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 built in the uninhabited farmland where there was available space. The Fraciscan church of San Francesco a Ripa– converted from a Benedictine monastery where St. Francis had stayed several times–is an example of one of these new religious centers. In the 13th century, Trastevere had yet to see a growth in its population. Within the Aurelian walls, the inhabited area (abitato) was mostly concentrated along the Tiber river bank, due to the prosperity of some river ports and the shortage of water supply inland. Located a bit inland from the port of Ripa Grande, near Trastevere’s southern-most gate of Porta Portese, the Church of San Francesco a Ripa was on the border of the abitato and the disabitato (the uninhabited part of Rome). However, the establishment of a Franciscan community at San Francesco a Ripa redefined the area around it. The Franciscans were able to use their rather isolated geographic location to their advantage. From the early 13th century onward, after Francis’s death, the Franciscan community continued to be active. The Porta Portese was commonly referred to as Porta San Francesco and Ripa Grande was nicknamed the “Pilgrim’s Bank,” after the many pilgrims who passed through.
Shaylin Nguyen (2016), Russell Li (2019), Rebecca Margolis (2021) Edited by Julia Tassava (2026)
Brentano, Robert. “The Spiritual Family.” in Rome Before Avignon, a Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. 211 – 260. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1991. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Mondadori, Francesco. “San Francesco a Ripa.” in Trastevere, Guida ai Luoghi Dove Inizio il Cristianesimo a Roma. 57 – 68. Rome: Sant’Egidio, 2015. Robbins, Deborah King. “A Case Study of Medieval Urban Process: Rome’s Trastevere (1250-1450).” Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1989. San Francesco a Ripa Grande: Shrine, Convent and Parish.“Saint Francis and Rome,” “The Monastery of San Francesco a Ripa,” and “Room of St. Francis.” Accessed May 22nd, 2017. http://en.sanfrancescoaripa.com. Udina, Cristina. "Dallo xenodocio benedittino al convento francescano,” pp. 21-88 in La fabbrica del convento. Memorie storiche, trasformazioni erecupero del complesso di San Francesco a Ripa in Trastevere, ed. P. Degni and P. L. Porzio (Rome: Donzelli, 2011). Trans. Victoria Morse, 2, June 2019.
1200s
The convent at San Cosimato has a unique history of artistic patronage during the 15th and 16th centuries. During this period, the sisters at the convent seemed to behave less like active buyers and commissioners of works of art, but more like willing receivers, happy to take whatever was offered to their community. Franciscan and papal resources helped support the church through gifts of diverse artworks which created a heterogeneous collection of works. At least two or three notable works at San Cosimato were not created for the convent, but ultimately found a resting place there by chance or happenstance. One example is the most prominently displayed work at San Cosimato: a late 13th-century panel called Madonna and Child. This depiction of the Virgin Hodegetria gesturing toward Christ was thought to be a miraculous work, painted either by Saint Luke or an angel. The Madonna and Child first hung in the Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican City, where it was adorned with gold and precious stones. A manuscript account from the 16th century tells that during the time of a pope called Leo, thieves stole the panel, pilfered the gold and stones, tied the panel to a large rock, and tossed it into the Tiber River. Legend says that the panel miraculously refused to sink, and that the Virgin appeared to Pope Leo in a dream, providing him instructions to find the missing panel. After the pope found it under the Ponte Senatorio (also known as the Ponte Rotto), it was housed in two different chapels before ultimately being placed in San Cosimato, where it is displayed on the center of the apse today. In regards to this artistic patronage at the convent, there are six major artifacts: two panel paintings, two parts of frescoes/secco works, a tomb slab, and a marble sculpted monument, describing how the stories of their paths to the convent are just as diverse as the mediums. A lack of details about commissions makes it difficult to securely assess the nature of patrons. However, it is clear that proof of female patronage only exists in one instance, and no evidence exists for the commissioners being nuns or their families -- this provides a contrast to comparable convents in Venice and Florence, for instance. It is possible that the Sack of Rome led to artistic losses that might refute these claims, but the documented works of art prove that external patrons found the nuns of San Cosimato to be deserving recipients of works of art. These nuns accepted the wide variety of works offered to them, regardless of the original reason for the creation of each piece, or whether or not the piece was suitable. It was only at the end of the sixteenth century that change began to occur, with the nuns accruing sufficient financial means to commission works of art for themselves.
Thomas Hiura (2017) Edited by Julia Tassava (2026)
Brentano, Robert. “The Spiritual Family.” in Rome Before Avignon, a Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. 211 – 260. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1991. Dalarun, Jacques. Francis of Assisi and the Feminine. New York: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2006. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Lowe, Kate. Artistic Patronage at the Clarissan Convent of San Cosimato in Trastevere, 1400-1600. 273 – 297. Rome: Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 69, 2001. Mondadori, Francesco. “San Francesco a Ripa.” in Trastevere, Guida ai Luoghi Dove Iniziò il Cristianesimo a Roma. 57 – 68. Rome: Sant’Egidio, 2015. O’Gorman, Edmund. St. Francis for Today. Trowbridge: Redwood Books, 1996. Pyrds, Darleen. “Lady Jacopa and Francis: Mysticism and the Management of Francis of Assisi’s Deathbed Story.” In Dying, Death and Mysticism: The Ecstasy of the End, edited by Thomas Cattoi and Christopher M. Moreman, 15-30. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015. Robbins, Deborah King. “A Case Study of Medieval Urban Process: Rome’s Trastevere (1250-1450).” Ph.D.diss. University of California, Berkeley, 1989. San Francesco a Ripa Grande: Shrine, Convent and Parish. “Saint Francis and Rome,” “The Monastery of San Francesco a Ripa,” “Room of St. Francis,” and “Friar Jacopa.” Accessed May 22nd, 2017. http://en.sanfrancescoaripa.com. Thomas of Celano. St. Francis of Assisi: First and Second Life of St. Francis with Selections from the Treatise on the Miracles of Blessed Francis. Translated by Placid Hermann. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1988. Weinstein, Donald & Bell, Rudolph. Saints and Society: The Two World of Western Christendom, 1000-1700. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
1400s
1500s
In the middle of the 15th century, each of the Roman Franciscan convents (San Cosimato, San Lorenzo in Panisperna, and San Silvestro in Capite) were reformed and re-staffed with nuns from Observant Clarissan convents in Perugia. They also expanded from 12 to 70 nuns between 1451 and 1521. It was common for nuns to move from convent to convent when personnel were needed. Regarding patronage and the activities within San Cosimato, the main source is a chronicle written in the late 16th century by a nun named Suor Orsola Formicini. Formicini was a chronicler and historian who looked to past chronicles in her writing. Convent chronicles were uncommon enough to be considered precious but common enough to comprise a genre of writing. From Formicini and other primary sources like papal and convent transactional records, we can get a sense of how papal patronage looked in the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1439 Pope Eugenius IV issued a bull that brought all Clarissan convents under protection of the papacy rather than episcopal jurisdiction. In 1475, Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV, a lover of art and scholarship who was known for restoring Roman buildings, took on a large project at San Cosimato. He added a new church, campanile, cortile (courtyard), and sent money to the nuns whenever they sent him figs or peaches from their property. Sixtus’ fondness for San Cosimato might have been due to his Franciscan beliefs and his interest in developing this part of Trastevere. Sixtus’ sister, Franchetta, might have also been a patron of San Cosimato, as her request to be buried there may signify. Popes after Sixtus IV also patronized San Cosimato. In 1492, right before his death, Pope Innocent VIII wanted to send two of his nieces to be educated in good manners at the convent. After Pope Innocent VIII, Pope Alexander VI created subsidies of foodstuffs for convents. His mistress, Vannozza Catanei, might have also been a patron, suggested by her inclusion in a portrait with other benefactors. In the 15th and 16th century, popes employed a patriarchal kind of patronage at San Cosimato, where they provided building works, female patrons, long term subsidy programs, and waived taxes. The popes and nuns enjoyed mutual gains– popes were able to bolster their reputations and nuns received practical help and monetary aid.
