Overview
Population 2,781,993
The group will have a local guide in Rome, so give a general introduction to prepare them for what to expect from the city.
Rome has the remains of over 2,000 years of civilization to be explored. It is not an easy city, but it is a fascinating one.
Whichever way you come into Rome you will drive through a conglomeration of buildings that have grown up rapidly and haphazardly since the war, and you will soon realize that modern Rome suffers from acute traffic congestion, a shortage of housing and of public services. The municipality is permanently in the red.
The Legend of Romulus and Remus
Romulus and Remus were the twin sons of Mars, god of war, and a vestal virgin. By the King’s orders the boys were thrown into the Tiber. Fate intervened and by some miracle they were washed up on a bank, discovered by a She-wolf and suckled by her. Faustulus, the King’s herdsman then came across them and gave them to his wife Laurentia to nurse. (Laurentia had previously been a prostitute and was known as “the Wolf’ by local shepherds hence the possibility of some confusion with this early legend.)
When the boys grew up they came to the notice of the King who realised by their prowess and bearing that they were of noble blood. The King imprisoned Remus on a trumped-up charge. Romulus gathered together a band of followers and led them to attack the King’s house. As a result the “wicked” King was killed and Remus was freed. The young men then decided to found a new city of their own on the Palatine Hill. This they did, but were unable to agree on a name for the settlement. Legend has it that Remus mocked his brother and then jumped over the walls of the settlement and Romulus in a fit of rage, killed him. The city, founded on seven hills was thus named after Romulus.
First Sight of Ancient Rome
Your first sight of ancient Rome will probably be the massive redbrick walls built by the Emperor Aurelius in 272-278 AD against the imminent threat of barbarian invasions. They are 19 km in length and have 13 gates and 383 towers. When they were built the city had a population of almost one and a half million. When Rome became capital of united Italy in 1870 the population was only 226,000 and inhabited in only 1/3 of the area inside these walls which were then surrounded by fields and country villas. The enormous growth in population since then explains some of the city’s deficiencies today.
You will probably pass the site of the Roman city that grew up on the left bank of the Tiber on a group of low-lying hills. The most visible and famous of the Roman ruins can be seen near the Palatine and Capitilone hills.
By the Middle Ages the classical city was a desolation. The buried Forum was used as grazing land and the ruined public buildings were transformed into fortifications of feudal factions. You may be able to point out the Teatro Marcello or Castel San Angelo (originally Hadrian’s Mausoleum) as examples of this transformation.
Papal and Baroque Rome
The dome of St Peter’s can be seen from many places. The popes wanted a city worthy to be the centre of Christendom and great architects and sculptors such as Michelangelo, Bernini, Borromini transformed the face of Rome by laying out squares, fountains and building churches in the new Baroque style. This transformation took place particularly in the low-lying area between piazza Venezia and Piazza del Popolo.
In 1870 Rome became the political capital of united Italy and took on a new appearance. The area around Termini railway station was developed at the end of the last century as the place names reveal. (Pl. Vittorio Emanuele, via Nazionale, etc.). The Traforo tunnel and Via del Tritone were opened up to give access to the seat of government at Piazza Colonna.
The Tiber embankments were built after the last flood disaster of December 1870. The Victor Emanuel monument, (later known as the altar of the nation, but more commonly referred to as “the wedding cake” or the “typewriter”) as the familiar if ugly landmark of the city., was built to celebrate 50 years of Italian unity. Note the deliberate re-evocation of the splendours of ancient Rome and the stark contrast of its marble whiteness with the soft golden-red colours of old Rome.
The fascist period left its mark in the Via Dei Fori Imperiali that was opened up between Piazza Venezia and the Colosseum and in the Via Della Conciliazione, the approach to St Peter’s. There is now much discussion and controversy about closing the former in order to carry on excavations.
The monumental quarter known as EXR, (Espozizione Universale di Roma), was built in 1939 to house the grandiose world fair planned for 1941 but which never took place because of the war. You see the dome of St Peter and Paul and the square arched building of the Civilta di Lavoro across the river on your right as you drive in from Fiumincino.
Rome Today
Rome today has enormous problems of preserving and displaying its vast cultural heritage and coping with the demands of a modern metropolis. The municipal authorities are constantly modifying the traffic system and experimenting with pedestrian areas. This usually starts complaints of ruined business from the traders in the historic centre.
Rome is a city of elegant boutiques and shops and the groups usually want to know where to find good shopping areas. (See below)
There is no particularly” Roman” product such as leather in Florence, or glass in Venice, but the best of all the nation’s products can be found here. Economically Rome draws on the resources of the country as a whole. It is a city of bureaucrats; both lay and ecclesiast cal (Vatican city), national and international (E.A.D.) and most of its industrial activities are engaged in supplying their needs.
Haute Couture and the film Industry at Cinecitta have their home in the capital – Light industries such as the production of furniture and household goods, pharmaceuticals, light engineering and electronics can be found on the outskirts of the city.
Tourism is a major source of income.
History – From Julius Caesar To Augustus
Julius Caesar was an opportunist and a wily strategist born into an aristocratic Roman background in the last days of the Republic. He learned his considerable oratory skills under a celebrated rhetorician on the island of Rhodes, and was also a expert soldier. By 51 BC, he had overcome the whole of Gaul, which was previously supposed to be unconquerable. But governorship of chilly, far-flung provinces was not enough for Caesar, he now aimed to eliminate the Dictator of Rome, Pompey, and rule supreme.
