Medieval Rome by the Century
400s
Restoration and Remembrance at the Basilica of San Crisogono
According to Richard Krautheimer, by 312 CE, approximately one third of the Roman population was Christian or sympathetic to the Christian cause. This is a powerful statistic that, he argues, defines the early history of the Basilica of San…
700s
Santa Maria in Ara Coeli
Santa Maria in Aracoeli is a basilica that sits at the top of the Capitoline Hill at the site where the Tiburtine Sybil was said to have announced the coming of Christ. The Mirabilia Urbis Romae, a 12th-century guidebook to Roman monuments, claims…
Trastevere's Aurelian Walls
Walking through medieval Trastevere, it is easy to forget about the classical Roman city that once flourished across the river. This neighborhood, now home to much of Rome’s nightlife and many of its most recognizably medieval buildings, was included…
San Crisogono
The church of San Crisogono, located near the Tiber River on the Via della Lungaretta, was constructed in 1123 by Cardinal John of Crema. This 12th century church rests, however, on the structure of a 4th century Christian church, the original San…
800s
The Ripa Grande and The ‘Pilgrim’s Bank’
By the time Pope Leo IV (847-855) fortified Porta Portese (Rome's southernmost gate) with three defensive towers to combat Muslim pirates, the Ripa Grande (depicted on Antonio Tempesta's map of Rome, seen above) had emerged as one of Rome's premiere…
San Clemente
The coronation procession followed a pattern: beginning in the Vatican for the consecration and the papal area to cross the river and go to city, to the archeological zone, and then to the churches. Among others, Pope Innocent III’s coronation…
900s
The Persistence of The Statue of Marcus Aurelius
The statue of Marcus Aurelius now rests on the hilltop of Piazza Campidoglio. While the original statue is inside of the Capitoline museum, a replica of the statue stands at the center of Piazza Campidoglio. The statue is the only surviving statue of…
1000s
Towers on Tiber Island
“For the better part of the Middle Ages, Rome must have had [a] hedgehog look.”
Hundreds of towers changed and dominated the skyline of Rome in the Middle Ages due to the rise to power of new Roman noble families. Towers were never originally…
Hundreds of towers changed and dominated the skyline of Rome in the Middle Ages due to the rise to power of new Roman noble families. Towers were never originally…
Santa Maria in Cappella and Its Neighborhood Around
This is a typical parish church in the densest settlement in between the river and Via della Lungaretta. It is in a prevailing style with an arcaded narthex extends along the façade, a campanile rises within it. The period of eleventh and twelfth…
Restoration and Remembrance at the Basilica of San Crisogono
According to Richard Krautheimer, by 312 CE, approximately one third of the Roman population was Christian or sympathetic to the Christian cause. This is a powerful statistic that, he argues, defines the early history of the Basilica of San…
Castel Sant'Angelo
The Castel Sant’Angelo was an important political landmark in medieval Rome. Whoever controlled it controlled the city. For instance, in the 10th century, the Crescentii used it as a garrison, which allowed them to seize and imprison two Popes-- John…
1100s
The Torre Sanguigna
The Torre Sanguigna is a medieval tower on a corner north of the Piazza Navona. Despite the large number of towers, territory markers of noble families, that once filled Rome, it is today (in Krautheimer’s words) one of the “ill-documented and few”…
Entering Christian Rome: Porta San Pancrazio
Located on the Janiculum hill overlooking Trastevere, Porta San Pancrazio has been an important entryway into Rome since antiquity. In Ancient Rome, the gate was called Porta Aurelia because it was along the Aurelian wall and allowed access to an…
San Saba: A Spiritual Outpost in the Disabitato
Established as a monastery in the 7th century by Palestinian monks who had fled Jerusalem, the current church structure of San Saba dates to the 12th century but has undergone numerous renovations and restorations throughout its history. Between the…
The Medieval San Cosimato Portico
Near the Piazza S. Cosimato, a medieval portico juts out from the sides of a nondescript building. The portico leads to the outdoor atrium of the church of San Cosimato, a part of the former Monastery of S. Cosimato. San Cosimato began as a…
Christ between Two Captives at San Tommasso in Formis: Can Crusader Captives be Saved from behind Monastic Walls?