Simón Gutkin (2018) Edited by Julia Tassava (2026)
Lowe, Kate. "Artistic Patronage at the Clarissan Convent of San Cosimato in Trastevere, 1400-1600." Papers of the British School at Rome 69(2001):273 – 297.
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 site in Rome. After Pope Gregory IX handed control of the old San Biagio Hospice over to the Franciscan order, they immediately restructured and expanded the small church. By the mid-medieval period, Trastevere had been experiencing generally increasing population sizes, and because of its location near the Tiber River port, Biagio/a Ripa became a popular place for the nobility to seek burial. This connection to a variety of noble families helped bring additional prestige to the church and further cemented it as a hub of Franciscan activity in Rome. The Franciscan brothers renamed the church San Francesco a Ripa, and the hospice became a convent. While the Franciscan tradition claims that Francis’s close friend Fra Jacopa funded the renovation, recent studies indicate that the benefactor might have been the Anguillara family. This church used to be decorated with frescos depicting Saint Francis’s life by Pietro Cavallini (who also did the Last Judgement in Santa Cecilia, and Mary’s cycle in Santa Maria in Trastevere). This cycle probably served as a prototype for the frescos in the Upper Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi. Additionally, the church is home to the statue of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), which resides in a left side chapel. The current church was built in the 17th century. Many of the medieval elements are no longer visible, but the room where Saint Francis slept still exists, and so does the stone on which he lay his head. Against the wall where Francis’s bed used to be, there is a Baroque machine in which a number of Francis’s later relics revolve, with a 13th-century portrait of Saint Francis attributed to Margaritone d’Arezzo in the center. The room can be visited by request. Visitors go into the sacristy and enter a narrow corridor to their right. Before taking the stairs up to reach the room, visitors can see two relics of Saint Francis displayed in the glass window on their right-hand side. The presence of Saint Francis in Rome into the 13th century could be maintained because San Francesco a Ripa was considered geographically marginal. In the 1250s, the Franciscan brothers settled in the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria Aracoeli on Campidoglio and made it the most important Roman seat of Franciscanism. Faced with the central and prestigious position of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome, the modest complex of San Francesco a Ripa and its surrounding premises gradually lost attention. No influential patrons believed that a peripheral church located in an area lacking urban planning and one that was in poor condition deserved any investment. It is precisely because of this geographical marginalization of San Francesco a Ripa that it preserves the Franciscan integrity. Saint Francis and his lifestyle also bear ideological significance when compared to the 13th-century Roman society. The juxtaposition between the begging Franciscans and the cardinals at their luxurious dinners offered a kind of social phenomenon. Robert Brentano argues that Saint Francis’s way of life “both met a taste and threatened the security of his own time; in both these ways it heightened and extended and symbolized existing or already potential tastes and fears and tensions.” In this way, Saint Francis both answered the needs and threatened the fears of 13th-century Rome.
Russell Li (2019), Rebecca Margolis (2021), Shaylin Nguyen (2016) Edited by Julia Tassava (2026)
Brentano, Robert. “The Spiritual Family.” in Rome Before Avignon, a Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. 211 – 260. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1991. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Mondadori, Francesco. “San Francesco a Ripa.” in Trastevere, Guida ai Luoghi Dove Inizio il Cristianesimo a Roma. 57 – 68. Rome: Sant’Egidio, 2015. Robbins, Deborah King. “A Case Study of Medieval Urban Process: Rome’s Trastevere (1250-1450).” Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1989. San Francesco a Ripa Grande: Shrine, Convent and Parish. “Saint Francis and Rome,” “The Monastery of San Francesco a Ripa,” and “Room of St. Francis.” Accessed May 22nd, 2017. http://en.sanfrancescoaripa.com. Udina, Cristina. "Dallo xenodocio benedittino al convento francescano,” pp. 21-88 in La fabbrica del convento. Memorie storiche, trasformazioni erecupero del complesso di San Francesco a Ripa in Trastevere, ed. P. Degni and P. L. Porzio (Rome: Donzelli, 2011). Trans. Victoria Morse, 2, June 2019.
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, which is why he later built the Santo Spirito Hospital as a way to atone for his actions. The tower was built at the same time as the Torre delle Milizie with similar techniques and as a result, the towers looked similar. The Torre dei Conti was built in stages due to structural issues. It was remodeled and restored throughout its history, but due to earthquakes and defective supports it had partially collapsed by the 17th century. Because of this, the top parts of the tower were eventually demolished, leaving only the base that we can see today. On the base we can see black and white bands of decoration, made from basalt and limestone chips. In addition to showing the power and wealth of the family that could decorate their tower in this way, the black and white bands were also an indication that it was a Conti building, since such a design was commonly included on their buildings. Although the tower today stands alone, it was originally built as part of a typical baronial fortified complex. It also formed part of a larger fortification of the street Salita del Grillo that included two other towers, the Torre del Grillo and the Torre delle Milizie. The street formed part of the papal processional route from the Lateran to the Vatican, so these fortifications were meant to protect familial papal interests. The other major route between the Lateran and the Vatican passed through the Roman Forum that was controlled by the rival Frangipane family, so by fortifying the Salita del Grillo the Conti and the allied Annibaldi ensured a safe passage for their popes away from the interference of the Frangipane. As such, the tower not only emphasized the power and status of the Conti family, but also made claims about their right to a place among the Roman families who controlled the papacy.