In 49 BC, now joined by his friend and supporter Mark Anthony, Caesar crossed the Rubicon (small river between Gaul and northern Italy), and marched on Rome. Caesar’s armies chased Pompey and his men to the plains of Pharsalus in Greece, where they scored a resounding victory. Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was murdered by the officers of Ptolemy XIII, and when Caesar arrived at Alexandria to hunt down his enemy, the boy king handed him a grisly trophy – Pompey’s head.
From Cleopatra to Rulership of Rome
Caesar was delighted that Pompey had chosen Egypt to run to, not only had it proved fatal for his old enemy, but it was also the home of the 21-year-old Cleopatra, half-sister of Ptolemy and joint ruler of Egypt. Beautiful and exotic Cleopatra, whose voice was “like an instrument with many strings”, soon became Caesar’s lover, and would be smuggled into his rooms at night, concealed in a cloth bag. Before long Cleopatra had a baby son, whom she named Caesarion.
But Caesar couldn’t dally about any longer in Egypt, with Pompey out of the way he returned to Rome to rule, and to advertise his power and strength to its citizens. He started off by organising four splendid Triumphs -spectacular processions featuring soldiers wearing laurel leaves of victory, golden chariots laden with the spoils of war, and other trophies, including huge elephants bearing Caesar’s shields and personal insignia (the 15th century Mantuan court artist, Mantegna, painted nine famous scenes of Caesar’s Triumphs, which your group may have seen if they’ve been to Hampton Court).
There was also a great banquet for 22,000 people in the Roman Forum, which Caesar now decided to reconstruct. In particular, he built the Basilica Julia, a large law court and games hall (named, naturally, after himself), and the Temple of Venus (he claimed to be descended from this goddess!) Cleopatra and the baby were brought to Rome, and lived in great splendour in a palace that overlooked the River Tiber, beneath the Aventine Hill.
Early in 44 BC, Caesar became Dictator of Rome for life. He consolidated his personal power as much as possible, minting money bearing his portrait and title, reducing the number of Senators to 900 and personally vetting candidates for election, putting up busts of himself all over Rome and renaming the month of his birth after himself: July. Others were naturally extremely jealous of Caesar’s power, and worried by the results of his ambition, the political Republic was in tatters; and soon a small group of disillusioned Senators began to meet in secret to plot the Dictator’s death.
The ringleader conspirators were Cassius, a soldier who hadn’t received the commission he wanted in Caesar’s forthcoming campaign, and Brutus (the Dictator’s illegitimate son, it was rumoured), a fervent believer in the Republican system, whose former devotion to Caesar had therefore turned to anger. Caesar went on as usual, unaware of any danger and confident enough of his popularity and safety to disband his personal bodyguard – a big mistake – and also to disregard, according to Shakespeare’s version, a wise soothsayer, who told him to “Beware the Ides of March.”
Murder in the Senate
The soothsayer’s words were to prove fatally true. On 15th March 44 BC, Caesar, accompanied by Mark Anthony, arrived at the Forum to attend a meeting of the Senate. A man pushed a note warning of danger into his hand, but the Dictator did not open it walking on through the great bronze doors of the Senate House (today the front doors to S Giovanni in Laterano).
A crowd of conspirators detained Mark Anthony outside now Julius Caesar was alone, and the coast was clear for murder. A man with a fake petition approached and grabbed Caesar’s toga, the signal for attack. Casca, a friend of Cassius’s, lunged at Caesar, but missed, just grazing his throat and Caesar wrenched free, stabbing at his assassins with his metal pen. But he was outnumbered, and soon fell to the ground, having seen, according to Shakespeare, even his ex protege Brutus, turned against him – “Et tu, Brute “. In a terrible last stroke of fate, he lay dead; his white tunic drenched with blood, beneath the statue of his old enemy, Pompey.
Rome was plunged into chaos, some people rushing out to the Forum to see what was happening; others, terrified by the news and the ensuing disorder, bolting themselves into their houses. Brutus led his collaborators to the Capitol the next day, and made a long speech in explanation of the assassination – in Shakespeare’s version, he puts it memorably that if anyone demands to know why he rose against Caesar, this will be his answer: it was “not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more “
Mark Anthony then gave a moving funeral oration in memory of his friend. Again, Shakespeare’s version of this is famous, and reveals Mark Anthony’s painfully divided loyalties: ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I am come to bury Caesar, not to praise him… the noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious; it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath Caesar answered it “. He finishes emotionally ‘Wear with me; my heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause till it comeback tome”.
The real-life oration, together with the rumour that Caesar had left each Roman citizen a legacy in his will, roused the people to a vengeful frenzy against the conspirators. They set fire to the houses of Brutus and Cassius (who’d wisely fled the city), and Mark Anthony became interim ruler of Rome.
Mark Anthony, having now taken over as Cleopatra’s lover, wanted the succession to pass to Caesarion, but Caesar had nominated his adopted son Octavian. Matters came to a head at a great battle at Actium (31 BC), when Octavian beat Mark Anthony, who fled to Egypt with Cleopatra. They committed suicide, he because with his friend dead and his enemy in power life no longer seemed worth living, and she because not only was her lover dead, but she’d discovered Octavian had plans to include her in his victory procession back home as No1 Trophy.