This unique mosaic is positioned over the entrance of San Tommaso in Formis, a small church located on the Caelian Hill, a hotbed of medieval-era ecclesiastical sites. The artwork is a legacy of San Tommaso’s Trinitarian heritage. After a dream of…
The Tor Millina
When one thinks of the Middle Ages, a few images come to mind. Knights in shining armor and princesses, but also castles and towers. And in Rome, there are a great many medieval towers. Among these is the Tor Millina, situated just west of the Piazza…
In Search of Jewish Temple Relics: the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran and the Arch of Titus
During the middle ages, it was popularly believed by both Jews and Christians that relics from Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem were housed in the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran. Benjamin of Tudela, a twelfth century Jewish visitor to Rome, reports…
San Biagio to San Francesco a Ripa: Benedictine Rule to Franciscan Control
Much of the land contained within the Roman city walls remained uninhabited with little activity beyond farming for hundreds of years. Because of the dense concentration of people near the Tiber during the Middle Ages, new religious centers were…
The Tomb of Alfanus at Santa Maria in Cosmedin
The Tomb of Alfanus is located on the porch of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Attributed to a wealthy, twelfth-century noble, this tomb is one of the best examples of twelfth-century tombs in Rome. Although perhaps unremarkable to the untrained eye, John…
The Hospitallers and the Order of Santo Spirito
Guy de Montpellier, a Templar Knight from France, founded the Order of the Holy Spirit in 1170 and the hospital Saint-Esprit in 1174. The Hospitallers (also known as the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem) were a religious order that adopted a version…
The Pantheon
The legend of the Pantheon begins with a Prefect named Agrippa. He was returning to Rome after subjugating the Suevians, Saxons, and other western nations when the bell signalling rebellion in Persia started to ring. In this time at the Temple of…
Marvels of Rome: Colosseum
Benedict’s Colosseum is not the site of gory battles, martyred Christians, or blood games played for the amusement of the Roman people and the glorification of the fighters. Instead, he speaks of a grand temple to the Sun, “of marvelous beauty and…
The Dioscuri
According to Benedict, the supposed author of Mirabilia Urbis Romae, the statues are of two young men named Praxiteles and Phidias during the time of Emperor Tiberius. The Emperor respected their wisdom and kept them in his palace. One day Emperor…
Jews at the Orsini Fortress
The position of Jews in 12th century Rome was complex, and nowhere is this more apparent than in their position in processions. Their role was to present the Pope with a set of laws for his ratification at what used to be known as the Arpacata, an…
The Vatican
Following the coronation procession route of Pope Innocent III at the very end of the 12th century, the Vatican would have been the beginning. Papal coronations were used to represent their authority and power over secular rule, and there is no…
Introduction to the Disabitato
An understanding of medieval Rome is incomplete without a grasp of the massive population drain that followed the collapse of the Empire in the fifth century. At its height in the third century, Rome was home to around 1,000,000 people, yet this…
1200s
Torre dei Conti: A Family Fortress
The Torre dei Conti dominates the landscape, just as it once surpassed any other Roman tower in height and width. Named after one of the most powerful families of medieval Rome, this tower stood in the middle of a violent conflict between the Conti…
The Torre delle Milizie
The Torre delle Milizie (“Tower of the Militia”) is a large defensive tower from medieval Rome located in Trajan's Market. Constructed between the late 1100s and the early 1200s, it was developed in the 1270s under Pandolfo della Subura, creating the…
The Medieval San Cosimato Portico
Near the Piazza S. Cosimato, a medieval portico juts out from the sides of a nondescript building. The portico leads to the outdoor atrium of the church of San Cosimato, a part of the former Monastery of S. Cosimato. San Cosimato began as a…
Medieval Frescoes in the Church of San Sisto Vecchio