Madison McBride (2016) and Elizabeth Budd (2019) Edited by Julia Tassava (2026)
Brentano, Robert. Rome Before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Hart, Vaughan and Peter Hicks, trans. Palladio’s Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. Keyvanian, Carla. Hospitals and Urbanism in Rome, 1200-1500. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
A devoted early follower of St. Francis of Assisi, Jacoba of Settesoli (Italian: Giacoma di Settesoli) was affectionately known to the Franciscan friars as Brother Jacopa (Fra Jacopa). She was an integral figure in the creation of a Roman Franciscan community shortly after Francis' death. Probably born in Trastevere around 1190, she married into the powerful Frangipani family. The Frangipani were heavily involved, both financially and militarily, in the papal disputes of the 11th and 12th centuries, giving them a tremendous amount of religious and political power and control of large landholdings before and during Jacopa’s lifetime. Jacopa met Francis in 1209 during one of his visits to Rome. Probably after hearing him preach, she helped Francis both receive lodging near the Ripa Grande at the hospice of St. Biago, where the current church of San Francesco a Ripa stands, and gain a meeting with Pope Innocent III. She also invited his followers to use her home as a meeting place. Somewhere between 1212 and 1217, Fra Jacopa was widowed, leaving her with large property holdings from her husband’s family. Her new status as a widow, some historians argue, allowed her to maintain a closer relationship with Francis without scandal. Additionally, scholar Jacques Darlun argues that her nickname “Brother Jacopa” shows an effort masculinize her, allowing for the relationship to be further normalized. Perhaps the most famous legend involving Jacopa occurred just moments before Francis’ death in 1226. According to this story, Francis told his close follower Leo to let Jacopa know of Francis's coming death. Just as Leo began to write to her, she burst through the door, arriving from Rome because the voice of God told her to come to her friend. She then bathed the stigmata on his body with her tears as he died. Darleen Pryds notes that this account of Francis’ death was disputed by many Franciscan historians because of the dangerous implications of a placing a laywomen at one of the most important scenes in the saint’s life. During the 13th century when non-cloistered lifestyles for monks, friars, and nuns rapidly gained popularity, the Church was very concerned with the intermingling of men and women, and a story about a close male-female relationship could be used as justification for interaction between the two sexes. Brother Jacopa has been compared to Mary Magdalene, who also wept besides Jesus’ deathbed, allowing for debates similar to those about the sexuality of Mary and Jesus’ relationship. While there is disagreement of the validity and details of this story, the importance of its presence in Francis’ early hagiography suggests that this Roman noblewoman played a very important part in the early days of Franciscanism. Moved by Francis’ death, Jacopa returned home, gave up the majority of her property and helped found the hospital and convent for friars at San Francesco a Ripa. Fra Jacopa lived out the remainder of her life in Assisi, choosing to be impoverished until her death. Today, her body lies in the crypt at San Francesco in Assisi, a church she was also believed to have helped fund. In San Francesco a Ripa, her portrait faces that of Francis.
Lizzy Ehren (2018) Edited by Julia Tassava (2026)
Brentano, Robert. “The Spiritual Family.” in Rome Before Avignon, a Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. 211 – 260. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1991. Dalarun, Jacques. Francis of Assisi and the Feminine. New York: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2006. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. O’Gorman, Edmund. St. Francis for Today. Trowbridge: Redwood Books, 1996. Pyrds, Darleen. “Lady Jacopa and Francis: Mysticism and the Management of Francis of Assisi’s Deathbed Story.” In Dying, Death and Mysticism: The Ecstasy of the End, edited by Thomas Cattoi and Christopher M. Moreman, 15-30. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015. Thomas of Celano. St. Francis of Assisi: First and Second Life of St. Francis with Selections from the Treatise on the Miracles of Blessed Francis. Translated by Placid Hermann. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1988. Weinstein, Donald & Bell, Rudolph. Saints and Society: The Two World of Western Christendom, 1000-1700. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Due to the lack of documentation of the tower during the Middle Ages, much of its history is less clear than some of the more famous towers in the area. Some sources attribute its construction to Gilidone Carbone, a member of the Colonna family who is also credited with building the Torre di Colonna, but recent studies have called that into question. 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. According to documents written soon after the acquisition of the tower by the Del Grillo family, the tower originally belonged to the Colonna family, then changed hands to the Conti. However, it was built using the same masonry techniques as both the Torre dei Conti and the Torre di Milizie, and was likely used by the Conti to reduce the distance that forms of communication like fire and smoke would need to travel in order to send messages between the two major Conti family towers. The Conti family kept control of the tower until the second half of the 17th century, when the Del Grillo family acquired the tower from Baldassarre of the Conti and connected it to their noble palace. The stucco decoration, which can be found at the top of the tower, reads "Ex Marchione de Grillis," which was the first inscription on the tower.
Laura Diamond (2020), edited by Sam Jackson (2027)
Keyvanian, Carla. Hospitals and Urbanism in Rome, 1200-1550. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Bernacchio, Nicoletta. "Roma. Torre del Grillo: Vicende storiche e analisi strutturale." Archeologia Medievale 23(1996): 763-775.
1300s
When the Papacy moved to Avignon in 1309, a power vacuum was created in Rome. Without the authority of the papacy, many powerful baronial families were left to war with each other over the control of territory within the city. In the midst of this state, the charismatic Cola di Rienzo created a populist regime that seized power in Rome, promising to bring justice and peace to the city. Cola desired to rebuild the ancient imperial city and place it back on the world stage as an important player. He painted a picture of Rome in disarray, a Rome in need of recreation; a recreation he was ready to undertake. Although the historical realities of the time may not be as violent and chaotic as Cola claimed, this collection of entries hopes to help the reader visualize the Rome of Cola, weaving narratives of his life and society into the present physical spaces of Rome. We aspire to guide the reader through Cola’s life chronologically using his biography as a narrative tool: from his rise to power to his gruesome demise. The biography, The Life of Cola di Rienzo, (recently discovered to have been authored by Bartolomeo di lacovo Valmontone) is a complex historical source that can illuminate life in 14th-century Rome, if used carefully. Because the work was written by a contemporary of Cola’s, the narrative offers a primary source critical to our understanding of Cola’s Rome from a point of view close to the action. This tour is meant to take you to several different physical locations important in Cola’s Life. If you decide to undertake the entire tour as we suggest, you will travel from Sant’Angelo in Pescheria to the Capitoline Hill with a stop to check out Lex Vespasiana in the Capitoline Museum before eventually ending at the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. The tour is meant to take an hour or two in its entirety but also function independently at each of the sites, so if you are only making one stop, make sure to check out the entry for the corresponding place. Before you go off on your journey to start exploring Cola’s Rome, here is some personal backstory on Cola, as told in The Life of Cola di Rienzo, to help you better understand him as a person: "Cola de Rienzi was of low birth: his father was an innkeeper named Rienzi; his mother, named Matalena, earned her living by washing clothes and carrying water.... From his youth he was nourished on the milk of eloquence: a good grammarian, an excellent speaker, and a good scholar. Lord, what a fast reader he was! He was well acquainted with Livy, Seneca, Cicero, and Valerius Maximus; he loved to describe the great deeds of Julius Caesar. Every day he would gaze at the marble engravings which lie about in Rome. He alone knew how to read the ancient inscriptions. He translated all the ancient writings; he interpreted those marble shapes perfectly. Lord! How often he would say, 'Where are those good Romans? Where is their high justice? If only I could line in such times!'” (The Life of Cola di Rienzo I.1 pg.1)
Keyvanian, Carla. Hospitals and urbanism in Rome, 1200-1500. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Wright, John, trans. The Life of Cola di Rienzo. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1975.
The Frangipane Family in the Roman Forum
The Forum, resting symbolically and physically at the heart of Rome, was a key locus of power for the medieval baronial families of Rome. In the 12th and 13th centuries, it was occupied by the Frangipane family, one of the two dominant families of Rome through the 12th century. Their base of operations was on the Palatine Hill, but they laid claim to the Forum with a series of prominent fortifications on the Via Sacra, an ancient road running through the Forum. At the western end of the Forum, a set of three Frangipane towers were built on and around the Arch of Septimus Severus. These towers were intended to exert control over both the Via Sacra and a street called the Argiletum, which formed the primary junction between the Roman Forum and the Imperial Forums. At the center of the Forum, the Frangipane built a fortified complex around the Arch of Fabianus (no longer standing today). This complex included a massive tower called the Torre dell’Inserra, a palace, and a barricade that stretched across the entire Forum, incorporating the ruins of the Regia, Temple of Caesar, and Arch of Augustus. At the east end of the Forum stood a famous Frangipane fortress named Cartularia, constructed around the Arch of Titus and S. Maria Nova. This fortress was referred to in medieval chronicles as firmissima munitione (most solid stronghold) or locus tutissimus (most protected site), suggesting its importance as a site of Frangipane power. Cartularia was adjoined to a thick, defensible wall that connected it to the Arch of Constantine and probably the Coliseum—also a Frangipane stronghold and residential center. This whole area, then, was fortified to an extent that left little doubt as to the Frangipane’s power. Military fortifications were only a part of the picture in the medieval Forum, however: The Roman cattle market was held here, and modest two-story houses belonging to craftsmen and shopkeepers under Frangipane protection would have been clustered around the family’s towers and walls. Finally, the Via Sacra was a central route for trade, pilgrimage, and papal processions, a fact which became a source of significant tension when the papacy was controlled by rival baronial families.
