Browse Items (122 total)
Monte Testaccio: A Place of Memory and Festivity
Monte Testaccio is an ancient port along the Tiber. In the medieval period, the hill was part of the disabitato within the walls of the city. It was used partially as land for cultivation and partially for the celebration of games and ceremonies. In…
The Medieval Circus Maximus
At one end of the Circus Maximus stands a small tower, which tips us off to the fact that this area during the medieval period was a predominantly agricultural area, controlled by prominent families. Called the Tower of Moletta, the tower was likely…
Teatro di Marcello
Approaching the Teatro di Marcello from the northern portion of the Via del Teatro di Marcello, or perhaps from the Piazza Venezia, it is hard to see anything but the ancient structure, if one does not notice the third and fourth floors. Yet…
In Search of Jewish Temple Relics: the Lateran Basilica and the Arch of Titus
During the Middle Ages, both Jews and Christians held the popular belief that relics from Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem were housed in the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano. Benjamin of Tudela, a twelfth century Jewish visitor to Rome, reports…
The Last Judgement by Pietro Cavallini
The painting is currently located on the inner façade of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, right above the entrance. The Last Judgement scene was first made to occupy the entire east wall, opposite to the west apse. However, it was later covered up by…
Vineyards and Towers: Rome's Caffarella Valley
While the center of Rome can be hectic and claustrophobic, it only takes a short bus ride (30 minutes, to be exact) to reach the Caffarella Valley, a beautifully preserved park that maintains some characteristics of the historically romanticized…
Restoration and Remembrance at the Basilica of San Crisogono
According to Richard Krautheimer, by 312 CE, approximately one third of the Roman population was Christian or sympathetic to the Christian cause. This is a powerful statistic that, he argues, defines the early history of the Basilica of San…
Medieval House: Vicolo della Luce, 6
While a majority of the medieval homes in Rome have been lost to reconstruction projects and over-restoration, a few residential spaces scattered across the city offer insight into the forms and components of medieval houses. An excellent example…
Via Della Lungara: The Walled Long Road of Trastevere
Via Della Lungara has a long history of important constructions in Trastevere, particularly along the walls at the location of the Porta Settimiana. The walls of Via Della Lungara extend from the former Aurelian walls, which once served as…
Race in Medieval Rome: The San Tommaso Mosaic
In 1193, the French priest John of Matha had a vision of Christ grasping two men by the arm: one white and the other black. This vision inspired him to create the Trinitarian order at San Tommaso in Formis on the Caelian hill, which was a hotbed of…
Santa Maria in Cappella and Its Neighborhood
This is a typical parish church in the densest settlement in between the river and Via della Lungaretta. It is in a prevailing style with an arcaded narthex extending along the façade, a campanile rises within it. The period of eleventh and twelfth…
The Tor Millina
When one thinks of the Middle Ages, a few images come to mind. Knights in shining armor and princesses, but also castles and towers. In Rome, there are a great many medieval towers. Among these is the Tor Millina, situated just west of the Piazza…
Christ between Two Captives at San Tommasso in Formis
This unique mosaic is positioned over the entrance of San Tommaso in Formis, a small church located on the Caelian Hill, a hotbed of medieval-era ecclesiastical sites. The artwork is a legacy of San Tommaso’s Trinitarian heritage. After a dream of…
Medieval Frescoes in the Church of San Sisto Vecchio
Along the Via Appia near the Baths of Caracalla is the Church of San Sisto Vecchio, dedicated to Pope Sixtus II. Rebuilt in the early 13th century under the order of Popes Innocent III and Honorius III, the church housed a nunnery founded by Saint…
The Medieval San Cosimato Portico
Near the Piazza S. Cosimato, a medieval portico juts out from the sides of a nondescript building. The portico leads to the outdoor atrium of the church of San Cosimato, a part of the former Monastery of San. Cosimato. It began as a Benedictine house…
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…
Ponte Sisto
Ponte Sisto connects the east bank of the Tiber River to its west bank at Trastevere. The original bridge, called Pons Agrippae, Pons Antoninus, Pons Aurelianus, Pons Janiculensis, or Ponte Valentinianus, depending on the source, was an ancient Roman…
Ponte Sant' Angelo: Tiber Crossings as Agents of Change
The Ponte Sant’Angelo (the ancient Roman Aelian bridge) was one of only four bridges that spanned the Tiber in medieval Rome. Previous Roman bridges, nine of which had crisscrossed the Tiber along the whole length of Aurelian walls, had collapsed by…
Trastevere's Aurelian Walls
Walking through medieval Trastevere, it is easy to forget about the classical Roman city that once flourished across the river. This neighborhood, now home to much of Rome’s nightlife and many of its most recognizably medieval buildings, was included…
San Saba: A Spiritual Outpost in the Disabitato
Established as a monastery in the 7th century by Palestinian monks who had fled Jerusalem, the current church structure of San Saba dates to the 12th century but has undergone numerous renovations and restorations. After Pope Lucius II gave the…
Entering Christian Rome: Porta San Pancrazio
Located on the Janiculum hill overlooking Trastevere, Porta San Pancrazio has been an important entryway into Rome since antiquity. In Ancient Rome, the gate was called Porta Aurelia because it was along the Aurelian wall and allowed access to an…
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 primarily a well-used riverbank during…
The Ripa Grande and The ‘Pilgrim’s Bank’
By the time Pope Leo IV (847-855) fortified Porta Portese (Rome's southernmost gate) with three defensive towers to combat Muslim pirates, the Ripa Grande (depicted on Antonio Tempesta's map of Rome, seen above) had emerged as one of Rome's premiere…
Santa Maria in Ara Coeli
Santa Maria in Aracoeli is a basilica that sits at the top of the Capitoline Hill at the site where the Tiburtine Sybil was said to have announced the coming of Christ. The Mirabilia Urbis Romae, a 12th-century guidebook to Roman monuments, claims…
The Villa Medici: A Tale of Two Villas
Purchased by Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici in 1576, the Villa Medici can be understood as a tale of two villas. One is a traditional urban palace with a stoic, regimented front facade (pictured here). The other is a true garden villa demarcated by…
Palazzo Altemps
Though it is now the home to an expansive museum of art as one of the branches of the National Roman Museum, the Palazzo Altemps has a long history of noble occupation. From the time of the ancient Romans the site was one of the largest marble…
The Torre Sanguigna
The Torre Sanguigna is a medieval tower just north of the Piazza Navona. Despite the large number of noble family towers that once filled Rome, it is today one of the “ill-documented and few” towers that still survive from the inhabited city center…
The Torre delle Milizie
The Torre delle Milizie (“Tower of the Militia”) is a large defensive tower from medieval Rome built on top of Trajan's Market. Constructed between the late 1100s and the early 1200s, it was developed in the 1270s under Pandolfo della Subura,…
Torre dei Conti: A Family Fortress
The Torre dei Conti dominates the landscape, just as it once did during the Middle Ages. The tower is named after one of the most powerful families of medieval Rome, the Conti. Notably, this tower stood in the middle of a violent conflict between the…
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…