Browse Items (122 total)
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 Colonna patronage. A Dominican convent in the 13th century, it served as the base for rent collection for the church’s…
San Lorenzo in Panisperna
According to legend, San Lorenzo in Panisperna is located on the spot where the martyr St. Lawrence of Rome was grilled to death. It then became a moderately successful pilgrimage church due to the presence of his relics. Much of the medieval art and…
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 Cosimato
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 San Cosimato. It began as a Benedictine house…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
Milling the Tiber
While no longer visible to the modern visitor, from the 6th to 19th centuries, mills constituted an essential facet of the trading operations on the Tiber. The majority of mills were concentrated where the current was the strongest. Katherine Rinne…
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…
Immigrant Labor on the Via Sacra
The via Papalis or via Sacra is a set of streets throughout Rome that connect the Lateran Complex all the way to St. Peter's square, passing through the Castel Sant’Angelo, the Capitoline Hill, and a series of prominent marketplaces along the way. It…
Working on the Tiber
In the medieval city of Rome, the Tiber River was an important part of the economic and everyday life. It was used as the major water source, a valuable transportation center, and also the production center for several industries that were restricted…
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 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…
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…