Piazza del Popolo
Note: There is a lot of content on this page. Mary's videos are below the Quick Facts. Directions to the next site are at the very bottom.
Quick Facts
- Piazza del Popolo means “People’s Square.”
- The Latin word populus means poplar trees.
- Porta del Popolo, the gate on the north side of the piazza, is the beginning of the famous Via Flaminia; the most important road leading north to Rimini on the Adriatic Sea. The road was built in 220 BCE.
- The gate was rebuilt in 1562 by Nanni di Baccio Bigio under the direction of Pope Pius IV, who wanted to impress the pilgrims as they entered Rome.
- In 1655, the inside of the gate was decorated by Bernini.
- The four columns that sit beside the arched entrance were recycled from the original St. Peter’s Church.
- Public executions took place in this piazza, the last was Luigi Ponetti who was beheaded for aggravated murder on March 1, 1826.
- The current Piazza was designed by Giuseppe Valadier in 1815-1816. We will see other work by him as we proceed through this walking tour.
- Two Caravaggio paintings are inside the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. Be sure to go inside the church, front left chapel, to see them.
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The Black Death ravaged northern Italy around 1350 and as one-third to one-half of the population died, so too did a part of the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages, also known as the Medieval Period, lasted from roughly the 5th century into the 15th century.
Renaissance, which means rebirth, was introduced in Italy, in the 14th century and continued until the 17th century. The word Renaissance comes to us from the French; Naissance means birth.
The era was a rebirth of human spirit of those who survived the Black Death. This rebirth affected everything including music, literature, science, architecture, art, social culture, and religion. They used elements and techniques from the classical past and gave them a new life in this new era. It was a time of great social and cultural change.
It was during this era that the nude figure makes an encore. The creation of nudes was lost throughout the Middle Ages as the Middle Ages was an era focused on religious themes. The Middle Ages occurred after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century and lasted until the Renaissance. In this rebirth, Renaissance era, great painters like Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo branched out in their subject matter.
Religious art was still important, but they started to experiment with new ideas, like landscapes, personal portraits, perspective, light, shadow, expressions, and oil paint.
Literature was also affected as writers referred to the ancient writings of Aristotle and Homer in the creation of their own works, and poetry became a popular style of writing.
The Science industry went wild as well, with many inventions like golf balls, the Gutenberg Press, the first mechanical clock, pocket watches, the parachute, screwdrivers, wrenches, toilets, lenses for near-sighted people, bottled beer, and whiskey. Galileo improved the telescope, Christopher Columbus sailed to North America and Isaac Newton published his theories about the laws of motion and gravity. Society, culture, and the arts were bursting with new ideas.
Italian Renaissance architects created new buildings by basing their theories and practices on classical Roman structures. They traveled to ancient ruins like the Colosseum, Parthenon, Herculaneum, and the Pantheon to study structure, proportions and techniques. They started to reuse classical ideas such as: arches, pediments, entablatures, columns, pilasters, and domes. Absolutely stunning, incredible domes were built during the Renaissance.
Renaissance, which means rebirth, was introduced in Italy, in the 14th century and continued until the 17th century. The word Renaissance comes to us from the French; Naissance means birth.
The era was a rebirth of human spirit of those who survived the Black Death. This rebirth affected everything including music, literature, science, architecture, art, social culture, and religion. They used elements and techniques from the classical past and gave them a new life in this new era. It was a time of great social and cultural change.
It was during this era that the nude figure makes an encore. The creation of nudes was lost throughout the Middle Ages as the Middle Ages was an era focused on religious themes. The Middle Ages occurred after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century and lasted until the Renaissance. In this rebirth, Renaissance era, great painters like Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo branched out in their subject matter.
Religious art was still important, but they started to experiment with new ideas, like landscapes, personal portraits, perspective, light, shadow, expressions, and oil paint.
Literature was also affected as writers referred to the ancient writings of Aristotle and Homer in the creation of their own works, and poetry became a popular style of writing.