Keyvanian, Carla. Hospitals and Urbanism in Rome, 1200-1500. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
1100s
“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 II (714-757) oversaw the construction of the church that came to be known as Sant’Angelo in Pescheria within the ruins of the Portico of Octavia. The emperor Augustus had built the portico, a rectangular covered walkway, in 23 BCE out of the earlier Portico of Marcellus; it underwent two reconstructions in the classical period. One of its two massive gates provided a monumental entrance for the new church. The chronicler of Cola’s life writes that Cola was born along the waterfront behind San Tommaso, a church located just a stone’s throw from Sant’Angelo in Pescheria. By this time, the area within the portico was home to a bustling fish market (pescheria) that gave the church its name. The church and market would have been local sites for him, and it is certainly easy to imagine him considering the antique origins of the portico while reflecting upon the writings of its ancient contemporaries. The church and surrounding area provide the setting for two important events in the story of Cola’s rise to power. According to the chronicler, Cola commissioned an allegorical painting on the side of the church that depicted an angel lifting Rome, an aged woman, out of a fire in which many “plebeians and rulers” were being burned alive. The area surrounding the church was under the influence of the powerful Colonna family, and the work may thus have been a particularly pointed statement against them. In April of 1347, a major leader of the family, Stefano Colonna, left the city to collect grain. Seizing this moment, Cola heard mass and then gathered his forces, some 100 armed men as well as the Pope’s representative in Rome, in front of Sant’Angelo in Pescheria. "Gathering his courage,” he marched from the church up to the Capitoline Hill. It was on this hill that he would use his rhetorical gifts to rally support for his cause. You can now walk along a major thoroughfare to reach the base of the Capitoline Hill. If you choose to continue on, imagine traveling through busy streets as well as a large market on the slope of the hill – the perfect place to gather the attention of potential supporters as you head up to the Capitol.
Coerelli, Fillipo. Rome and Its Environs: An Archaeological Guide. Translated by James J. Claus and Daniel P. Harmon. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014.
Koster, Joelle Roller and Alizah Holstein. “Anger and Spectacle in Late Medieval Rome: Gauging Emotion in Urban Topography.” In Cities, Texts, and Social Networks 400-1500: Experiences and Perceptions of Medieval Roman Space, edited by Anne Lester, Caroline Goodson, and Carol Symes, 149-174. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010.
Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
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 man. A huge crowd of people gathered, and Cola mounted the platform and made an eloquent speech on the misery and servitude of the people of Rome. He said that he was exposing his person to danger for the love of the Pope and the salvation of the people of Rome. (Life of Cola di Rienzo, I.5 p. 41) For Cola di Rienzo, the Campidoglio served not only as a seat of power, but also as a connection to the ancient Rome which he sought to replicate. As the historic site of Roman government and the Palazzo Senatorio, the Capitoline hill represented both the imperial and senatorial rule of ancient Rome. Cola’s march to the hill and ensuing speech gathered the attention of the Roman citizens because of the populace’s association of this place with the glorified Roman past. Cola later restored and fortified the Palazzo di Campidoglio, further strengthening his connection to imperial lineage of ancient Rome in the minds of the 14th-century citizens of Rome. Upon reaching the top of the stairs of the Capitoline Hill, the modern visitor will witness Michelangelo’s Piazza del Campidoglio, which was built during the 16th century. The complex includes a statue of Marcus Aurelius surrounded by three large buildings: from left to right is the Palazzo Nuovo, Palazzo Senatorio, and the Palazzo dei Conservatori, which are now all parts of the Capitoline museum. Despite the political symbol that these buildings represent, only the Palazzo Senatorio was built during the 12th century; the other two buildings were built during the Renaissance period. Cola’s palace at the Campidoglio was burned down during his death in 1353 by a crowd of the same Roman citizens who had supported his rise to power only seven years earlier.
Ghisalberti, Alberto Maria, and John Wright. The Life of Cola Di Rienzo. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1975.
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 number plunged to as low as 50,000 by the seventh century. Naturally, this had a dramatic effect on the urban landscape of Rome, and the medieval city became consolidated around the Tiber Bend, which offered water and transportation. This area quickly became the nucleus of the city, known as the abitato, or inhabited area. The abitato only extended so far, and vast swathes of green space spread out to the Aurelian walls, the boundary of the ancient city. These rural spaces have come to be known as the disabitato, or uninhabited area. What form did these spaces take? According to a German soldier’s narrative in the twelfth century, the disabitato was a malicious wasteland, filled with ancient ruins, disease-ridden swamps, highwaymen, and even dragons. This narrative may have also permeated the medieval Roman understanding of the uninhabited spaces encircling the medieval city. Unfortunately, we do not have the stories of those Roman urbanites who had to interact with the disabitato on a regular basis, and as such, this narrative remains conjecture. Yet there is also much contextual evidence that suggests that the disabitato was far from uninhabited. The countryside was busy with agricultural activity; its vineyards produced the wine that filled Roman cups and its fields the bread and meat that filled Roman tables. Prosperous suburbs on the Esquiline hill and by the cathedral of St. John Lateran developed deep in the disabitato and kept in close contact with the main portion of the city. New housing was constructed around existing churches from late antiquity. Rome’s popes, wishing to preserve the major pilgrimage sites of the city, directed resources for the upkeep and embellishment of the major churches spread across the disabitato, even restoring Roman piping to keep the surrounding areas from growing wild. The roads of the disabitato facilitated most traffic in and out of the city. One could find pilgrims and merchants, clerics and monks, farmers and barons all traversing these highways together throughout the history of the medieval city. The city’s great ancient sites -- the Colosseum, the Forum, the bath complexes -- all lay in the disabitato, where they were put to new uses by the countryside’s residents, usually as grazing areas or fortified complexes for noble families.
Read Wilder (2020) Edited by Julia Tassava (2026)
Brentano, Robert. Rome Before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. Coarelli, Filippo. Rome and Environs : An Archaeological Guide. Updated ed. Joan Palevsky. Imprint in Classical Literature, Berkeley: University Of California Press, 2014. Coates-Stevens, Robert. "Housing in Early Medieval Rome, 500-1000 ad," Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 64 (1996), pp. 239-259 Cowdrey, H. E. J.. Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085. Clarendon Press, 1998: 1-4. De Vita, Oretta Zanin. Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds: Recipes and Lore from Rome and Lazio. University of California Press. 2013 Gadeyne, Jan. Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day. Routledge, 2016. Hülsen, Christian. "Le chiese di Roma nel medio evo: cataloghi ed appvnti." Georg Olms Verlag, 1927: 256-57. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Maier, Jessica. "Francesco Rosselli's Lost View of Rome: An Urban Icon and Its Progeny." The Art Bulletin 94, no. 3, 2012: 395-411. Platner, Samuel and Ashby, Thomas. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. London: Oxford University Press, H.Milford, 1929: 125. Sanzio, Raffaello. The Cambridge Companion to Raphael. Cambridge University Press, 2005: 59-60. The Deeds of Pope Innocent III. Translated by James M. Powell. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004. Waldheim, Charles. Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory. Princeton University Press, 2016: 98.