Along the Via Appia near the Baths of Caracalla is the Church of San Sisto Vecchio, dedicated to Pope Sixtus II. Rebuilt in the early 13th century under the order of Popes Innocent III and Honorius III, the church housed a nunnery founded by Saint…
Thinking About Race in Medieval Rome: The San Tommaso Moasaic
In 1193, Jean de Matha, a French priest, had a vision of Christ grasping two men by the arm: one white and the other black. This vision inspired him to create the Trinitarian order, whose goal it was to free Christian captives from their Muslim…
Vineyards and Towers: The history of Rome's Caffarella Valley
While the center of Rome can be hectic and claustrophobic, it only takes a short bus ride (30 minutes, to be exact) to reach the Caffarella Valley, a beautifully preserved park that maintains some characteristics of the historically romanticized…
The Last Judgement by Pietro Cavallini
The painting is currently located on the inner façade of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, right above the entrance. The Last Judgement scene was first made to occupy the entire east wall, opposite to the west apse. However, it was later covered up by…
Medieval Gardens: Cloister of SS. Quattro Coronati
The restored garden in the cloister at SS. Quattro Coronati is a beautiful, private, natural space tucked within the walls of a monastery. This type of garden would have been much more common in the Middle Ages in a variety of settings. In the late…
A Hole in the Walls: The Hospital-cum-Monastery at San Tommaso in Formis
Perched about halfway up the Caelian Hill is San Tomasso in Formis, built into the side of the Aqua Claudia. The history of the complex largely begins with John of Matha, a Provencal priest. Shortly after his ordination, he was inspired to found a…
The Monte Mario as a Portal to the City
"Monte Mario was the first overlook of the city for all travellers and pilgrims coming south along the old Via Cassia and then the Via Francigena into Rome. It was the first chance for those who had survived long and arduous journeys to finally look…
13th-Century Flood Marker
Before the embankment project of the late 19th century, flooding of the Tiber river was a fact of Roman life. Built on a natural floodplain, Rome would experienced catastrophic floods at least twice per century. Waters would engulf houses and…
The Column of Flagellation at the Basilica di Santa Prassede
Upon entering the San Zeno Chapel, located in the Basilica di Santa Prassede, a dark marble object, spotted with white, lies in a niche to the right (Figure 1). The object appears to be an oddly large chess piece, but is allegedly the column upon…
The Savelli Ruins on the Aventine Hill
During the Middle Ages there was a general movement towards habitation along the Tiber, partly because the climate allowed for less flooding of the river and partly because of a need for water due to the lack of working aqueducts. However, there is…
The Disabitato: Farms, Families, and Open Space
Throughout much of the medieval period, Rome’s population was a fraction of the one million residents it had at its peak in Classical Antiquity. With much of the medieval population clustered near the banks of the Tiber River, there lay a vast…
From Grills to Grievances: San Lorenzo in Panisperna
According to legend, San Lorenzo in Panisperna is located on the spot at which martyr St. Lawrence of Rome was grilled to death. It was constructed (by one account) at the beginning of the fourth century during the reign of Constantine. San Lorenzo’s…
A French Gothic Ciborium in an Italian Medieval City
Upon entering Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, one’s eyes are attracted to the large carved stone structure that appears to compliment the apse’s mosaic. This structure is a ciborium and is one of the well-known creations of the sculptor Arnolfo di…
Ponte Rotto
This bridge was built as Pons Aemelius in 179 B.C. As early as the 6th century, during the papacy of Gregory the Great, it formed a vital connection between the two most populated areas of Rome: Trastevere and the area between the east bank and the…
Introduction to Dominicans in Medieval Rome
On this tour we will examine how the Dominican entry into Rome began to change the religious landscape of the city and how the Order established their newfound significance by developing theological curriculum at Santa Sabina, creating new mendicant…
Santa Maria Sopra Minerva
Santa Maria Sopra Minerva was the second Dominican Basilica in Rome. In the late 13th century, the site was ceded to the Dominicans by the nuns of Santa Maria. The transfer was ratified in 1279 by Aldobrandino Cavalcanti, a Dominican and Vicar to…