The Science industry went wild as well, with many inventions like golf balls, the Gutenberg Press, the first mechanical clock, pocket watches, the parachute, screwdrivers, wrenches, toilets, lenses for near-sighted people, bottled beer, and whiskey. Galileo improved the telescope, Christopher Columbus sailed to North America and Isaac Newton published his theories about the laws of motion and gravity. Society, culture, and the arts were bursting with new ideas.
Italian Renaissance architects created new buildings by basing their theories and practices on classical Roman structures. They traveled to ancient ruins like the Colosseum, Parthenon, Herculaneum, and the Pantheon to study structure, proportions and techniques. They started to reuse classical ideas such as: arches, pediments, entablatures, columns, pilasters, and domes. Absolutely stunning, incredible domes were built during the Renaissance.
Porta del Popolo
Quick Facts
- Porta del Popolo was previously named Porta Flaminia as it was the main entrance to the Via Flaminia, which was a road built in 220 BCE that connected Rome with the Adriatic Coast, specifically Rimini. Like the other important roman roads, Via Flaminia started at the Forum.
- It was the main and most important gate of the Aurelian Walls of Rome, through which thousands of people entered Rome.
- Originally it was a two arched gate but was reduced to a single arch in the Middle Ages when traffic started to decline.
- In the 16th century, it had a bit of a rebirth as traffic increased again. Pope Sixtus IV had the original gate demolished and commissioned Michelangelo to build a new gate. Michelangelo hired Nanni di Baccio Bigio to do the job for him, which is funny because Michelangelo didn’t like Nanni. Nanni’s real name was Giovanni Lippi.
- The four columns closest to the archway itself, on the piazza side of the gate, are from the original St. Peter’s Basilica of Constantine I, which was built in the 4th century. Pope Julius had demolished the original St. Peter’s to make way for the new St. Peter’s, which meant parts of the old basilica were available to be recycled.
- The statues on the street side of the gate are of St. Peter and St. Paul. They were sculpted by Francesco Mochi, for the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, but they were rejected and given back to Francesco without any payment for his work. He offered them for use at the gate in 1658.
- The inside of the gate was reworked by Bernini and unveiled in 1655, when Queen Christina of Sweden entered Rome. This was a very important historical event as she stunned all of Europe by abdicating her Protestant throne and heading to Catholic Rome. She tried her best to become a Catholic queen in Italy somewhere... anywhere... but she didn’t make it! ~The story of Queen Christina is a really interesting read.~
Santa Maria del Popolo - Exterior
What features of the façade are of the Renaissance style?
- The age of the building is right for the Renaissance era.
- The use of classical motifs: pilasters, capitals, pediments.
- Simple and balanced proportions.
- Round arches and tidy sections.
- The two-dimensional appearance of the façade is almost flat.
- A horizontal strip, called stringcourse, that marks the division between two levels is included on the façade.
Interior & Della Rovere Chapel
The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo is built on a very important location that is rich with history. It is said that Nero’s ashes were buried here and that a large walnut tree grew on the spot which attracted witches and the like. The ashes, the tree and local Roman witches attracted black crows, which of course, represented the nasty soul of Nero. The locals complained about all the commotion and evil spirits, so the tree was felled and a church was built on the exact location to ward away all the evil.
The church is located just inside the most important Roman Gate. Everyone who entered or exited the city from the north, passed through this gate and passed by the church. The church would be a person’s first stop inside the walls or their last stop out of town.
Martin Luther:
After a long journey, it was through the Popolo Gate in December 1510, that Martin Luther kissed the ground and exclaimed “Hail, holy Rome!” He stayed in the Augustinian monastery adjoining the church during this important, one-and-only, trip to Rome. The man with whom Luther was to meet was in Bologna with Pope Julius and his return was being delayed by bad weather and the inconvenience of a papal war at Bologna. Luther had time on his hands, so he did what every other first-time tourist to Rome would do - he bought a guidebook! He visited all the important pilgrim locations, including the seven pilgrim churches, many catacombs and the holy stairs. While on tour, he was appalled by the loose morals and lavish lifestyle that he was witnessing within the clergy. He learned that syphilis was a big problem within the church and that even the Pope suffered from it. He thought Rome was a dump as there was garbage everywhere, open sewers and people urinated in the streets unless they were close to a religious icon of St. Sebastian or St. Anthony. He thought the air was bad and that the general appearance of the town was appalling. He returned to Germany believing that Rome was the seat of the Devil.