Winding their way along the southern slopes of the Caelian Hill, the Clivo di Scauri 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 the Lateran Cathedral. It was built in 109 BC and was one of two major roads leading to the Lateran area, which made it an important highway for the conduct of church business, transport of goods and raw materials across the disabitato, and travel out of the city to the east. Along the Clivus Scauri (“the path of the Scaurus family”), we can find that the veil between our world and the past grows thinner and the often-elusive medieval disabitato becomes more visible. Much of modern Rome has paved over its former fields and country paths, but here there are still glimpses of the disabitato as it might have looked. The verdant trees and vineyards that line the beginning of the road give a sense of the rural setting. Further up the road, there are the churches of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, San Gregorio Magno, and Santo Stefano Rotondo that show how building plans in the 12th century adapted to security threats by building new walls and larger complexes. The ancient sites that line the road – the Arch of Dolabella, the Neronian aqueduct, and the ruins underneath the churches – did not fall out of use in the Middle Ages and have their own interesting medieval histories. The aqueduct supported by the Arch of Dolabella, for one, was home to the holy man and hermit John of Matha in the thirteenth century! In the disabitato, roads like the Clivus Scauri were reused and built around in the Middle Ages, demonstrating how medieval Romans put the skeletal structures of the ancient past to new purposes in their city.
Brentano, Robert. Rome Before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. Coarelli, Filippo. Rome and Environs : An Archaeological Guide. Updated ed. Joan Palevsky. Imprint in Classical Literature, Berkeley: University Of California Press, 2014. Hülsen, Christian. Le chiese di Roma nel medio evo: cataloghi ed appvnti. Georg Olms Verlag, 1927: 256-57. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Platner, Samuel and Ashby, Thomas. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. London: Oxford University Press, H.Milford, 1929: 125.
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 inhabited and uninhabited parts of the city. The Mantua canvas, for example, clearly shows the distinction between the green-belt of the disabitato and the occupied portions. The landscape of the disabitato here is portrayed as a green wasteland, solely littered with ancient ruins and bits of antiquity. It barely shows anything else. However, despite what primary sources from the Middle Ages and modern academic articles portray, the disabitato was not entirely abandoned. The land surrounding the abitato was filled with lots of open, available space used as agricultural fields and farmsteads, vineyards, and uncultivated pastures. As shown in the Mantua canvas, it was also littered with ancient monuments and ruins – some of which were reused and altered to fit the needs of people in the Middle Ages instead of being forgotten entirely. One of the best sites to truly see this change in function is the Roman Forum, which was included in the disabitato. While the image below was done in 1772, it still shows an accurate depiction of what the forum would have looked like during the Middle Ages. Small houses surround the cultivated pasture in the middle, where vegetables, spices, and fruit trees are being grown. Furthermore, the amount of livestock grazing in the area rebranded the forum as the “Campo Vaccino,” or cow field. Antique columns and structures don’t have the same meaning as they did for the Romans; in fact, many are spoliated into new buildings and structures that have a new use for these farmers. The most important theme of the disabitato in regards to the Roman Forum is reuse for functionality. During antiquity, the Romans used the space for sacro-civic functions. The purpose changed to focus on agriculture over time, but that doesn’t diminish the forum’s importance. This transformation clearly illustrates the relationship between the people’s needs, functionality, and urban change over time.
Libby Paulson (2021) Edited by Julia Tassava (2026)
Becker, Jeffrey A.. “Forum Romanum (The Roman Forum).” khanacademy.org. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/roman/beginners-guide-rome/a/forum-romanum-the-roman-forum. Cowdrey, H. E. J.. Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085. Clarendon Press, 1998: 1-4. Gadeyne, Jan. Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day. Routledge, 2016. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Lucentini, Mario. The Rome Guide: Step by Step through History’s Greatest City. Interlink Publishing (2012). Maier, Jessica. "Francesco Rosselli's Lost View of Rome: An Urban Icon and Its Progeny." The Art Bulletin 94, no. 3, (2012): 37-43. Sanzio, Raffaello. The Cambridge Companion to Raphael. Cambridge University Press (2005): 59-60. Waldheim, Charles. Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory. Princeton University Press, 2016: 98.
1700s
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. Just outside the Aurelian Walls, between the Via Appia and the Via Latina, the Caffarella is home to funerary monuments and villas in antiquity. The first site is of the Tomb of Annia Regilla, followed by Constantine’s Columbarium. Both structures, set against the rural and wild lands of the Caffarella, evoke the feelings of the disabitato. More importantly, both sites’ purpose shifted from that of a funerary site to an agricultural one during the middle ages. The Tomb of Annia Regilla, built in the 2nd century, was used as a barn and linked to a nearby farmhouse and tower by the 18th century. Nearby, the Columbarium of Constantine was adapted in the medieval period into a mill. A channel of water was redirected through the floor of the building, turning a millstone. One of the primary reasons that the population center of Rome shifted to the Tiber bend was the gradual breaking-down of the Roman aqueduct system. Without a reliable flow of water, family mills had to move to the river Tiber to function, or were built along newly formed streams, as is the case with the Columbarium of Constantine. As in the Caffarella, abandoned structures from antiquity became useful for new purposes as demographics, landscapes, and waterways changed. While pagan sites were converted for rural use in the disabitato, churches from antiquity were generally maintained, and came to be the centers of the disabitato’s new settlements. The Tiber Bend had the advantage of easy access to the river which allowed for the transportation of goods, fishing, and the powering of mills. But many sites in the disabitato had the advantage of proximity to Rome’s great churches that saw many pilgrims. Santa Maria Maggiore was one such site of particular importance in what became the disabitato. Pope Hadrian I renovated its monastery in 786 A.D. to ensure that a support staff would be available to care for the church. Under Benedict III’s papacy in the 9th century, the baptistery, which had fallen into disrepair, was given a new roof. “In this basilica the baptistery had remained roofless for a long time; with swift endeavor…[Benedict III] restored it and saw to its being brought to its ancient condition.” (Liber Pontificalis, 106:21). The baptistery would have been integral to maintaining a community around the church, as parishioners would baptize their children at a local church. Throughout the Middle Ages, roads to and from the Basilica were kept open, and Roman piping was maintained to keep the site functional by the eleventh century. Surrounding the Basilica, other churches received upkeep to form a cluster of settlements. A monastery was added nearby, and the attachment of a nunnery to San Bibiana ensured that the church would remain in working condition. In another disabitato settlement, on the road to St. John Lateran, Quattro Coronati was rebuilt in 1116 with a new monastery to help repopulate the surrounding area. The revived road networks of the disabitato linked inhabited spaces together, making sites like S. Maria Maggiore hubs of activity. By keeping S. Maria Maggiore and surrounding churches open, more people were tempted to settle nearby. And with more people settling nearby, the churches in the area became wealthier as parishioners donated land to the church. While traditional homes in the disabitato were centered around monumental ruins and were heavily fortified, the church settlements like that around S. Maria Maggiore mirror the housing of the abitato. As new construction occurred surrounding churches of great importance, power thus became centered around the ancient churches of the disabitato.
