t Via Condotti, the famous shopping street leading to the Spanish Steps
When Sant’Andrea delle Fratte was built in the 1100s, this was the northernmost edge of Rome. Though the church is now firmly within the city, its name (fratte means “thickets”) recalls its original setting.
The church was completely rebuilt in the 17th century, partly by Borromini. His bell tower and dome are notable for the complex concave and convex surfaces. The bell tower is particularly fanciful, with angel caryatids, flaming torches, and exaggerated scrolls like semi-folded hearts supporting a spiky crown.
In 1842, the Virgin Mary appeared in the church to a Jewish banker, who promptly converted to Christianity and became a missionary. Inside, the chapel of the Miraculous Madonna is the first thing you notice. The church is better known, however, for the angels that Borromini’s rival, Bernini, carved for the Ponte Sant’ Angelo. Pope Clement IX declared they were too lovely to be exposed to the weather, so they remained with Bernini’s family until 1729, when they were moved to the church.
The Jesuit Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith was founded in 1622. Though Bernini had originally been commissioned to create their headquarters, Innocent X, who became pope in 1644, preferred the style of Borromini, who was asked to continue. His extraordinary west façade, completed in 1662, is striped with broad pilasters, between which the first-floor windows bend in and the central bay bulges. A rigid band divides its floors, and the cornice above the convex central bay swerves inwards. The more you look at it, the more restless it seems; a sign perhaps of the increasing unhappiness of the architect who committed suicide in 1667.
t Via Condotti, the famous shopping street leading to the Spanish Steps
Named after the conduits that carried water to the Baths of Agrippa near the Pantheon, Via Condotti is now home to the most traditional of Rome’s designer clothes shops. Stores selling shoes and other leather goods are also well represented. The street is popular for early evening strolls, when elegant Italians mingle with casually dressed tourists.
The street is home to Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Dolce e Gabbana, Bulgari, Salvatore Ferragamo, Burberry, Prada and Trussardi, among other designer boutiques.
Superbly positioned on the Pincio hill above Piazza di Spagna, this 16th-century villa has kept the name it assumed when Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici bought it in 1576. From the terrace you can look across the city to Castel Sant’Angelo, from where Queen Christina of Sweden is said to have fired the large cannon ball which now sits in the basin of the fountain. The villa’s most famous resident was Galileo, who was imprisoned here for falling foul of the Inquisition in 1630–33.
The villa is home to the French Academy, which was founded by Louis XIV in 1666 with the aim of giving a few select painters the chance to study in Rome. Nicolas Poussin was one of the first advisers to the Academy, Ingres was a director, and former students include Jean-Honoré Fragonard and François Boucher.
It is now used for concerts and exhibitions. Guided tours take in the landscaped gardens and frescoed rooms. A high-light is the Stanza degli Uccelli.
t A stained-glass window featuring English text at the All Saints church
In 1816 the pope gave English residents and visitors the right to hold Anglican services in Rome, but it was not until the early 1880s that they acquired a site to build their own church. The architect was G E Street, who is best known in Britain for his Neo-Gothic churches and the Royal Courts of Justice in London. The style of All Saints is also Victorian Neo-Gothic, and although the interior is splendidly decorated with different coloured Italian marbles, it has a very English air. Street also designed St-Paul’s-within-the-Walls in Via Nazionale, whose interior is a jewel of British Pre-Raphaelite art.
The street on which All Saints stands got its name from the Fontana del Sileno, notorious for its ugliness, and nicknamed “baboon”.
Experience Piazza di Spagna and Villa Borghese
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Eat & drink Antico Caffè Greco Founded in 1760, this café was once a meeting point for artists and intellectuals, including Keats and Byron, and it retains the feel of a refined salon. Coffee and cake here is a (pricey) treat. H3 ⌂ Via dei Condotti 86 ∑ anticocaffegreco.eu |
t The Ara Pacis monument
Reconstructed at considerable expense over the course of many years, the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) is one of the most significant monuments of ancient Rome. It celebrates the peace created throughout the Mediterranean area by Emperor Augustus following his victorious campaigns in Gaul and Spain. The monument was commissioned by the Senate in 13 BC and completed four years later. It was positioned in such a way that the shadow of the huge obelisk sundial on Campus Martius would fall upon it on Augustus’s birthday.