The History of San Sisto Vecchio
The abbey of San Sisto was created by Innocent III and finished by Honorius III to consolidate the smaller communities of uncloistered “holy women” that were flourishing in Rome during the 13th century. After Dominic came to Rome in 1216, he lobbied…
Santa Sabina Basilica
The basilica of Santa Sabina dates from the fifth century, making it one of the oldest basilicas in Rome. Pope Honorius III donated the basilica to the Dominicans in 1220 in response to the newly recognized order’s need for a center of operations in…
Santa Sabina Convent
The park to the southwest of Santa Sabina offers a great view of the large, active Dominican convent. Disguised in a modern facade, the medieval section of the convent still stands towards the Tiber paired with a more modern extension towards the…
Franciscans in Rome: San Biagio and San Francesco a Ripa
San Francesco a Ripa, consecrated in 1601, succeeded San Biagio, which although no longer visible, is important to early Franciscan history in Rome. Founded in the 10th century by the Benedictines, Biagio functioned as a hospital and hospice for the…
San Lorenzo in Panisperna
According to legend, San Lorenzo in Panisperna is located on the spot at which the martyr St. Lawrence of Rome was grilled to death and after became a moderately successful pilgrimage church due to the presence of his relics.
Much of the medieval art…
San Silvestro in Capite
San Silvestro in Capite is a church with a rich legacy in Rome before it became the home of the Franciscans and the object of Colona patronage. A Dominican convent in the 13th century, it served as the base for rent collection for the church’s…
Santa Maria in Aracoeli
Santa Maria in Aracoeli, or “Saint Mary in the Altar of the Sky,” is an incredibly important church that remains a major cultural, civic, and religious monument to this day. Situated on the Campidoglio, the governmental center of 13th and 14th…
Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia
The Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia, or the first monumental hospital built in Rome, was established under Pope Innocent III in the early 13th century CE. The complex got its name from its location at the site of the former Schola Saxonum, which…
Exterior Walls
Medieval Roman homes often had a storefront at street level, just as this home does today. Back in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, these spaces would have been cramped, spilling out into the street in a search for space. The interior of the…
Medieval Processions: An Introduction
Religious processions were common occurrences in medieval Rome. Romans took to the streets to celebrate religious holidays and feast days, baptisms, and funerals almost weekly. The largest and grandest of the processions occurred more rarely: the…
The Salito del Grillo/Via de’ Conti: Fortifying the Arteries of the Disabitato
This rather small road, running adjacent to the Via dei Fori Imperiali linking the Capitoline and the Colosseum, is a must-see for those interested in the barons’ skirmishes that broke out periodically throughout Rome’s late medieval history. Three…
Torre dei Conti: Protecting Papal Processions
The Torre dei Conti still guards the base of the steep Salita del Grillo road, as it has since its construction in the early thirteenth century when it was built by the Conti Pope Innocent III. Some claim that he used church funds to build the tower,…
Saint Francis and the Church of San Francesco a Ripa
The Church of San Francesco a Ripa (or Ripa Grande) represents the oldest and perhaps the most significant Franciscan memory in Rome. Before the foundation of the church in 1229, there was a Benedictine monastery including a pre-existing church of…
Papal Patronage of San Cosimato
In the 1230’s, just 25 years after the foundation of the Franciscan orders, the convent of San Cosimato was formed when Pope Gregory IX gave a male Benedictine house to the Clares. The convent was one of three female Franciscan convents in Rome. The…
1300s
The Margani House and Tower
Situated near the heart of the ancient city and within the densely packed abitato, the Margani complex provides useful insights into the types of residences Roman nobles owned and controlled during the medieval period. As Richard Krautheimer tells…
Towers on Tiber Island
“For the better part of the Middle Ages, Rome must have had [a] hedgehog look.”