Coates-Stevens, Robert. "Housing in Early Medieval Rome, 500-1000 AD", Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 64 (1996), pp. 239-259 trans. Davis, Raymond. The Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes (Liber Pontificalis). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995. De Vita, Oretta Zanin. Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds: Recipes and Lore from Rome and Lazio. University of California Press, 2013. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Parco degli Caffarella Website: https://www.caffarella.it/il-parco/da-vedere/colombario/ The Tomb of Annia Regilla, Pamphlet
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 very well-preserved towers from the 12th-14th centuries overlook the road, which likely follows the same route as a medieval predecessor. If the visitor starts walking from the north, he or she will first come across the enormous Torre delle Milizie crowning the Markets of Trajan. While the present tower was constructed in the early 13th century, it replaced an older fortification, perhaps Byzantine, which the Frangipane had held since 1179. In 1250, however, it was taken by the Annibaldi, just ten years after they had taken half of the Colosseum from the Frangipane. The Torre delle Milizie, then, gives the visitor a sense that they are walking down a key thoroughfare linking the Colosseum to the abitato, one that the family controlling the Colosseum would want fortified. While the visitor can get a decent look of the Torre from the street, he or she is encouraged to go into the Markets of Trajan to get a better look at the complex. Heading further down the street, the visitor will walk under the arch of the Tor del Grillo. While this tower is much more poorly documented than the other two on this tour, it is an important site because its arch confirms that this road would have existed in the medieval period. While today, it looks as if the arch may belong to the 17th century Palazzo del Grillo encircling the Torre, it is visible in Antonio Tempesta’s 1593 map of Rome. The arch, then, was likely attached to the medieval tower, dating from the 13th century. As such, we can rather confidently assume that the Salito del Grillo would have been lain at some point in the Middle Ages. The road ends at the Tor de’ Conti. Notably, only the base of this tower remains today; the upper layers fell down after an earthquake in the 14th century. Unlike the other two towers, the Tor de’ Conti touts a walled housing complex with a small garden. Built in the late 12th century by Innocent III, a Conti, the tower played a role in a small war that broke out between the Conti and the Capocci families in 1202. While the Tor de’ Conti is never mentioned by name in the narrative of the battle in the Gesta Innocentii III, the fighting seems to have been localized to the area around the Torre. Moreover, the narrative reveals that towers were central to this war; clans quickly build towers over enemy towers, come up with schemes to take strategically important towers when makeshift siege engines fail, and rain stones down onto their enemies. Considering how important towers were to this battle, the visitor can imagine how helpful the Tor de’ Conti would have been to its masters, a massive, impregnable tower overlooking a crucial suburban road. However, it should be noted that while the Gesta Innocentii dramatizes the conflict, these battles would have been rather small in scale and confined to the tiny area around the Salito del Grillo. As such, the visitor should bear in mind that as helpful as these towers were in combat, this does not necessarily mean that they “controlled” roads. Indeed, they may have functioned more as status symbols than practical defense systems; more research is needed before we can truly understand how closely the towers would have affected those who travelled the highways of the disabitato. Yet, as the modern traveler will quickly notice, their presence along the road is at once awesome and intimidating, and whether or not the towers actually commanded the street, they certainly dominated the attentions of those travelling between the suburbs and the abitato.
Nicholas Ford (2021) Edited by Julia Tassava (2026)
Brentano, Robert. Rome Before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. The Deeds of Pope Innocent III. Translated by James M. Powell. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004.
Following the coronation procession route of Pope Innocent III at the end of the 12th century, the Vatican would have been the start. Papal coronations represented the pope’s authority and power over secular rule, and there is no better place to start a procession, especially a papal coronation, than in Vatican City. The Vatican was important in many ways, especially because of the relics, apostles, and icons in St. Peter’s Basilica. There was no holier place in Rome than St. Peter’s, and there was no seat of higher power than the Vatican. Vatican City was the location of the pope's coronation by three cardinal bishops. After his consecration, the procession would leave the Vatican to move through the city, toward the Lateran cathedral on the other side. The pope would join the procession wearing both the episcopal miter and the royal crown, a combination of the religious and political power that he had been bestowed. The procession was divided into seventeen parts, with lower level clergy, horses, and flag bearers in the front. Next, there was a parade of animals, bright red banners with cherubim, and subdeacons carrying crosses. Behind them were officials like scribes, lawyers, judges and singers, all the way to the back where high-ranking priests, cardinals, and bishops would follow. The seventeenth layer of the procession was the newly crowned Pope.
Sophia Myers (2021) Edited by Ella Parke (2027) and Julia Tassava (2026)
McCahill, Elizabeth. "Acting as the One True Pope: Eugenius IV and Papal Ceremonial." In Reviving the Eternal City, 137-67. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.carleton.edu/stable/j.ctt6wppgv.11. Brentano, Robert. Rome Before Avignon. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990. 60-61.
The coronation procession followed a pattern. It began in the Vatican for the consecration and then crossed the river to go into the city, the archeological zone, and then the churches. Among others, Pope Innocent III’s coronation procession route stopped at San Clemente. But the basilica was not uncommonly used as part of a processional route. Inside, underneath the 12th century basilica in the older, underground church, you can see one of the other processions recorded in the church artwork by an eleventh century painter. The fresco, done by an unknown artist, depicts San Clemente’s translation to the Basilica of San Clemente in the 9th century. San Cyril leads the procession. Behind him is a crowd of people, incense hung in thuribles, and the body of San Clemente is carried on a gilt bed and covered in rich fabrics. Next are people carrying crosses and red banners, similar to what would have been seen during the papal coronation of Innocent III. At five stations along the church route, the new pope would scatter coins into the crowd, and then the procession would continue on to the final stop, the Lateran Basilica.
Brentano, Robert. Rome Before Avignon. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990. 60-62.
Religious processions were common occurrences in medieval Rome. Romans took to the streets to celebrate religious holidays, feast days, baptisms, and funerals almost weekly. The largest and grandest of the processions occurred more rarely: the coronation processions for the newly elected pope. On these processions, the pope would set off on a parade through the streets of Rome, stopping to address his subjects from places of significance around the city. The papal processions brought people of all classes together, while also highlighting the communities, institutions, and monuments on the processional route. Without the processions, these communities and spaces were separated by the physical barriers of the disabitato–the uninhabited part of Rome–and the Tiber. The tradition of processions in medieval Rome led to specific developments in Catholic liturgy, as well as significant infrastructure projects that reshaped the city streets. This 7 kilometer (3.4 mile) walking tour follows the processional route of the 1198 coronation of Pope Innocent III. The procession began at the steps of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, and ended at the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano; the two religious boundaries containing Catholic Rome. The stops elaborated on in the tour are considered to be among the most significant, both in terms of the liturgy of the processions, and impact on the people and neighborhoods of Rome.