Inside the Church:
The church is located just inside the most important Roman Gate. Everyone who entered or exited the city from the north, passed through this gate and passed by the church. The church would be a person’s first stop inside the walls or their last stop out of town.
Martin Luther:
After a long journey, it was through the Popolo Gate in December 1510, that Martin Luther kissed the ground and exclaimed “Hail, holy Rome!” He stayed in the Augustinian monastery adjoining the church during this important, one-and-only, trip to Rome. The man with whom Luther was to meet was in Bologna with Pope Julius and his return was being delayed by bad weather and the inconvenience of a papal war at Bologna. Luther had time on his hands, so he did what every other first-time tourist to Rome would do - he bought a guidebook! He visited all the important pilgrim locations, including the seven pilgrim churches, many catacombs and the holy stairs. While on tour, he was appalled by the loose morals and lavish lifestyle that he was witnessing within the clergy. He learned that syphilis was a big problem within the church and that even the Pope suffered from it. He thought Rome was a dump as there was garbage everywhere, open sewers and people urinated in the streets unless they were close to a religious icon of St. Sebastian or St. Anthony. He thought the air was bad and that the general appearance of the town was appalling. He returned to Germany believing that Rome was the seat of the Devil.
Inside the Church:
- The church is filled with artwork by well-known sculptors and painters.
- The apse was done by Bramante and Pinturicchio painted the frescoes.
- The choir contains Rome’s oldest stained-glass window which was created by Guillaume de Marcillat. De Marcillat also did work at the Vatican.
- Frescoes by Pinturicchio cover the walls.
- Caravaggio paintings are in the Cerasi chapel at the front left.
- Bernini has two sculptures in the Chigi chapel.
- Raphael designed the Chigi chapel.
- The octagonal cupola above the transept was probably the first cupola built in Rome during the Renaissance.
Cerasi Chapel & Caravaggio
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The wealthy Monsignor Tiberio Cerasi was the Treasurer-General to Pope Clement VIII. Cerasi purchased this lovely little chapel from the Augustinian friars with the option of decorating it any way he pleased. Cerasi had probably seen The Calling of St. Matthew that Caravaggio had painted at the other end of town in San Luigi dei Francesi, so he hired Caravaggio to do two paintings for him. The paintings would be the Conversion of St. Paul and the Crucifixion of St. Peter. Each would be painted on Cyprus wood. Caravaggio agreed.
However, shortly before the contractual delivery date, Cerasi died so Caravaggio didn’t deliver the paintings. He held on to them for four years, during which time he painted two new versions on canvas, which we see in the chapel today. The whereabouts of the original Cyprus board Conversion of St. Paul is known, and it is privately owned. The Cyprus St. Peter has a bit of a mystery surrounding it. Some art historians believe that it has just disappeared while others believe it is hanging somewhere in a Spanish monastery.
While Cerasi hired Caravaggio he also hired Annibale Carracci to do the painting that is located on the centre wall of the chapel. Carracci was a Baroque style painter who originated from Bologna. He and Caravaggio were quite competitive with each other and weren’t really fond of the other’s painting style or personality.
Carracci was more of a conservative, low-profile, gentleman, who lived by the rules and produced idealistic, balanced, naturalism paintings, based on Classical models. Caravaggio on the other hand, was not a gentleman and lived in full colour as vividly as the brilliant light in his paintings, while at the same time, hiding deeply within the shadows.
Caravaggio was quite a character. His career as a painter lasted only 15 years as he was restless, ruthless, and wild. He partied, drank, and murdered. His life is really quite a story!