Hundreds of towers changed and dominated the skyline of Rome in the Middle Ages due to the rise to power of new Roman noble families. Towers were never originally…
Hundreds of towers changed and dominated the skyline of Rome in the Middle Ages due to the rise to power of new Roman noble families. Towers were never originally…
The Porto di Ripetta
The Porto di Ripetta was a small port on the Tiber. Pope Clement XI officially built the physical port in 1703, but that spot had been used as a landing for boats since ancient Roman times. Though the port was mostly a just a well-used riverbank…
Ospedale di Santo Spirito
A notable setting for Pope Innocent III’s “physical piety,” the Ospedale di Santo Spirito served many functions beyond healing the sick. The hospital also served as a hostel, an orphanage, a maternity ward, and place for fallen women to redeem their…
Santa Maria in Porta Paradisi
The Chiesa di Santa Maria in Porta Paradisi, located in the Campo Marzio district and in existence since the 9th century, was rebuilt and given its name in 1523 as part of the extension of an adjoining hospital, which in turn was part of the…
Porta San Paolo
Just northeast to the Pyramid of Gaius Cestuis, Porta San Paolo now serves as the entrance into the Museo della Via Ostiense. However, entry through the Porta San Paolo brings one to a very different setting--back in the Middle Ages. As an important…
Capo di Bove
Built upon the ancient tomb of Cecilia Metella, this massive fortress derives its name from the ox-head images that decorate its walls. In the 11th century the fortress was incorporated into a larger walled complex. In the 14th century Pope Boniface…
San Angelo in Pescheria
San Angelo in Pescheria is located just north of Tiber Island and the Theater of Marcellus and just east of the Jewish Ghetto. The church was constructed in the mid-eighth century by Pope Stephen II in one of the porches of what used to be the…
The Lex Vespasiana
The Lex Vespasiana is a bronze tablet made in 69 AD to commemorate the emperor Vespasian’s acceptance of various imperial privileges from the Senate and people of Rome. Today, the Lex Vespasiana is installed in the Capitoline Museum. In the 14th…
Santa Maria in Aracoeli
"The three bodies, covered with golden mantles were carried into Santa Maria by the friars into the chapel of Colonna. The countesses came with a multitude of women, tearing their hair to weep and mourn over the dead, over the bodies of Stefano,…
Petrarch, Cola, and the Coronation at the Campidoglio
Petrarch was an influential humanist and poet who lived and wrote contemporary to Cola di Rienzo. In 1341, probably on April 8th, Petrarch was crowned poet laureate at the Campidoglio. When he was selected for this honor, he was given his choice of…
San Sisto Frescoes
The frescoes in the San Sisto nun’s choir are divided into two parts. The first, painted in the style of Cavalini between 1295 and 1314, consist of scenes from the life of Mary, including the Presentation of the Virgin, the Presentation of Christ in…
San Giacomo degli Incurabili
The hospital of San Giacomo in Augusta was the third hospital built in Rome during the Middle Ages. According to Cardinal Pietro Colonna’s will, the initial structure of the hospital was erected in 1339 in honor of his uncle Giacomo Colonna, who had…
Azienda Ospedaliera San Giovanni Addolorata
Giovanni Colonna in 1216 raised a charitable establishment, “the hospital buildings,” to the west of the Lateran. At the tail end of the 13th century, the Colonna established the confraternity to “man the church and hospital complex of St. Peter and…
Casa Mattei
The Casa Mattei is a great example of what a medieval house would look like for a powerful noble family. While these types of families would hold many properties throughout an entire neighborhood, the norm was that the whole family would live…
Life Indoors
Exterior building materials were varied in medieval Rome, but homes were often made of wood. In a world constantly worried about the risk of fires (indeed, once one broke out, there was little to be done), living in a wooden structure required…
Case in Via della Lungaretta
The Casa in Via della Lungaretta, a medieval Roman house made of brick and other classical remnants, follows an ancient Roman vernacular style with its open front and a space for shops beneath it. In a Medieval city it would be typical for houses to…
Portico in Piazza di Trevi
