really is. Before leaving the area, check out the four fountains that gave the church – and the street – its name. The fountains are attached to buildings at each of the four corners of the crossroads. Attached to each fountain is a reclining deity – two goddesses, probably Juno and Diana – and two river gods, the Tiber and, possibly, the Arno.
Kids’ Corner
Design demands
The design of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane was considered so revolutionary that requests poured in from as far away as India for a copy of its plans.
7. Santa Maria della Vittoria
A theatre of stone
Baroque ceiling of Santa Maria della Vittoria church
The modest-looking façade belies the lavish interiors of Santa Maria della Vittoria, one of the most elaborately decorated churches in Rome. The intimate Baroque church is lit by candles and caked with stucco, coloured marbles and gold. It contains one of Bernini’s most famous statues, the Ecstasy of St Teresa, in the Cornaro Chapel. The sculpture shows St Teresa lying on a cloud, watched by an angel who seems about to stab her. The chapel was designed to resemble a miniature theatre, complete with an audience consisting of sculptures of the benefactor, Cardinal Federico Cornaro, and his ancestors.
8. Fontana del Tritone
Thirsty bees
The dolphins in Bernini’s Fontana del Tritone
One of Bernini’s liveliest creations, the Fontana del Tritone on busy Piazza Barberini features the sea god Triton blowing a spindly column of water through a conch shell, supported by four goggle-eyed acrobatic dolphins standing on their heads. It was commissioned by Pope Urban VII Barberini shortly after the completion of his palace on the ridge above. Entwined among the dolphins’ tails are the papal keys, the papal tiara and a shield featuring chubby Barberini bees.
A more modest creation by Bernini, the Fontana delle Api is tucked away in a corner of Piazza Barberini. It features api (bees), scuttling like crabs, as if to take a sip of the water that dribbles down into the fountain basin.
Kids’ Corner
Fountain hunting
Today there are more than 60 public fountains in Rome. See how many you can find in the Quirinale area.
Worthy of being a pope’s symbol
Three bees are the symbol of the Barberini family; bees represent teamwork and industriousness. The symbol is actually the evolution of the ancient Barberini coat of arms, which featured three horseflies – what pope would want a horsefly as his symbol?
9. Via Vittorio Veneto
Life and death
Passers-by on one of Rome’s most famous streets, Via Vittorio Veneto
Lined in its upper reaches with exuberant hotels and canopied pavement cafés, Via Veneto was laid out in 1879 over a large estate sold by the Ludovisi family. In the 1960s Via Veneto was the most glamorous street in Rome, its luxury hotels and cafés patronized by film stars and plagued by paparazzi. It had a starring role in Federico Fellini’s film, La Dolce Vita (1960) – literally “the sweet life”.
At the foot of Via Veneto is the plain, unassuming church of Santa Maria della Concezione. The catacombs below the church, now a museum, belonged to the Capuchin Order, whose object was to make people confront the reality of death. They dismantled thousands of skeletons belonging to their departed brothers and used the bones to decorate the walls of the church’s labyrinthine underground chapels. Vertebrae are wired together to make sacred crowns, and clothed skeletons lie in niches constructed from pelvic bones that look like layers of sliced mushrooms. At the exit, an inscription in Latin translates as: “What you are, we used to be. What we are, you will be.”
Kids’ Corner
Spooky treasure hunt…
In the catacombs can you find:
- Bones wired together to make sacred hearts?
- Bones wired together to make crowns of thorns?
- Bones that look like sliced mushrooms?
- The skeleton of a Barberini princess who died as a child?
Hooded capuchins
Capuchin monks gave their name to cappuccino – the milky, froth-topped coffee echoes the colours of their white-hooded brown robes.