The Augustan Age
Octavian therefore became the first Emperor of Rome, having given himself the grand name Augustus, and an era of relative peace ensued – the great Ara Pacis monument, still extant on the banks of the Tiber today, was built and consecrated to Peace in 13 BC. Augustus set about transforming “a city of brick into one of marble” – new temples, basilicas and theatres sprang up everywhere, and the irst of the Imperial Fora was built (across the road from the old Roman Forum).
Some of the greatest writers of the ancient world lived in Rome under Augustus: Livy, for instance, who devoted 142 rolls of papyrus to a history of Rome from its founding to 9 BC, and Virgil, who wrote the Aeneid. Both writers embellished and glorified the origins of Rome, in a way that was deemed fitting and proper by its Emperor after all, with its splendid new buildings and one million inhabitants; it was now quite literally the greatest city in the world.
The Emperor Nero
When the Emperor Claudius died in 54 AD -poisoned, it was rumoured, by a plate of deadly mushrooms given him by his second wife Agrippina – he was succeeded by her son from a previous marriage, Nero. The sixteen year old Emperor doesn’t seem to have been admired for his looks – Suetonius (gossipy author of The Twelve Caesars) tells us that “his body was blotchy and repulsive; he had blue myopic eyes and a thick neck,. a paunch, and his legs were excessively thin.”
He was a monster, a cruel and debauched person, who started off his reign by ordering his domineering mother’s death. Annoyingly for him, she escaped a drowning attempt and had to be battered to death by a gang of sailors. Next, he masterminded the execution of his 19-year-old wife, who was left to die in a hot bath, her veins cut open.
Rome burns while Nero sings
Nero may have hated his nearest and dearest, but he loved building projects, and on 18th July 64, a disaster was to occur which would give him free rein to indulge his longing to rebuild Rome. A fire broke out in some shops on the Palatine Hill, and soon the wind had fanned the flames into a huge inferno. “Furiously the destroying flames swept on” wrote the historian Tacitus, “the ancient city lending itself to their progress by its narrow, tortuous streets and its misshapen blocks of buildings “.
The fire burned for six days, at the end of which the noble city was in ruins, and rumour – probably true – had it that Nero, instead of helping to deal with the fire, sat instead on a stage in his palace and sang a song comparing ancient and modem calamities.
People began whispering that the Emperor was responsible for the disaster, and he therefore needed to find some scapegoats. He decided to persecute the Christians, and Tacitus gives us a terrible picture of Nero’s cruelty to those he captured: “Their death was turned into a diversion. 7hey were … torn to pieces by wild dogs…fastened to crosses, or set up to be burned, so as to serve the purpose of lamps when daylight failed Nero gave up his own gardens for this spectacle”
St Peter and St Paul
Two of the Christians put to death in this persecution were St Peter and St Paul. Paul, who’d started life as Roman, and a scourge of Christians himself, had seen the light on the road to Damascus, and had been spreading the word of God since then. By 64 AD, Paul had been in prison in Rome for two years already, and was now taken out by Nero’s men and executed at the place known as Tre Fontane, where his severed head was supposed to have bounced three times, fountains of water sprung forth. The church of St Paul’s-without-the-Walls was built over his tomb.
St Peter was the disciple of whom Jesus said “on this rock I will build my Church”, and to whom he gave the keys of Heaven (still visible on any Papal crest below the crown). Peter, afraid of persecution, so the story goes, was running away from Rome, when Jesus, with a cross, appeared to him on the Via Appia (you pass the spot on the way out to the Catacombs). Peter asked, “Domine, quo vadis?” (Lord, where are you going) and Jesus replied that he was going to be crucified again. Peter took the hint and turned round, returning to Rome to his martyrdom – he, too, was crucified (though upside down, at his own request, to show how humble his own death was compared to Jesus’) and was buried underneath the present day St Peter’s basilica in the Vatican.
Nero’s Golden Palace
Having disposed of two of the most famous Christian martyrs ever, plus many more nameless ones, Nero set about designing himself a splendid new palace on the Esquiline Hill. Its porticoes, pavilions, baths, temples, fountains and gardens stretched across 200 acres, and in the valley at the bottom, where the Colosseum now stands, was a glittering artificial lake. An enormous colossus of Nero himself in 120 feet of gilded bronze stood at the entrance to the palace gardens (this may have given the Colosseum its name).
Inside the palace, walls were inlaid with mother-of-pearl and painted with frescoes whose delicacy belied the nature of the man who had commissioned them (when the remains of the palace were rediscovered in the sixteenth century, its painted birds, animals and arabesques in bright colours gave the likes of Raphael lots of ideas for decoration). There were delightful surprises for the undeserving Emperor and his guests, too: through ivory fretwork ceilings, flowers were dropped onto those sitting below, and concealed jets gently sprayed them with rose water. Once the palace was completed, Nero declared: “Good! Now at last I can begin to live like a human being!”
But the monstrous Emperor was not to live to enjoy his new pleasure-dome for long. He was, quite understandably, hated and feared by the citizens of Rome, not only for his terrifying cruelty, but also because under his rule, the Senate had lost all semblance of freedom. In secret, people began to plot his downfall, and when it came, he had absolutely no one to turn to, so thoroughly was he detested.
Imperial suicide
One night in 68, Nero woke to find his golden palace eerily quiet. He got up and walked from room to room, but every guest, servant and guard in the place had disappeared. Realising his number was up, Nero searched about for a quick way out his gold poison box or Spiculus, a gladiator trained to kill with a single, painless blow, but the box and the soldier had vanished with the rest.