The portico in Piazza di Trevi provides an example of a colonnaded portico. Such porticoes were typical of more lavish styles of housing in medieval Rome. In these porticoes, the columns and architraves are almost always spoils--ancient . As these…
Basilica of St. John Lateran
The Lateran complex is the final stop of the papal procession. The Basilica of St. John Lateran is the cathedral of Rome and mother church of the world, located on land once owned by Constantine who in 311 transferred it to the pope of his day for a…
The Via Papalis
The road most of the procession would follow along was known as the via Papalis, or the road of the Pope. The via Papalis was the main road that connected the Vatican, the papal residence and home of St. Peter’s Basilica, to the Basilica of St. John…
The Forum
Before the medieval period, the Forum was a popular stop on processions of all kinds, especially funerals. Emperors and popes would parade through the arches before reaching their final resting places. While heavily associated with a romanticized…
Cola on the Capitoline
Now Cola de Rienzi, though still somewhat fearful, gathered his courage and set out, together with the Pope’s vicar, and climbed to the Palace of the Campidoglio in the year of our Lord thirteen forty-six. He had a force of about one hundred armed…
Sant’Angelo in Pescheria
“Then he predicted his ascendancy and his reform of the government of the city in this way: on the wall of Sant’Angelo in Pescheria, a place famous throughout the world, he had a picture painted.” The Life of Cola di Rienzo I.IV, pp. 37. Pope Stephen…
Torre del Grillo
The first document to reference the tower using its current name was a 1675 peace agreement (strumento di concordia) between Girolama Ottaviani Orsini and the marchese Cosmo Del Grillo. Because there is so little documentation of the tower during the…
1400s
Palazzo Altemps
Though it is now the home of an expansive museum of art as one of the branches of the National Roman Museum, the Palazzo Altemps has a long history of noble occupation. From the time of the ancient Romans the site was one of the largest marble…
The Hospital of St. Thomas of Canterbury and Margery Kempe
In the early 15th century, the Roman building that is now the Venerable English College was the Hospital of St. Thomas of Canterbury. This particular hospital was famous for housing Margery Kempe at the beginning and end of her stay in Rome, from…
Immigrant Labor on the Via Sacra
The Via Papalis or Via Sacra is a set of streets throughout Rome that connects the Lateran Complex all the way until St. Peter's square, passing through the Castel Sant’Angelo, the Capitoline Hill, and a series of prominent marketplaces along the…
Franciscan Rome: San Cosimato
Founded in the 10th century as a Benedictine monastery, the convent of San Cosimato came into the possession of the Franciscans in 1234, when Pope Gregory IV ordered the Benedictines to give the space to the Clares, an order of Franciscan nuns. San…
Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia
The Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia, or the first monumental hospital built in Rome, was established under Pope Innocent III in the early 13th century CE. The complex got its name from its location at the site of the former Schola Saxonum, which…
The Campidoglio
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 cities major markets,…
Papal Patronage of San Cosimato
In the 1230’s, just 25 years after the foundation of the Franciscan orders, the convent of San Cosimato was formed when Pope Gregory IX gave a male Benedictine house to the Clares. The convent was one of three female Franciscan convents in Rome. The…
1500s
The Villa Medici: A Tale of Two Villas
Purchased by Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici in 1576, the Villa Medici can be understood as a tale of two villas. One is a traditional urban palace with a stoic, regimented front facade (pictured here). The other is a true garden villa demarcated by…
Ponte Sisto
Ponte Sisto connects connecting the east bank of the Tiber River to its west bank at Trastevere. The original bridge, called Pons Agrippae, Pons Antoninus, Pons Aurelianus, Pons Janiculensis, or Ponte Valentinianus, depending on the source, was an…
Vineyards and Towers: The history of Rome's Caffarella Valley
While the center of Rome can be hectic and claustrophobic, it only takes a short bus ride (30 minutes, to be exact) to reach the Caffarella Valley, a beautifully preserved park that maintains some characteristics of the historically romanticized…
