The Campidoglio
Title
Description
The Campidoglio served multiple functions during its time as a processional landmark in medieval Rome. While it was the center of the medieval Roman government, the square and area around the Capitoline hill also held one of the city’s major markets, making it an important financial center as well as a physical landmark. Due to this, the Capitoline was a hub for major roads and thus a site for processions to pass through. The Capitoline is also home to Santa Maria in Aracoeli, which was a significant stop for processions celebrating the Assumption holiday and holidays for the Madonna.
Whether this was one of the locations at which the newly crowned pope would address the people of the city is unclear, though it is apparent that it is a location where large crowds would gather to watch the papal procession. When the market was relocated to Piazza Navona in 1477, Cardinal Sixtus IV converted the Campidoglio into a museum of Rome’s glory by emplacing historic statues there. While no longer a place of public convergence, the Campidoglio’s cultural significance maintained its status as a landmark for processions. Its location directly between Vatican City and the Lateran palace was also a key component of the Campidoglio’s importance to papal processions.
Creator
Edited by Ella Parke (2027) and Julia Tassava (2026)
Source
Bauman, Lisa Passaglia. The Rhetoric of Power: Della Rovere Palaces and Processional Routes in Late Fifteenth Century Rome. (New York, Italica Press, 2015), 73.
Favro, Diane, and Christopher Johanson. "Death in Motion: Funeral Processions in the Roman Forum." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 69, no. 1 (2010): 12-37.
Date
Identifier
Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Description
The Campidoglio served multiple functions during its time as a processional landmark in medieval Rome. While it was the center of the medieval Roman government, the square and area around the Capitoline hill also held one of the city’s major markets, making it an important financial center as well as a physical landmark. Due to this, the Capitoline was a hub for major roads and thus a site for processions to pass through. The Capitoline is also home to Santa Maria in Aracoeli, which was a significant stop for processions celebrating the Assumption holiday and holidays for the Madonna.
Whether this was one of the locations at which the newly crowned pope would address the people of the city is unclear, though it is apparent that it is a location where large crowds would gather to watch the papal procession. When the market was relocated to Piazza Navona in 1477, Cardinal Sixtus IV converted the Campidoglio into a museum of Rome’s glory by emplacing historic statues there. While no longer a place of public convergence, the Campidoglio’s cultural significance maintained its status as a landmark for processions. Its location directly between Vatican City and the Lateran palace was also a key component of the Campidoglio’s importance to papal processions.
Creator
Finn Tierney (2020)Edited by Ella Parke (2027) and Julia Tassava (2026)
Date
1477Coverage
1400sSource
Perry, Rebekah. "6 On the Road to Emmaus: Tivoli’s “Inchinata” Procession and the Evolving Allegorical Landscape of the Late Medieval City." Brill (2011), 40.Bauman, Lisa Passaglia. The Rhetoric of Power: Della Rovere Palaces and Processional Routes in Late Fifteenth Century Rome. (New York, Italica Press, 2015), 73.
Favro, Diane, and Christopher Johanson. "Death in Motion: Funeral Processions in the Roman Forum." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 69, no. 1 (2010): 12-37.