He grabbed a faded old cloak and wrapped himself in it as a disguise, jumped on a horse, and rode out of the city, trembling with fear. Eventually he found a man willing to conceal him in his house, his one wish now was not to have to endure a public trial and execution, so he determined to kill himself as soon as possible. While his protector dug a trench in his garden big enough to accommodate the plump imperial body, Nero heard the latest news shouted in the street outside: he had been declared a public enemy by the Senate, and once found, he would be executed as a common criminal – stripped naked and flogged to death.
He realised it couldn’t be long before the officers of the Senate discovered his whereabouts, and began crying out “What a great artist dies in me!” knowing he must now pluck up courage to commit suicide. At first he couldn’t bring himself to do it, but on hearing horses’ hooves approach, he eventually plunged his dagger into his throat, and died. Not surprisingly, few mourned him; his golden palace was turned into public offices and later razed to the ground by fire. A year after his death, Vespasian was installed as Emperor, and Rome and its Empire entered on a happier, more secure period.
The Emperor Vespasian
Vespasian, who became Emperor in 69 AD, aged 60, had been a high-ranking official under Nero, but was of very different character, honest, cautious and with a good head for business and simple tastes. Vespasian had in fact offended Nero a few years previously, falling asleep during one of the Emperor’s song recitals, and had been sent off to rule Judaea for his pains. At the time of the tyrant’s death, Vespasian was in Egypt, where he’d been proclaimed new Emperor, but, ever prudent decided to consult the oracles before returning to Rome. They seemed encouraging, so he set off for the capital, and ruled for ten years, repairing much of the damage that had been done to the city and the political system under Nero.
Smart taxation
Vespasian needed money in order to start his rebuilding programme, and, being the son of a tax collector, soon fixed on an ingenious new way of getting a small amount from each Roman citizen regularly – by installing public urinals and making people pay to use them (so when your group raise their eyebrows at having to pay to use bathrooms in Italy, point out that it’s a custom stretching back to ancient Rome!).
The streets of Rome were now cleaner, and the State was richer and when the Emperor’s son Titus turned up his nose at the idea and declared it unseemly, Vespasian, famously, held up a gold coin for Titus to sniff, pointing out that whatever their origins, the funds he had raised had no smell. With this and other funding, Rome began to look good again – Vespasian made personal appearances on the building sites, sometimes even helping to carry baskets of. masonry, and the motto “Roma Resurgens ” appeared on his coinage.
The Capitol and the Forum were redeveloped, together with many other areas, and, on the site of Nero’s lake, the Colosseum was begun.
The Colosseum
The new arena was enormous – 600 feet long, 500 feet wide and 187 feet high. The 120 foot high statue of Nero was replaced with one of the god Apollo: “Rome has been restored to herself’, wrote the poet Martial on seeing the Colosseum. “What was formerly a tyrant’s delight is now the delight of the people. “
The new arena had four stories, meant for different sections of society – the higher up you had to sit, the more insignificant you were. Right at the top sat the women and the poor, on wooden benches, and below them, on the third level, slaves and foreigners.
The second level had marble seating, and was reserved for middle class men, while Senators, magistrates, priests, Vestal Virgins and the Emperor himself sat in comfort and state in boxes around the first level, enjoying the best view. A team of sailors stood on the roof of the highest level, ready to pull across a giant awning if the sun got too hot or the rain too heavy.
Each spectator had a free ticket bearing a seat number and an entrance number – get your group to look hard, and they’ll still be able to see the carved Roman numerals over many of the entrances. There was room for 50,000 spectators – a large proportion of the Roman population was always unemployed, and the authorities rightly believed that regular free entertainments would stop people from becoming bored, discontented and troublesome, as well as making them grateful to the State.
Spectacles usually began early in the morning with a parade of gladiators dressed in gold and purple cloaks who drove round the arena in chariots, then marched past the imperial box, shouting “Hail, Emperor! We men who are about to die salute you!” Comic turns and mock battling by clowns and dwarfs warmed up the crowd for the main event during which the gladiators reappeared to fight to the death, egged on by the bloodthirsty cries of an audience hardened to the sight of violence and death before their very eyes.
There were also wild beast shows, when leopards, bears, lions, tigers, camels, crocodiles and deer would be slashed to death by cruel and skilled venatores with swords. The animals were kept beneath the arena in a labyrinth of tunnels and cages until a burst of trumpets signalled their release into the arena, swiftly followed by their killing, thousands were slaughtered to provide an amusing change from gladiators for the jaded spectators.
Rome In The High Renaissance: The Popes, Michaelangelo and Raphael
In the first quarter of the sixteenth century – the period which has become known as the High (or late) Renaissance Italy – the great artists Michelangelo and Raphael were both summoned to Rome by the Pope to work on projects which he hoped would be the glory and envy of all Christendom. Rome therefore now took over from Florence as the main focus of artistic activity in Italy. (For earlier Renaissance, see notes on Florence).
Pope Julius II
The Pope, Julius II, was an energetic and dynamic man, with a commanding manner and a quick temper, anyone unfortunate enough to annoy him or to bring bad news would receive a hefty blow from his stick. Already 60 years old when he was elected Pope in 1503, he was known as il Pontifice Terribile’ (awe-inspiring) – “No one has any influence over him, and he consults few or none… everything about him is on a magnificent scale, both his undertakings and his passions”, reported the Venetian ambassador.