He was born Michelangelo Merisi, in Milan 1571. In 1576, to escape the plague that was rampant in Milan and killing everyone, his father moved the family to a town northeast of Milan, near the foothills of the Alps, called Caravaggius, or in English, Caravaggio. Moving out of Milan didn’t help the father as he died a year later of the plague.
When Caravaggio was 13 years old, he signed on as an apprentice to Simone Peterzano. Peterzano was a Mannerist painter and former student of Titian, who lived in Bergamo. Caravaggio worked with him for four years and then headed to Rome in 1592, after his mother died.
Rome was everything Caravaggio wanted for a lively and wild time. He was dead-poor and painted anything for the open market that would earn him a little cash. He fell-in with a group of painters and swordsmen whose motto was Without Hope, Without Fear! Caravaggio had a wild temper, was rude, violent and led a scandalous lifestyle.
He painted quickly, without any pre-drawings, and used his wild and poor street-friends who were beggars, thieves, and prostitutes as models for his paintings. Fortunately, he was saved from his street painting when Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte noticed Caravaggio’s work and assisted Caravaggio in becoming commissioned for three paintings in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, when Caravaggio was 26 years old. You will see the Luigi paintings later in this tour.
Caravaggio’s temper continued to flare and he was often in fights. In 1606, he killed Ranuccio Tomassoni, a well-known and wealthy pimp. Caravaggio quickly fled from Rome and spent some time in Naples, Sicily and Malta. All the while he was on the run in fear of persecution from the murder, he continued to paint, and he painted really well! He also continued to be violent. In 1608, in Malta, he attacked Fra Giovanni Rodomonte Roero, a senior knight of Malta. Caravaggio was thrown into a completely black hole-in-the-ground cell from which he managed to escape one month later and was on the run again. Roero hunted him down in Naples and slashed his face. Caravaggio’s vision and fine motor skills were affected by this incident, and he could not handle his paint brush as skillfully as before.
Caravaggio decided that he wanted to be pardoned for the murder of Tomassoni. Being pardoned, could only be done by the Pope, which meant a trip back to Rome was in order. He sailed from Naples but was arrested and detained in Palo for throwing a plate of artichokes at a waiter. He was eventually released, and he continued on his journey to Rome. The ship on which he was sailing, made its regular transit stop in Port ‘Ercole, a small town on the western coast of Italy, and there, on the 18th of July 1620, Caravaggio died.
There has been great speculation about the cause of Caravaggio’s death. Was he poisoned? Was he murdered in some fashion? Did the pimp’s friends finally catch up with him? Just what happened?
In 2010, a group of scientists studied the bones of Caravaggio. They determined that his bones contained high levels of lead, so high in fact, that lead poisoning is what killed him, and lead poisoning would have driven the painter mad. The paint Caravaggio used in all his paintings was lead-based.
However, shortly before the contractual delivery date, Cerasi died so Caravaggio didn’t deliver the paintings. He held on to them for four years, during which time he painted two new versions on canvas, which we see in the chapel today. The whereabouts of the original Cyprus board Conversion of St. Paul is known, and it is privately owned. The Cyprus St. Peter has a bit of a mystery surrounding it. Some art historians believe that it has just disappeared while others believe it is hanging somewhere in a Spanish monastery.
While Cerasi hired Caravaggio he also hired Annibale Carracci to do the painting that is located on the centre wall of the chapel. Carracci was a Baroque style painter who originated from Bologna. He and Caravaggio were quite competitive with each other and weren’t really fond of the other’s painting style or personality.
Carracci was more of a conservative, low-profile, gentleman, who lived by the rules and produced idealistic, balanced, naturalism paintings, based on Classical models. Caravaggio on the other hand, was not a gentleman and lived in full colour as vividly as the brilliant light in his paintings, while at the same time, hiding deeply within the shadows.
Caravaggio was quite a character. His career as a painter lasted only 15 years as he was restless, ruthless, and wild. He partied, drank, and murdered. His life is really quite a story!
