1300s Items (27 total)
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…