Forming a square enclosure on a low platform with the altar in the centre, the Ara Pacis is decorated with magnificent friezes and reliefs carved in Carrara marble. The reliefs on the north and south walls depict a procession that took place on 4 July 13 BC, in which the members of the emperor’s family can be identified, ranked by their position in the succession. At the time, the heir apparent was Marcus Agrippa, husband of Augustus’s daughter Julia. All the portraits in the relief are carved with extraordinary realism, even the innocent toddler clinging to his mother’s skirts.
t A detail of one of the many intricate reliefs
The history of the rediscovery of the Ara Pacis dates back to the 16th century, when the first panels were unearthed at nearby Via in Lucina. One of the sections ended up in Paris, while another found its way to Florence. Further discoveries were made in the late 19th century, when archaeologists finally realized just what they had found. The monument as it appears today has all been pieced together since 1938, with some parts original and other parts reproductions. The American architect Richard Meier designed a dedicated glass building to house the entire structure, which opened in 2006.
t Piazza del Popolo, with Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Santa Maria in Montesanto and the Egyptian obelisk
A vast cobbled oval standing at the apex of the triangle of roads known as the Trident, Piazza del Popolo forms a grand symmetrical ante-chamber to the heart of Rome. Twin Neo-Classical façades stand on either side of the Porta del Popolo; an Egyptian obelisk rises in the centre; and the matching domes and porticoes of Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto flank the beginning of Via del Corso.
Although it is now one of the most unified squares in Rome, Piazza del Popolo evolved gradually over the centuries. In 1589 the great town-planning pope, Sixtus V, had the obelisk erected in the centre by Domenico Fontana. Over 3,000 years old, the obelisk in Piazza del Popolo was originally brought to Rome by Augustus to adorn the Circus Maximus after the conquest of Egypt. Almost a century later Pope Alexander VII commissioned Carlo Rainaldi to build the twin Santa Marias.
In the 19th century the piazza was turned into a grandiose oval by Giuseppe Valadier, the designer of the Pincio Gardens.
In contrast to the piazza’s air of ordered rationalism, many of the events staged here were barbaric. In the 18th and 19th centuries, public executions were held. Condemned men were sometimes hammered to death by repeated blows to the temples. The last time a criminal was executed in this way was in 1826, even though the guillotine had by then been adopted as a more scientific means of execution. The riderless horse races from the piazza down Via del Corso were scarcely more humane: the performance of the runners was enhanced by feeding the horses stimulants, wrapping them in nail-studded ropes, and letting off fireworks at their heels.
To the north of the piazza, Via Flaminia, built in 220 BC to connect Rome with Italy’s Adriatic coast, enters the city at Porta del Popolo, a grand 16th- century gate built on the orders of Pope Pius IV de’ Medici. The architect, Nanni di Baccio Bigio, modelled it on a Roman triumphal arch. The outer face has statues of St Peter and St Paul on either side and a Medici coat of arms.
A century later, Pope Alexander VII commissioned Bernini to decorate the inner face to celebrate the arrival in Rome in 1655 of Queen Christina of Sweden after abdicating her throne and converting to Roman Catholicism the previous year. Lesser visitors were often delayed while customs officers rifled their luggage. The only way to speed things up was with a bribe.
The two churches at the south end of Piazza del Popolo were designed by the architect Carlo Rainaldi (1611–91), the plans were revised by Bernini and it was Carlo Fontana who eventually completed the project. To provide a focal point for the piazza, the churches had to appear symmetrical. Although the two churches appear identical at first glance, there are differences if you look carefully. The site on the left was narrower. Hence, 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 site, while keeping the sides of the supporting drums that face the piazza identical.
t The 19th-century water clock in the Pincio Gardens
The Pincio Gardens lie above Piazza del Popolo on a hillside that has been so skilfully terraced and richly planted with trees that, from below, the zig-zagging road climbing to the gardens is virtually invisible. In ancient Roman times, there were magnificent gardens on the Pincio Hill. The present gardens were designed in the early 19th century by Giuseppe Valadier (who also redesigned the Piazza del Popolo). The broad avenues, lined with umbrella pines, palm trees and evergreen oaks soon became a fashionable place to stroll, and even in the 20th century such diverse characters as Gandhi and Mussolini, Richard Strauss and King Farouk of Egypt patronized the Casina Valadier, an exclusive café and restaurant in the grounds.