He was born Michelangelo Merisi, in Milan 1571. In 1576, to escape the plague that was rampant in Milan and killing everyone, his father moved the family to a town northeast of Milan, near the foothills of the Alps, called Caravaggius, or in English, Caravaggio. Moving out of Milan didn’t help the father as he died a year later of the plague.
When Caravaggio was 13 years old, he signed on as an apprentice to Simone Peterzano. Peterzano was a Mannerist painter and former student of Titian, who lived in Bergamo. Caravaggio worked with him for four years and then headed to Rome in 1592, after his mother died.
Rome was everything Caravaggio wanted for a lively and wild time. He was dead-poor and painted anything for the open market that would earn him a little cash. He fell-in with a group of painters and swordsmen whose motto was Without Hope, Without Fear! Caravaggio had a wild temper, was rude, violent and led a scandalous lifestyle.
He painted quickly, without any pre-drawings, and used his wild and poor street-friends who were beggars, thieves, and prostitutes as models for his paintings. Fortunately, he was saved from his street painting when Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte noticed Caravaggio’s work and assisted Caravaggio in becoming commissioned for three paintings in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, when Caravaggio was 26 years old. You will see the Luigi paintings later in this tour.
Caravaggio’s temper continued to flare and he was often in fights. In 1606, he killed Ranuccio Tomassoni, a well-known and wealthy pimp. Caravaggio quickly fled from Rome and spent some time in Naples, Sicily and Malta. All the while he was on the run in fear of persecution from the murder, he continued to paint, and he painted really well! He also continued to be violent. In 1608, in Malta, he attacked Fra Giovanni Rodomonte Roero, a senior knight of Malta. Caravaggio was thrown into a completely black hole-in-the-ground cell from which he managed to escape one month later and was on the run again. Roero hunted him down in Naples and slashed his face. Caravaggio’s vision and fine motor skills were affected by this incident, and he could not handle his paint brush as skillfully as before.
Caravaggio decided that he wanted to be pardoned for the murder of Tomassoni. Being pardoned, could only be done by the Pope, which meant a trip back to Rome was in order. He sailed from Naples but was arrested and detained in Palo for throwing a plate of artichokes at a waiter. He was eventually released, and he continued on his journey to Rome. The ship on which he was sailing, made its regular transit stop in Port ‘Ercole, a small town on the western coast of Italy, and there, on the 18th of July 1620, Caravaggio died.
There has been great speculation about the cause of Caravaggio’s death. Was he poisoned? Was he murdered in some fashion? Did the pimp’s friends finally catch up with him? Just what happened?
In 2010, a group of scientists studied the bones of Caravaggio. They determined that his bones contained high levels of lead, so high in fact, that lead poisoning is what killed him, and lead poisoning would have driven the painter mad. The paint Caravaggio used in all his paintings was lead-based.
Main Alter - Painting of the Virgin & Ceiling
Pinturicchio was a painter who was born in Perugia in 1454. He was responsible for the design and painting of the ceiling of the main altar in Santa Maria del Popolo. He worked in this church sometime between 1482 to 1484 painting in several of the chapels. He also painted some incredible and highly visible frescoes including six rooms in the Vatican known as the Borgia Apartments, for Pope Alexander VI, and the ten scenes in the Piccolomini Library in the Cathedral in Siena.
Chigi Chapel (pronounced kee-gee)
It all started in 1507, when Pope Julius II, the Fearsome Pope, gave the thumbs-up for Agostino Chigi, a wealthy banker, to build a burial chamber in Santa Maria del Popolo. Raphael started to work on the chapel in 1513, but it wasn’t completed during his lifetime. It was finished in 1656, by other artists who followed Raphael’s plans.
The chapel had a number of contributors for the final look that we see today:
The inlaid, roundel, (on the floor) designed by Bernini, was made famous in the Dan Brown Book Angels and Demons. It is a coloured marble figure of winged death on the floor. It is said to be located exactly over the spot of the scary walnut tree.
The chapel had a number of contributors for the final look that we see today:
- The dome was completed by mosaicist Luigi da Pace, from Venice.