Julius was driven both by a sense of spiritual mission and a lust for power and fame, and was determined to leave his personal stamp on Rome and on history. After the ruinous regimes of the Borgia Popes, he brought back international credibility to the Papacy, forcing rebel Papal States cities back under his control in military campaigns which he personally led, sword in hand, and founded his own professional Papal army, the Swiss Guards (who still guard the Vatican in supposedly Michelangelo-designed uniforms).
In Rome, Julius tore down old St Peter’s, and laid the foundation stone of the new church (the one we see today), which he hoped would “embody the greatness of the present and the future”. He also turned his mind to the Papal apartments in the Vatican, wanting to astonish all visitors with a magnificent setting suitable for such a great man. The person he chose to paint them was the promising young artist Raphael.
Art and Architecture – Raphael and the Vatican Apartments
Raphael (1483-1520) was from Urbino, east of Florence, which was in many ways the ideal Renaissance city – a centre of artistic patronage and scholarship whose mid fifteenth century Duke, Federigo de Montefeltro (famous portrait in the Uffizzi by Piero della Francesca) surrounded himself with the sort of elegant, cultivated people immortalized by Castiglione in his famous book The Courtier – etiquette manual for aspiring courtiers and renaissance men all over Europe. Raphael’s father was painter to Federigo and his son, so the artist grew up in a distinguished and sophisticated environment.
Aged 20, he went to Florence, where he eagerly studied architecture, paintings and sculpture. Raphael soon found work, specialising in Madonna and Child scenes painted in rich, clear, jewel-like colours. His Madonnas are soft, gentle looking girls, both earthly mother and heavenly divinity, sitting in graceful poses reminiscent of the rarified world of Urbino, holding Holy Babies which begin to look like real ones instead of tiny wise old men, as they had done before, and accompanied by charming cherubs (look out for them on Christmas cards).
Pope Julius, hearing good reports of the 25 year old Raphael, summoned him to Rome in 1508, and set him to work painting the wells of his Vatican apartments. The most famous of these frescoes is the ‘School of Athens’, which celebrates the greatness of human thought. Raphael presents a scene of famous Greek philosophers, but gives many of them the faces of contemporary men whose artistic achievement he and the Pope admired, Leonardo, for instance, stars as the central figure Plato, pointing upwards to indicate the way the minds of men must reach.
The fresco expresses the pride and confidence of an age (and a Pope), which believed itself the heir to all that was noblest in human endeavour. (Look out for Raphael’s portrait of Julius, kneeling in prayer in the ‘Mass at Bolsenal fresco in the Stanza d’Eliodoro.) This important commission made Raphael extremely famous and with his charming, sunny personality, very popular. He was delighted with his new status, and bought a small palazzo from Bramente (Pope’s architect) across St Peter’s Square near the river and lived, as Vasari (who wrote the famous late 16th century Lives of the Artists) tells us, “not like a painter, but as a prince”.
Rome in the Early 1500’s
If you walked across St Peter’s Square in the early 1500’s, as Raphael would have done on his way to work in the Pope’s apartments, it would have looked very different from the way it does today. Instead of the monumental classical facade of the church and Bernini’s great curved colonnades (these weren’t to appear for another 150 years), you would have seen a building site. The Pope’s architect, Bramante, was busily rebuilding St Peter’s on the site of the Christian Roman Emperor Constantine’s basilica, but as yet it had no roof, so the Pope had to celebrate Mass al fresco, with a temporary tarpaulin roof hastily thrown over the structure in bad weather!
The great sites and monuments of ancient Rome lay half buried, goats and cows roamed picturesquely over the remains of the Forum, grazing amongst the tops of triumphal arches and columns, and trees sprouted from the Colosseum. But Rome’s classical glory was far from forgotten artists like Raphael and Michelangelo were keen to use the ever-present inspiration of the ancient buildings and monuments, and were involved in excavating sites like the Forum (in fact this may have led to Raphael’s early death, as malaria lurked beneath the Via Secra in those days).
Many of the famous classical statues your group will see in the Vatican Museums were excavated at this time, and became part of Julius’s Papal collection.
Raphael was given an official position in charge of maintenance and excavation of ancient monuments, and he eagerly learned from the treasures that were found, reinterpreting classical myths for new patrons such as the fabulously wealthy banker, Chigi, whose house across the Tiber in Trastevere, the Villa Farnesina, Raphael decorated with wonderful frescoes of sea nymphs and dolphins.
It apparently took him rather longer then it should have to complete this job, as he had found a beautiful girlfriend down the road, and kept slipping off to see her. The daughter of the local baker, she has become known as La Fornarina ‘ many of Raphael’s Venuses, and, less suitably, his later Madonnas have her dark hair and enormous liquidy brown eyes.
There is a good story about the banker Chigi (also told of a Venetian aristocrat so make your choice). An incredibly pretentious man, whose bathroom fittings were all of silver and gold, he is said to have given a banquet at which guests ate off gold and silver dishes, which he then threw with careless abandon into the Tiber, what did he care for such trifles! (having sunk nets in the river earlier in the day so he could haul the plates up later and repeat the trick upon unsuspecting future visitors).
In 1520, Raphael fell sick of a fever and died, aged only 37. He was given the tremendous honour of a tomb in the Pantheon (on left as you go in).