From the Pincio’s main square, Piazzale Napoleone I, the panoramic views of Rome stretch from the Monte Mario to the Janiculum.
One of the most striking features of the park itself is an Egyptian-style obelisk which Emperor Hadrian erected on the tomb of his favourite, the male slave Antinous. After the slave’s premature death (according to some accounts he died saving the emperor’s life), Hadrian deified him.
Marble busts of many historical Italian and other European figures line the paths of the gardens.
The 19th-century water clock on Via dell’Orologio was designed by a Dominican monk. It was displayed at the Paris Exhibition of 1889.
This church belonged to the Lombard community in Rome, and is dedicated to two canonized bishops of Milan, Lombardy’s capital. In 1471 Pope Sixtus IV gave the Lombards a church, and they dedicated it to Sant’ Ambrogio, who died in 397. Then in 1610, when Carlo Borromeo was canonized, the church was rebuilt in his honour. Most of the work on the new church was carried out by father and son Onorio and Martino Longhi, but the fine dome is by Pietro da Cortona. The altarpiece by Carlo Maratta (1625–1713) is the Gloria dei Santi Ambrogio e Carlo. An ambulatory leads behind the altar to a chapel housing the heart of San Carlo, which is held in a richly decorated reliquary.
great view
Approach the Pincio Gardens from the grounds of Villa Borghese above the Pincio, or along Viale della Trinità dei Monti. The panoramic views of Rome are particularly beautiful at sunset.
Only the brick core, which is overgrown with plants, is left today of what was once the most prestigious burial place in Rome. It is currently being restored after many years of neglect. Augustus had the mausoleum built in 28 BC, the year he became sole ruler, as a tomb for himself and his descendants. The circular building was 87 m (285 ft) in diameter.
Inside were four concentric passageways linked by corridors where the urns containing the ashes of the Imperial family were placed. The first to be buried here was Augustus’s favourite nephew, Marcellus, who had married Julia, the emperor’s daughter. He died in 23 BC, possibly poisoned by Augustus’s second wife Livia, who felt that her son, Tiberius, would make a more reliable emperor. When Augustus died in AD 14, his ashes were placed in the mausoleum, Tiberius duly became emperor, and dynastic poisonings continued to fill the family vault with urns. This sinister monument was later used as a medieval fortress, a vineyard, a private garden, and even, in the 18th century, as an auditorium and theatre. It can now only be admired from the outside, but after restoration is complete (estimated by spring 2019) it will open to the public.
t The elegant Neo-Classical church of San Rocco, with a façade by Giuseppe Valadier
This church, with a restrained Neo-Classical façade by Giuseppe Valadier, the designer of Piazza del Popolo, began life as the chapel of a 16th-century hospital with beds for 50 men – San Rocco was a healer of the plague-stricken. A maternity wing was added for the wives of Tiber bargees to save them from having to give birth in the insanitary conditions of a boat. The hospital came to be used by unmarried mothers, and one section was set aside for women who wished to be unknown. They were even permitted to wear a veil for the duration of their stay. Unwanted children were sent to an orphanage, and if any mothers or children died they were buried in anonymous graves. The hospital was abandoned in the early 20th century, and demolished in the 1930s during the excavation of the Mausoleum of Augustus.
The church sacristy contains an interesting Baroque altarpiece (c.1660) by Il Baciccia, the artist who decorated the ceiling of the Gesù.
The German poet, dramatist and novelist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) lived in this house from 1786 until 1788 and worked on a journal that eventually formed part of his travel book The Italian Journey. Rome’s noisy street life irritated him, especially during Carnival time. He was a little perturbed by the number of murders in his neighbourhood, but Rome energized him and his book became one of the most influential ever written about Italy.