- Frescoes and tondos are by Francesco Salviati of Florence.
- Lunettes are by Raffaello Vanni of Siena.
- The Birth of Venus was started by Sebastiano del Piombo and completed by Francesco Salviati.
- Bronze relief panels are by Lorenzo Lotti, known as Lorenzetto of Florence. He also did the statue of Jonah and the whale.
- Bernini made the two main statues of Habakkuk and Daniel.
- The funeral monuments to the Chigi’s were designed by Raphael and modified by Bernini. The Chigi brothers died before the chapel was completed.
The inlaid, roundel, (on the floor) designed by Bernini, was made famous in the Dan Brown Book Angels and Demons. It is a coloured marble figure of winged death on the floor. It is said to be located exactly over the spot of the scary walnut tree.
Outside in the Piazza
The Twin Churches
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Quick Facts
- These two buildings are known as the Twin Churches, but they are not identical twins!
- Santa Maria in Montesanto is on the left. It was built between 1662 and 1675.
- It was designed by Carlo Rainaldi, revised by Bernini, and completed by Carlo Fontana.
- Santa Maria dei Miracoli is on the right. It was built between 1675 and 1679.
- According to legend, in 1325, a woman was walking along the Tiber river and her baby fell into the water. She prayed and saw an image of the Madonna painted along the banks of the river. The church, St. Mary of the Miracle, was built in honour of the miracle along the banks of the Tiber, near the Margaret Bridge. Because of extensive flooding of the Tiber the church was rebuilt in its present location in the Popolo piazza.
- I can’t find out if the miracle that inspired the building of the church was the miraculous appearance of the painting along the riverbank or the fact that the baby was saved. Either way a Baroque style church was built in honour of the event.
- The columns on the portico were designed by Bernini for the Bell Tower of St. Peter’s Basilica but for some reason didn’t make it there.
- Both churches were financed by Cardinal Girolamo Gastaldi, a noble man and lawyer of forensic causes, from Genoa. He is buried in the church on the right.
Fontana Dell - Obelisk
The most noticeable item in Piazza del Popolo is the large obelisk that stands tall in the centre of the square. The Egyptians were the first culture to create obelisks, which are tall, pyramid shaped, four sided shafts carved from a solid piece of marble or stone. Obelisks were usually carved and displayed in pairs in Egypt for funerary monuments and for entrances to temples.
This obelisk was brought from Egypt by Augustus, in 10 BCE. Augustus was the first Emperor of Rome and the adopted nephew of Julius Caesar. After Augustus defeated the infamous Marc Antony and Cleopatra, in the Battle of Actium, he became fascinated with all things Egyptian and started to bring all kinds of things back to Rome.
At the time of the looting by Augustus, Egypt was a part of the Roman Empire and because of this political connection to Egypt, Emperors took whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted to take it. Emperors especially liked to bring back to Rome, large, foreign looking objects to impress the plebes as this would show the power of the Emperor’s army.
Once this obelisk arrived in Rome, it was installed in the Circus Maximus, which was an ancient chariot racing stadium near the Colosseum. By being displayed at the Circus Maximus thousands of people could witness, daily, the power of Augustus.
This obelisk was already more than 1000 years old when it arrived in Rome. Three sides of it were carved during the reign of the ancient Pharaoh Seti I, who reigned sometime between 1290 and 1279 BCE. Seti was the pharaoh who opened the new rock quarries at the town of Aswan, just north of the current Aswan Dams, on the Nile River. It is likely that this marble obelisk was built at those Aswan quarries. Seti died before the carving on the obelisk was complete, so the fourth side was carved during the reign of his son, Rameses II.
It was transported from Egypt in a specially built ship powered by 300 oarsmen, who were either slaves or soldiers. No one knows for sure who were the oarsmen because Augustus not only had thousands of slaves, he also had a large and powerful navy. The ship was likely built by Egyptian shipbuilders since they had mastered shipbuilding thousands of years earlier and were regularly moving obelisks up and down the Nile. Augustus would not have owned a ship that could carry the obelisk, so he would have just taken a ship from Egypt as part of the goods to returning Rome with him.