Michelangelo, The Pieta And The Pope’s Tomb
About the same time as Raphael arrived at the Vatican, Pope Julius also summoned Michelangelo (1475-1564) to Rome. (See notes on Florence for Michelangelo’s early career.) Michelangelo was a difficult and solitary man, who held Raphael’s urbanity and charm in contempt and preferred to lock himself away with his work than to live, as Raphael did, “like a prince”. He saw Raphael as a rival, competing for the Pope’s patronage, and it didn’t help that he was younger than Michelangelo.
Michelangelo had been in Rome before – it was where he had made his name as a sculptor in the late 1590’s with his Pieta – the Virgin Mary holding her dead son (in St Peter’s) – made for a French cardinal and instantly famous; a contemporary writer said it was “of such great and rare beauty that none who sees it is not moved to pity”. (Get your group to look out for Michelangelo’s signature on the sash across Mary’s chest, he very rarely put his name to his work, so must have been very proud of it).
Julius now brought Michelangelo back to Rome to set the most famous sculptor in Italy about designing his tomb. The Pope was already in his early 60’s and wanted to get work on the most magnificent papal memorial ever under way in good time, so he could oversee its progress. It was to be an immense piece of sculpture of 40 life-size figures representing Julius’s greatness as both Pope and art patron. Enormous blocks of fine quality, snowy white Carrara marble lay stacked in the streets round St Peter’s, getting in people’s way and waiting to be transformed by the sculptor’s hand.
But much to Michelangelo’s disappointment (he always called it “the tragedy of the tomb”) the Pope soon had to abandon the project through lack of cash – remember he was also rebuilding St Peter’s at no small expense. (In 1512, when Julius finally died, a tiny part of the original tomb was put up in St Peter in Chains – including the famous Moses. Your group might also see 4 slave figures in the Florence Accademia near David, and a couple more in the Louvre, which were all to form part of the tomb.)
The Sistine Chapel Ceiling
Julius now came up with a new project for Michelangelo – the decoration of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The artist was extremely unhappy with this – he considered himself a sculptor, not a painter, and was convinced the commission was a plot cooked up by his rivals Raphael and Bramante to discredit him as an artist when he made a bad job of it. But he had little choice in the matter, and began work in 1508, suspiciously throwing out the wooden scaffolding Bramante had designed, and weaving his own out of rope.
The Book of Genesis provided the subject for the ceiling, which represents the Creation – God makes the world, gives life to Adam (the famous electric fingers scene) and Eve, expels them from Paradise and finally shows his love for man by saving Noah from the Flood.
The ceiling took Michelangelo 5 years; he locked himself away in the chapel, dismissed all his assistants, whose work displeased him, and painted almost all of the 10,000 square feet himself. The labour was emotionally and physically draining – he spent so long with his head tilted back that his neck became stiff and swollen and his sight permanently impaired. Half way through he wrote, “I work harder than anyone who ever lived. I have no friends and haven’t the time to eat what I need”.
The impatient Pope couldn’t wait for the chapel to be ready, and on one occasion burst in and clambered up the scaffolding, asking when it would be done. Michelangelo said held finish it when he could, whereupon the Pope shouted, “I’ll soon MAKE you finish it”, hitting him with his stick and threatening to hurl him off the scaffolding if he didn’t speed up.
In 1512 work was at last complete, and the whole of Rome rushed in to see this astonishing achievement. There were over 300 figures, painted in the bright, clear colours which have recently been rediscovered in the great cleaning of the ceiling, and designed with Michelangelo’s brilliant fusion of spirituality (he was a very religious man) and Renaissance feeling for perfect depiction of the human body, inspired by classical sculpture. If Raphael and Bramante had hoped to show Michelangelo couldn’t paint, they had been proved resoundingly wrong.
The Last Judgement
Michelangelo now went back to Florence for a while (see Florence notes), but returned to Rome in 1532, aged 59, to paint the Last Judgement on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel for Pope Paul III. It is a terrible, dark scene: Christ in the middle sends saved souls up to Heaven, and sinners down to Hell, where the damned writhe in eternal agony and torture.
Michelangelo is supposed to have painted his own portrait in St Bartholomew’s flayed skin (just below Christ), as well as getting his own back on the Pope’s Master of Ceremonies (who held quarrelled with) by giving his face to the Ruler of Hell. On seeing the completed Last Judgement, the Pope fell to his knees, saying, “Lord, hold not my sins against me!”
Architect of St Peter’s
Michelangelo spent his final years on architectural projects, designing the Campidoglio square (above the Forum) with its classical palace buildings and great circular patterned pavement symbolising Rome’s place as the centre of the world (he now lived and worked at the bottom of its steps).
He was then, aged 71, appointed supreme architect of St Peter’s, taking over the plans of his old enemy Bramante (now dead) who he had to admit had done a good Job so far. Michelangelo started designs for a great dome – he couldn’t decide whether to make it shallow like the Pantheon or to break away from classical tradition and make it higher and more like Brunelleschi’s great Renaissance dome on Florence cathedral.
In fact only the drum had been built by the time he died, an incredibly old man of nearly 90, in 1564, and the work was left to a new architect, Fontana, who carried out the high version we see today.
Michelangelo’s body was smuggled out of Rome and taken back to his native Florence, where your group will see his tomb in the church of Sta Croce, featuring figures representing all his artistic talents – sculpture, painting and architecture – a large and impressive monument to a man who, in the words of Vasari, “was sent into the world by God as an exemplar for those who practise the arts so they might learn from his behaviour how to live and from his works how to perform as true and excellent craftsmen”.