Finn Tierney (2020) Edited by Ella Parke (2027) and Julia Tassava (2026)
Before the medieval period, the Forum was a popular stop on processions of all kinds, especially funerals. Emperors and popes would be paraded through the arches before reaching their final resting places. While heavily associated with a romanticized imperial Rome, the main attraction of the Forum to medieval papal processions was the open space that could accommodate a more significant number of people. The streets of medieval Rome were tight and ill-suited for hosting crowds. As liturgy developed over the medieval period, the pope found himself responsible for addressing the people of the city no less than six times during the procession, each at a location of liturgical or historical significance. In order to do so, the procession needed space for the masses to congregate, and thus the Forum was used. Even before the medieval period, the Forum was not considered to be an ideal location for a processional stop. Basilicas and houses congested the entrances to the space, which limited the visual aspect of the liturgy to the surrounding streets. Between the 9th and 14th century, the population of Tiber bend more than tripled, and processional routes began to favor the area. After the popes’ return from Avignon in the 14th century, the church began to invest heavily in processional infrastructure near the Tiber bend and the Vatican, reconfiguring city spaces to open up wide, straight roads that allowed processions more spatial freedom. Rather than continuing to use the Forum, popes instead chose to address the people in the piazzas in front of major churches and other landmarks within these redesigned processional spaces.
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. Bauman, Lisa Passaglia. The Rhetoric of Power: Della Rovere Palaces and Processional Routes in Late Fifteenth Century Rome. (New York, Italica Press, 2015), 73. Carver, Catherine. As the Bells Toll: Parish Proximity in Medieval Rome. (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK; Rochester, NY, USA: Boydell and Brewer, 2017), 196.
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.
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.
The Castel Sant’Angelo was an important political landmark in medieval Rome. Whoever controlled it controlled the city. For example, in the 10th century, the powerful Crescentii family used it as a garrison, which allowed them to seize and imprison two Popes-- John X and Benedict VI-- and replace them with men who would act more favorably towards them. Luckily for the Catholic Church, this plan fell apart when the Roman citizenry rose up and cleared out the space, angry about the new pope.In the aftermath, the church learned from its past mistakes and worked to claim the fortress as its own. This strategy was incredibly valuable. Pope St. Gregory VII was able to take refuge in the Castel Sant'Angelo in 1084 during a siege of Rome by Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. Gregory VII would not be the only one to use it as such, as the building became an important refuge for popes, and later served as a barracks to defend Rome (and the Vatican) against enemy invaders. That said, the Castel Sant’Angelo didn’t always have this military importance. It began as the Roman emperor Hadrian’s tomb, the remnants of which help form the inner tower structure. The bridge over the Tiber Riber, known as the Ponte Sant’Angelo, was also built by Hadrian. Those are some of the only original structures that remain, as the space was transformed into a fortress in the 5th century, so walls and other defensive elements had to be periodically added in. When examining Castel Sant’Angelo today, it’s important to note that many decorations were added during the Renaissance period to reflect papal dominance, like statues of SS. Peter and Paul on the Ponte Sant’Angelo. Thus, they should be disregarded when considering what the space would have looked like during early papal processions. Finally, Castel Sant’Angelo also has an extensive religious history. There is a story that St. Gregory the Great led an emergency procession during a plague in 590. When he arrived at the Castel Sant’Angelo, he witnessed the Archangel Michael appear over the structure, sheathing a sword and announcing the end of the disease. This event helped spur Castel Sant’Angelo’s placement within processions as a place where a miracle occurred. Thus, in summary, Castel Sant’Angelo represented an important marker of the papacy’s power, due to its history as papal refuge and military stronghold, as well as its connection with miracles. Therefore, the site played an important role in papal processions.
Teddy Wolfe (2020) Edited by Ella Parke (2027) and Julia Tassava (2026)
Brentano, Robert. Rome before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth-Century Rome. New York City, NY: Basic Books, 1974 Chandlery, Peter Joseph. Pilgrim-Walks in Rome: A Guide to the Holy Places in The City and Its Vicinity. America Press, 1908 Macadam, Alta and Annabel Barber. The Blue Guide to Rome. London, England: Blue Guides Limited, 2016. Partridge, Loren. The Art of the Renaissance in Rome (1400-1600). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 1996. Ring, Trudy. Noelle Watson, and Paul Schellinger. Southern Europe: International Dictionary of Historic Places. London, England: Routledge, 2013. Stinger, Charles L. The Renaissance in Rome. Bloomington Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1998.
1000s
The position of Jews in 12th century Rome was complex, and nowhere was this more apparent than in processions. Their role was to present the pope with a set of laws for his ratification at what was known as the Arpacata, an Orsini family fortress, which is now known as the Palazzo Pio Righetti in Campo de’Fiori. The pope would then reject them, grabbing a Torah from the Jewish leaders and ceremonially dropping it on the ground. This was part of a medieval agreement in which the pope guaranteed Jews protection, but publicly presented them as vastly inferior to Christians. The pope held this power and others over the Jewish people, maintaining a paternalistic relationship with them. The Church held that the Jews’ belief in the Old Testament signified the truth of Christianity, yet their suffering in the diaspora showed that God punished them for rejecting Christ. As such, the Church made sure that Christians got privileges that Jews didn’t. An example of this is how various popes restricted the Jews’ ability to construct new synagogues, and allowed Christian leaders to claim existing synagogues if those leaders wanted to use the property for themselves. Yet Jews also were granted various political rights, which were only occasionally enforced, like citizenship, protection from attacks on synagogues, and the right to not be tried during the Sabbath. As for the Arpacata fortress itself, it was controlled mainly by the Orsini family during the 12th century, an incredibly powerful and wealthy family in Rome. Over the course of about a hundred years, they managed to buy up properties all around the area, accumulating a tower, oven, garden, and house nearby. The Arpacata was one of three fortresses they controlled throughout the city, built on top of the old ruins of the Roman Theatre of Pompey near the Campo de’ Fiori. It lasted a long time, being passed down between the Pierleone, Savelli, Massimi, and Orsini families, but sadly was torn down sometime during the 20th century. Currently, Palazzo Pio stands where the Orisini fortress would have been. Why this structure was chosen for the procession is not explicitly stated, but there is evidence many Jews lived nearby, plus the fortress and nearby Campo de’ Fiori were also important landmarks in the city. Additionally, it's important to note that this ceremony also took place at other fortresses over the years, including the aforementioned Castel Sant’Angelo. This distinction makes it clear that the goal of this procession stop was to demonstrate the Pope’s control over the Jews, but it doesn’t answer why the Arpacata was chosen over other fortresses.
Blewitt, Octavian and John Murray. Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy [by O. Blewitt], 1853. Brentano, Robert. Rome before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth-Century Rome. New York City, NY: Basic Books, 1974) Gregorovius, Ferdinand. History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages. G. Bell & Sons, 1906. Macadam, Alta and Annabel Barber. The Blue Guide to Rome. London, England: Blue Guides Limited, 2016. Partridge, Loren. The Art of the Renaissance in Rome (1400-1600). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 1996. Rist, Rebecca. Popes and Jews, 1095-1291. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2016. Stinger, Charles L. The Renaissance in Rome. Bloomington Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1998.