Since obelisks were created and displayed in pairs in Egypt they were quite often brought back to Rome in pairs. The other obelisk that was transported with this one is known as the Solare. It is in front of the Palazzo Montecitorio. You will see it on this tour after you visit the Piazza Colonna later in this tour.
After the fall of Rome in the fourth and fifth centuries, the obelisks and many parts of Rome fell into ruins. The obelisks were broken into parts and buried by rising ground levels and floods from the Tiber River. During the Counter-Reformation, Popes started to dig them up and install them around town. The obelisk was installed here, by the architect Domenico Fontana, in 1589, under the direction of Pope Sixtus V.
This obelisk was brought from Egypt by Augustus, in 10 BCE. Augustus was the first Emperor of Rome and the adopted nephew of Julius Caesar. After Augustus defeated the infamous Marc Antony and Cleopatra, in the Battle of Actium, he became fascinated with all things Egyptian and started to bring all kinds of things back to Rome.
At the time of the looting by Augustus, Egypt was a part of the Roman Empire and because of this political connection to Egypt, Emperors took whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted to take it. Emperors especially liked to bring back to Rome, large, foreign looking objects to impress the plebes as this would show the power of the Emperor’s army.
Once this obelisk arrived in Rome, it was installed in the Circus Maximus, which was an ancient chariot racing stadium near the Colosseum. By being displayed at the Circus Maximus thousands of people could witness, daily, the power of Augustus.
This obelisk was already more than 1000 years old when it arrived in Rome. Three sides of it were carved during the reign of the ancient Pharaoh Seti I, who reigned sometime between 1290 and 1279 BCE. Seti was the pharaoh who opened the new rock quarries at the town of Aswan, just north of the current Aswan Dams, on the Nile River. It is likely that this marble obelisk was built at those Aswan quarries. Seti died before the carving on the obelisk was complete, so the fourth side was carved during the reign of his son, Rameses II.
It was transported from Egypt in a specially built ship powered by 300 oarsmen, who were either slaves or soldiers. No one knows for sure who were the oarsmen because Augustus not only had thousands of slaves, he also had a large and powerful navy. The ship was likely built by Egyptian shipbuilders since they had mastered shipbuilding thousands of years earlier and were regularly moving obelisks up and down the Nile. Augustus would not have owned a ship that could carry the obelisk, so he would have just taken a ship from Egypt as part of the goods to returning Rome with him.
Since obelisks were created and displayed in pairs in Egypt they were quite often brought back to Rome in pairs. The other obelisk that was transported with this one is known as the Solare. It is in front of the Palazzo Montecitorio. You will see it on this tour after you visit the Piazza Colonna later in this tour.
After the fall of Rome in the fourth and fifth centuries, the obelisks and many parts of Rome fell into ruins. The obelisks were broken into parts and buried by rising ground levels and floods from the Tiber River. During the Counter-Reformation, Popes started to dig them up and install them around town. The obelisk was installed here, by the architect Domenico Fontana, in 1589, under the direction of Pope Sixtus V.
Fontana della di Roma
- Dea Roma, the female god of Rome, stands at the centre of this fountain.
- At her feet is the she-wolf who is feeding Romulus and Remus, the twin brothers and key players in the mythological founding of Rome.
- This fountain was built by Giovanni Ceccarini between 1822 and 1823 as a public memorial to the achievement of the aqueduct that carries water to the fountains in this piazza.
Fontana de Nettuno
- This fountain built between 1822 and 1823 by Giovanni Ceccarini was the ending point of the aqueduct Acqua Vergine Nuovo, which basically translates into New Virgin Water.
- Neptune, the Roman god of fresh water, stands in the centre holding his trident high into the air. His Greek name is Poseidon.
- Watch for the trident in the exterior motifs at the Pantheon.
Directions to Pincio Hill - Distance: 500 M Time: 8 Min