Baroque Rome: Bernini and Borromini
The seventeenth century gave Rome a splendour that equalled that of its ancient monuments. While the Renaissance period had seen Michelangelo and Raphael in Rome, creating works of art which were wonderful but mainly inside, painted on walls and ceilings, Bernini and others in the seventeenth century were to reshape and transform the appearance of the city, designing impressive Piazzas with fine fountains, imposing palazzos and churches and splendid villas In spacious, statue filled gardens, created in the exuberant, extravagant, theatrical baroque style.
Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) was one of the principal creators of this new magnificence. The son of a Neapolitan sculptor, he had been brought to Rome as a child and proved himself a precocious genius, carving, for instance, a perfect marble head at the age of eight – the painter Annibale Carracci said of him that he had already arrived in childhood where others would be proud to be In their old age. Naturally, Bernini soon came to the attention of the Pope, Paul V, who hoped the young artist would “become the Michelangelo of this century”, and became his patron.
Paul V came from the wealthy Borghese family, and his nephew, the extravagant and worldly cardinal Scipione, also took up the young genius, commissioning sculptures from him which can still be seen in his hilltop house, the Villa Borghese (now a museum).
In 1623 a new Pope, Urban VIII, was elected. A highly intelligent and scholarly man who wrote poetry, Urban VIII appreciated fine art and eagerly took on the services of the celebrated sculptor, allowing him no time to other patrons – the French tried to lure him away to Paris, but the Pope refused to let him go, saying “Bernini was made for Rome, and Rome was made for him”. Much later, in the 1660’s, Bernini was to make his last superb contribution to the splendour of St Peter’s, designing and building in just two years the dramatic and magnificent paired colonnades which encircle the space in front of St Peter’s and represent the embracing arms of the Church.
But for now, Urban VIII had Bernini’s first important public commission in mind – the design of an enormous bronze baldacchino (canopy) to stand over the site of St Peter’s grave under the dome. The magnificent result, standing as high as a palazzo, its twisting, bulging baroque columns embellished with golden bees (heraldic symbol of the Pope’s family, the Barberini), was partly cast from bronze ripped from the Pantheon roof, giving rise to the famous pasquinade: Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini (What the barbarians didn’t do, the Barberini did). Bernini’s success with this baldacchino luckily overshadowed an embarrassing failure outside the church – the collapse of twin towers held added to the facade.
Bernini’s position as papal favourite seemed secure and led to great Jealousy from rival artists, who muttered darkly as he hurried to confession every day in the Gest church “he has much to confess”. They rubbed their hands together with satisfaction when his protector, Urban VIII, died, looking forward to Bernini’s downfall. Urban VIII was replaced with the Pamphilj pope, Innocent X, dour, distrustful and extremely ugly when he saw his portrait by Velasquez (now in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilij you can go and see it along with countless other treasures), he sadly remarked troppo vero.
Innocent X associated Bernini with his extravagant predecessor who he detested, and turned initially to a new architect, Francesco Borromini, who thus became Bernini’s great rival.
Borromini (1599-1667) was a gloomy, solitary man whose dealings with clients often ended in quarrels and acrimony. He was Jealous of Bernini’s early success and easy friendship with the previous pope, and now his chance had come to overtake his rival, he was delighted, loudly reminding everyone of the collapsed towers fiasco.
The two men were soon to be locked in personal and artistic rivalry, when the new Pope decided to revamp the Piazza Navone, where his family palazzo stood. Borromini was called in to finish the church of Sant’Agnese (the early Christian girl saint who began her martyrdom by miraculously growing long hair all over her body to cover her modesty when stripped of her clothes before being killed by unpleasant persecutors).
The Pope also wanted a great fountain built in the centre of the Piazza, in front of the church, but Bernini wasn’t asked to submit designs, even though his previous fountains – the Barcaccia in the Piazza di Spagna and the Triton in the Piazza Baberini – had been proclaimed masterpieces of sculpture and use of water. Somehow, however, he managed to get a model for the new fountain seen by the Pope, who relented, gave him the commission and took him back into his favour, much to Borromini’s eternal chagrin.
For his spectacular Fountain of the Four Rivers, Bernini used a large Roman obelisk as a dramatic centrepiece around which he clustered four enormous figures representing the major rivers of the world – the Danube, the Ganges, the Plate and the Nile – whose twisting, dynamic movement and exuberant outline perfectly embody the energy and spirit of baroque style, which took up the Renaissance inspiration of the antique, but allowed for a much freer interpretation, imaginative and unrestrained by strict adherence to classical tradition. Bernini’s manipulation of the water adds brilliantly to the superb energy of the sculptures.
Now, of course, works by the two great rivals stood in close proximity, giving rise to the famous story that the River Nile covers his head (in fact an allusion to its unknown source) so he doesn’t have to look at Borromini’s facade, while the River Plate sticks out his arm as if to stop the church falling down. Meanwhile, one of Borromini’s saints on the church holds up a correspondingly disapproving hand (a simpler explanation is of course that this is a gesture of blessing).
But it’s a good story, and as the Romans say, se non è vero è ben trovato! The Piazza Navona, which got its unusual shape from its origins as the Emperor Domitian’s stadium, was a great site for festivals – you can conjure up the scene of mock see battles and Jousts accompanied by fireworks which took place in the flooded square in summer, and the Christmas markets (still take place) when shepherds came down from the Abruzzi mountains, playing their bagpipes, to sell Nativity figures they’d carved out of wood whilst tending their flocks.