The road most of the processions followed was known as the via Papalis, or the road of the Pope. This was the main road that connected the Vatican, the papal residence and home of St. Peter’s Basilica, to the Lateran Basilica, the official cathedral of Rome. It had prestige both for being the road of papal processions and for its accessibility to Rome’s most important secular and religious sites, like the Vatican and the Capitoline Hill. Therefore, the via Papalis was one of the most desirable streets to live or own a business on in medieval Rome. It was also home to the two wealthiest communities in Rome: the old Roman nobility and members of the papal bureaucracy and curia who had arrived following the pope’s return from Avignon in 1377. The pope's return doubled the population of Rome as he brought back the papal bureacracy, and businesses followed suit. This led to a transformation of the via Papalis as new palaces were constructed to house this influx of residents, as well as conflict between the old Roman elite and new papal curia. Oftentimes the pope enacted policies that favored new curia and penalized native Romans such as granting these new members construction permits and privileges over members of the old elite. To increase papal control along the via Papalis, the pope demolished porticoes, some of the most important spaces in the city where business and legal matters were conducted. The destruction of porticos and widening of narrow streets served to improve papal defense in the chance of a revolt. In this way, the via Papalis became the theater for tensions between the old and new elite that manifested themselves in the utilization of space and construction of palaces. When the pope processed down the via Papalis, he would often have been facing the people most critical of him: old noble Romans. A member of the pope's cavalcade would toss coins into the crowd along the road. By completing the papal procession along this route, traversing the territory of the Roman elite and the most important religious and secular sites, the pope claimed to unify and dominate the city, often provoking stoning and rioting in the process.
Grace Brindle (2021) Edited by Ella Parke (2027) and Julia Tassava (2026)
Cafà, Valeria. “The via Papalis in Early Cinquecento Rome: a Contested Space between Roman Families and Curials.” Urban History 37, no. 3 (2010): 434–51. doi:10.1017/S0963926810000556. Partridge, Loren. The Art of the Renaissance in Rome, 1400-1600. London: Laurence King Publishers, 2012.
The Lateran Basilica is the Cathedral of Rome and mother church of the world, as well as the final procession stop. It is located on land once owned by the emperor Constantine. In 311, he transferred the land to the current pope for a church. The Lateran Palace was the main papal residence before the move to Avignon in 1309. Upon return, the popes moved into the residence at the Vatican, since it was in better condition and newly renovated. After arriving at the Lateran, the pope would perform his ritual possession of the church known as the possessio. The pope would cast coins at the marble seat, the sedes stercoraria, at the Lateran’s entrance. Next he would be led up to this seat, where the cardinals would raise him up to fulfill the saying: “He raised the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the dunghill to give them a place with princes and to assign them a seat of honor” (1 Kings 2:8, cf. Psalm 112:7-8). The pope would then remove denarii from his garb and throw them into the crowd while reciting Acts 3:6 “I have neither gold nor silver but what I have I give to you.” This ceremony is similar to those conducted by Byzantine emperors upon their accession, illustrating Byzantine influences in Rome during this time. One interpretation of the possessio is that the coins thrown by the pope are his gift to those who had elected him, and an offering made by the possessor of the church, the pope, to its owner, the people. Popes were crowned at the Lateran until 1870 when Rome became the secular capital of Italy.
Ingoglia, Robert T. "’I Have Neither Silver nor Gold’: An Explanation of a Medieval Papal Ritual." The Catholic Historical Review 85, no. 4 (1999): 531-40. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.carleton.edu/stable/25025585. Macadam, Alta, and A. B. Barber. Blue Guide to Rome. 11th ed. London: Somerset Books, 2016.
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 Tiberius asked his young sages why they were always naked. They responded “Because all things are naked and open to us. We hold the world of no account, therefore we go naked and possess nothing.” They told him as well that whatever he devised in his chamber, whether by day or by night, they would know. The following day they told the Emperor exactly what he had been thinking that night and he made a memorial to them, as they had requested one as their only payment. The statues he made are the ones you see at the top of the stairs leading to the Capitoline Hill. “The naked horses which trample on the earth, that is on the mighty princes of the world that rule over the men of this world. And there shall come a very mighty king who shall mount the horses, that is, upon the might of the princes of the world. Meanwhile there are two men half-naked, who stand by the horses with their arms raised high and with fingers bent who tell of the things that are to be, and they are naked as all world knowledge is naked and open to their minds” (The Marvels of Rome 19). Under a Christian lens, the prophecy of the mighty King who shall mount the horses that trample the earth is a foretelling of the coming of Christ. What is fascinating, however, is that if you look up the name Dioscuri in the dictionary you will see it comes from the Greek Διός κούροι meaning the sons of Zeus. This appellation normally refers to Castor and Pollux who make up the Gemini constellation. They are often associated with horses and are the patrons of the equites which were a Roman order of Mounted knights whose membership was originally based on wealth, birth, and education.
Kaelan Felknor-Edwards (2020), Rita Khurshudian (2020), Abbie Smith (2020), Orlando Zuniga (2020)
Benedict. The Marvels of Rome. Edited by Francis Morgan Nichols. Second. New York, New York: Italica Press, 1986.
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 greatness… covered with a heaven of gilded brass, where thunder and lightning and glittering fire were made, and where rain was shed through slender tubes.” (28). Within the Colosseum are supercelestial signs with “the planets Sol and Luna, which were drawn along in there proper chariots” (28). He also speaks of Phoebus, the sun god, whose feet were firmly rooted in the earth while his head reached into the heavenly heights and he held in one celestial hand an orb meant to signify Rome’s rule over the world. Unfortunately, this miraculous temple was destroyed by the blessed Sylvester who feared that orators who came to Rome would wander through it and other profane buildings instead of churches- furthering paganism rather than celebrating Christianity. He kept the head and hands of Phoebus in the Lateran to remember the temple, but they are now known falsely and vargarly as Samson’s Ball.
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 Jupiter and Moneta located on the Capitoline there “was an image of every kingdom of the world with a bell around its neck” (The Marvels of Rome 21); when these bells sounded it was a sign that the kingdom was in rebellion. The senators charged the newly returned Prefect with the task of organizing the forces to put down the rebellion, but he felt it was too great of a task for himself. Finally he capitulated but “asked permission to take counsel for three days” (The Marvels of Rome 21). One night in his dreams Cybele the mother goddess of Rome appeared to him. She told him that if he bore libations to Neptune, Neptune would help him and he would prevail if he promised to make a temple to Neptune and her when he returned. He returned to Rome after subduing the Persians and built the temple to honor Cybele, Neptune, and all the Gods exactly how it appeared to him in his dream. Later, in the time of a Christian Emperor Phocas, Pope Boniface re-consecreated the temple to the Blessed Virgin Mary and arranged that the Roman Pontiff should sing mass there and give communion.
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 houses were built in rows, some as many as five bays long, the colonnades formed a continuous portico along the street—providing shade, and protection from rain but more importantly their main purpose was to provide space for vendors’ booths.
Krautheimer, Richard. Rome, Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980. 295
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 be multifunctional as both residential and economic centers, as dealers and artisans would often have their shops in the houses they lived in, on the lower level. Here, they would display their products on the street on counters made of wood or built into the walls of the house. In such shops, one could buy food items such as fish, meat, vegetables, and bread, as well as household items including pieces of furniture, kitchen utensils, fabrics, etc. Given the difficulty of preserving food for long periods, during this time people had to buy items in small quantities on a daily basis, so every day there would be a consistent flow of traffic in these areas.
Brentano, Robert. Rome before Avignon : A Social History of Thirteenth-century Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Frugoni, Chiara, and Frugoni, Arsenio. A Day in a Medieval City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.