Santa Maria in Porta Paradisi
The Chiesa di Santa Maria in Porta Paradisi, located in the Campo Marzio district and in existence since the 9th century, was rebuilt and given its name in 1523 as part of the extension of an adjoining hospital, which in turn was part of the…
Villa Farnesina
The Villa Farnesina is a beautiful Renaissance building near the entrance to Trastevere. Across the river from central Rome and its namesake family's main residence (the Palazzo Farnese), the contemporary museum and gallery provide an excellent…
Landscape Imaginaries at the Villa Farnesina
Today, the Villa Farnesina is known for its impressive set of frescoes. These frescoes feature imagery of astrological time-telling symbolism, ancient mythology, precious materials, and pastoral landscapes. Diane Spencer suggests that some of the…
Bramante's Tempietto
On top of the Gianicolo Hill (also known as the Janiculum) in Trastevere sits San Pietro in Monotorio, built most likely by Baccio Pontelli. Inside a small courtyard Bramante’s high renaissance architectural masterpiece, The Tempietto (1502-1510),…
The Scourge of Father Tiber: Flood Markers in Rome
Walking along the bank, the Tiber looks like a formidable river. During the flood season the current is swift — carrying branches and other debris down the river— and the water level can rise above the bike paths that are now populated by bicyclists,…
Borgo prostitutes' races
A resident in the Borgo area in 1503 would have witnessed prostitute races ending in St.Peter’s square. The participants were not limited to this certain group: interestingly, children, youth and the elderly would run nude while prostitutes would…
Palazzo Cesi
Although nothing remains of the original Palazzo Cesi and its surrounding gardens next to St. Peter’s Square, standing in the place where it would have been still gives us insight into the site’s setting in relation to the Vatican and the other…
The Fountain of Ponte Sisto
The Fountain of Ponte Sisto is currently located at Piazza Trilussa, on the west side of Ponte Sisto. According to its niche inscription, this fountain was moved to its current location for the purpose of widening the river’s opposite bank in 1898.…
Ponte Rotto
This bridge was built as Pons Aemelius in 179 B.C. As early as the 6th century, during the papacy of Gregory the Great, it formed a vital connection between the two most populated areas of Rome: Trastevere and the area between the east bank and the…
Urban Processes in the 15th Century: The Streets of Trastevere & the Banks of the Tiber
Medieval Rome’s systems of urban governance mirrored those of other medieval Italian cities but were somewhat less centralized. In the 14th century, when the papacy left Rome for Avignon, the municipal government had to grow in order to fulfill…
San Giacomo degli Incurabili
The hospital of San Giacomo in Augusta was the third hospital built in Rome during the Middle Ages. According to Cardinal Pietro Colonna’s will, the initial structure of the hospital was erected in 1339 in honor of his uncle Giacomo Colonna, who had…
Cola on the Capitoline
Now Cola de Rienzi, though still somewhat fearful, gathered his courage and set out, together with the Pope’s vicar, and climbed to the Palace of the Campidoglio in the year of our Lord thirteen forty-six. He had a force of about one hundred armed…
1600s
Franciscans in Rome: San Biagio and San Francesco a Ripa
San Francesco a Ripa, consecrated in 1601, succeeded San Biagio, which although no longer visible, is important to early Franciscan history in Rome. Founded in the 10th century by the Benedictines, Biagio functioned as a hospital and hospice for the…
1700s
Agriculture and Reuse in the Roman Forum
Splitting Rome into the disabitato and the abitato makes it seem as if there is a heavy divide between the two parts of the city (inhabited versus uninhabited). The Mantua canvas, for example, clearly shows the distinction between the green-belt of…
Not Applicable
Development of the Disabitato
Within the disabitato, antique temples, baths, villas, and shops took on new uses as the environment around them changed. At the beginning of our tour, in Parco degli Caffarella, the changes to these structures have been preserved into the present.…
Clivo di Scauri
Winding their way along the southern slopes of the Caelian Hill, the Clivo di Scauro and the Via San Stefano Rotondo follow the same route as the Clivus Scauri, a medieval (and ancient) road that connected the Palatine Hill to the neighborhood of…