With the transformations of the seventeenth century, Rome had become once more a city of splendid public spaces, magnificent private palazzi and villas, and beautiful fountains, as it had been in ancient times – in fact, it’s still true to say that much of the physical grandeur of Rome as we see it today is the result of these two great periods.
An Evening In Rome – Walking Tour
You might take the group to one of or all of the following spots.
Piazza Navona
This square combines most of the elements that go to make up the city. Here you are free from Rome’s appalling traffic, for the square has regained its original function as a place of meeting and entertainment. Nearby there are many restaurants to cater to the favourite Roman pastime of eating, and the cafes in the square itself are ideal for people watching and the tasting of really good ice-cream, in particular the famous Tartufo ice-cream from ‘I Tre Scalini’. Great entertainments and artists collect here; there may be a political meeting or even a concert going on. At Christmas, a great toy fair is held where unlikely-looking Santa Clauses mix with the traditional figure of the Befana “the old witch”, who brings presents on January the 6th for good Italian children. The bad ones get a piece of coal.
Piazza Navona has been a place of entertainment for over 2,000 years. It still retains the shape of the athletics stadium built by Domitian 81-96 AD, and Roman masonry can be seen at the northern end of the square. The Roman arena survived almost unchanged until about the middle of the 5th century and was the scene of tournaments. Later the tiers of Roman seats were removed to be replaced by inns and eating houses and the square was transformed into a marketplace.
The square we know today dates from the 17th century and was part of the transformation of the city undertaken by the Popes. Two of the greatest Baroque artists had a hand in its design. The great church of St Agnes was the work of Borromini and erected on the spot where the Christian martyr St Agnes met her death in 304 AD. Legend has it that on the site was a brothel where the saint stripped off her clothes, and was covered by the miraculous growth of her hair.
No Roman square is complete without fountains and an obelisk. The central fountain of the Four Rivers is the work of Bernini (1651). The four allegorical figures, one of the Plate, Nile, Danube and Ganges, represent the four corners of the earth. Bernini and Borromini were rivals and the story goes that Bernini raised the hand of the Plate figure as if to prevent the collapse of the church facade, and the Nile’ s head is hidden not only to symbolize its unknown source but in horror at the ugliness of the church.
The fountain was paid for by a tax on bread. A typically ironic protest appeared on a placard attached to the obelisk, “O God, if only these stones would turn into bread.” Bernini designed the fountain of the Moor at the southern end of the square. The Neptune Fountain was made in 1873.
The Trevi Fountain
This is the most famous of Rome’s many fountains and was built from a design of Nicola Salvi between 1732-1762. The allegorical figure represents ocean in his chariot with the figures of Abundance on the right and Salubrity of the Air on the left. The fountain occupies the entire wall of a palace and its size is surprising in such a tiny square.
The name ‘Trevi’ probably comes from the tre vie, three streets that meet in the square. The water is the renowned Aqua Vergine the softest of Rome’s waters brought in from 14 miles distance by the Roman aqueduct that was the easiest to repair in the 15th century. The name of the water refers to the legend that it was a young girl who showed thirsty Roman soldiers its source.
The coin-throwing ceremony comes from the ancient custom of making offerings to water gods. Any kind will do, and if the children don’t get them out fast, they go to charity.
Piazza Di Spagna
The name comes from the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See situated in the square. By the 17th century, this area was a favourite tourist attraction in Rome and the haunt of many foreign writers, artists and nobles who stayed nearby.
To the right of the steps is the house where Keats died in 1821. It is now a Keats/Shelley memorial.
The Spanish Steps 1723-26
The steps were built to lead up to the French church of Trinita dei Monti. The three flights are a reference to the trinity and are designed so that the whole extent can be seen. At Christmas a crib is set up there, a model of an 18th century Roman hostelry. At Easter the entire flight is covered with flowering azaleas.
The boat fountain was designed by Bernini and is an ingenious solution to the problem of low water pressure here. On the right you can see the column erected in 1857 to celebrate the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Every year the Pope comes here on the 8th of December.
Pantheon
Founded by Agrippa in 27 BC (see the inscription above the columns) and later restored by Hadrian, the Pantheon is situated in a delightful Roman square, complete with fountain, restaurants and the inevitable gelateria. The spectacular dome larger even than St Peter’s or St Paul’s, was, up until this century, the largest in the world. Formerly a temple with its dome covered with bronze it later became a church and now houses the tombs of the Kings of Italy as well as that of Raphael. Note the holes in the columns where poles were inserted to support the booths of a poultry market under the portico! Pope Eugenius IV ordered their removal in the 15th century.
Trastevere
One of the livliest quarters of Rome, full of excellent restaurants, charming streets and surprising squares. The inhabitants of Trastevere claim to be the only real Romans descended from classical times. In July the special festival of Noi altri(Noi altri – we others) is held in its narrow streets.
This is not meant to be a complete and comprehensive chronology of early Roman history and rulers, you can get this from the front section of Michelin’s Italy or Rome. Here, you’ll find just a small selection of the more important/ interesting/colourful Roman Emperors. The Emperors Trajan and Hadrian can be found in the notes on Tivoli, as can the scandalous Borgia Pope, Alexander VI. Popes Julius 11 (Michelangelo, Raphael and Bramante’s patron), Urban VIII and Innocent X (17th century Rome) feature in the Renaissance/Baroque Rome notes.