Piazza Scossacavalli

Coordinates: 41°54′08.4″N 12°27′39.9″E / 41.902333°N 12.461083°E / 41.902333; 12.461083
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Piazza Scossacavalli
Partial view of piazza Scossacavalli with the Borgo Vecchio road, the palazzo dei Convertendi and St. Peter's Basilica in the background (c.1930)
Map
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Former name(s)Piazza di San Clemente
Piazza di Trento
Piazza d'Aragona
Piazza Salviati
LocationRome, Italy
QuarterBorgo
Coordinates41°54′08.4″N 12°27′39.9″E / 41.902333°N 12.461083°E / 41.902333; 12.461083
Construction
Demolished1936–1937

Piazza Scossacavalli, also named Piazza di San Clemente, Piazza di Trento, Piazza d'Aragona, Piazza Salviati,[1] was a square in Rome, Italy, important for historical and architectonic reasons. The square was demolished together with the surrounding quarter in 1937 due to the construction of Via della Conciliazione.

Location

Located in the

Saint Peter's Basilica
. Piazza Scossacavalli was the center of the so–called spina (the name derives from its resemblance with the median strip of a
Roman circus), composed of several blocks elongated in E–W direction between the castle and Saint Peter.[2][3]

Naming

The central part of Borgo with the spina and piazza Scossacavalli (in the middle, between Borgo Nuovo and Borgo Vecchio)) in Rome's plan by Giambattista Nolli (1748)

The square's name derives from that of the church of

presentation of Jesus at the Temple and one on which Abraham bound Isaac.[1] The empress wanted to donate the stones to Saint Peter's Basilica, but when the convoy arrived at the site of the future church the horses (Italian: cavalli) refused to move further despite urging (Italian: scossi).[4][5] A chapel hosting the stones was built, and this was the origin of the toponym.[5][6] The most probable reason for the name was the discovery, near the square, of a thigh from a Roman equestrian statue (coxa caballi in Vulgar Latin).[5][7]

The square bore also several other names, all linked to

scudi);[8] Piazza d'Aragona (from Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona, natural grandson of king Ferdinand I of Naples and father of the cortigiana and poet Tullia d'Aragona, who lived in the palace since 1514);[9][10] Piazza Salviati (from Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, nephew of Pope Leo X (r. 1513–21), renter of the palace since 1524).[9][1][11]

History

Roman age and Middle Ages

Partial view of the square towards north with Palazzo Torlonia and the fountain of Maderno (James Anderson, before 1859)

In the

via Triumphalis, which crossed the Tiber on the Pons Neronianus, heading north in direction Monte Mario and then flowing into the via Cassia.[12] Many scholars think that the two roads crossed each other in a place corresponding to the Piazza Scossacavalli.[13][14] In the Middle Ages the square consisted of an irregularly shaped open space surrounded by small houses and brick kilns.[15] Along the east side, it lay the church of San Salvatoris de coxa caballi ("St. Saviour of horse thigh"), later named San Salvatore de Bordonia and finally in 1250 dedicated to San Giacomo.[16]

The northern side of the church was bordered by a blind lane ending by a vegetable garden and the

that of Gaius Cestius along the via Ostiensis,[17]
while the south side of the piazza was traversed by the Carriera Martyrum road (the future Borgo Vecchio) Along the north side of the square there was a field where the bricks were placed to dry.[17] In this area during late 15th century Cardinal Ardicino della Porta the younger owned several houses and plots.[17]

Renaissance

Piazza Scossacavalli towards east with the church of San Giacomo and the fountain by Carlo Maderno in a 17th–century etching by Giovanni Battista Falda

The golden age of the piazza started with the

his palace, obtaining in 1481 from the pope the exemption from the payment of censo fee;[19] the building was possibly designed by Florentine architect Baccio Pontelli.[18][20][21]

In 1499,

Lorenzo Campeggi.[26]

Along the western side of piazza Scossacavalli, at the corner with Borgo Vecchio, in the 15th century lay a house property of Bartolomeo Zon [27] which hosted two deposed queens: Catherine of Bosnia, which lived there in 1477–78,[28] and Charlotte of Cyprus.[29] Some years later, on the other end of the piazza's west side, at the corner with Borgo Nuovo, the Caprini family from Viterbo let erect by Bramante their Roman residence.[24] The palace was then bought by Raphael, who completed it and spent there the last 3 years of his life, dying there in 1520.[27] After 1584, after changing several owners, the palace was acquired by Camilla Peretti, the sister of Pope Sixtus V (r. 1585–90), who bought it on behalf of her brother for her grandnephew, Cardinal Alessandro Peretti di Montalto.[30] Camilla Peretti bought also some houses facing Piazza Scossacavalli and Borgo Vecchio, so that the palace reached its full extension.[30]

On the east side, shortly after 1520 the

Blessed Sacrament started to reconstruct the church of San Giacomo, choosing as architect Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, but due to lack of funds its facade was still unfinished in 1590;[31] anyway, thanks to a legacy two years later the construction was finished.[31] The church was separated from Borgo Nuovo by a small lane and a house belonging to the near Hospital of Santo Spirito; during the reign of Sixtus IV it had been rented for a long time by a valiant condottiero, Andrea della Casa Dennesia.[1]

Baroque and modern age

Piazza Scossacavalli and the Borgo Vecchio towards east during the Tiber flood on 15 February 1915

At the beginning of the seventeenth-century, piazza Scossacavalli reached its definitive aspect, with a

Colonna families, was purchased in 1720 by count Pietro Giraud, and in 1820 by the Torlonia family, who still owns it.[33]
In the 19th century, the only major intervention in Piazza Scossacavalli was the construction inside Palazzo dei Convertendi of a richly decorated oratory dedicated to San Filippo Neri with an entrance on the square.[34]

Demolition

In the 1930s, with the decision to open a large road between Castel Sant'Angelo and Saint Peter, the fate of the piazza was sealed: the spina di Borgo with piazza Scossacavalli was demolished between 29 October 1936 and 8 October 1937.

Baldassarre Peruzzi,[38] were reused in a modern palace bearing the same name and erected along the north side of Via della Conciliazione; Palazzo Torlonia remained untouched, being the only building not to be altered during the works for the opening of the new road,[39] This building, which now belongs to the Torlonia family,[25] and is now part of the north side of Via della Conciliazione.[39]
The fountain of Carlo Maderno was dismounted in 1941 and landed in the city deposit until 1957, when it was remounted in front of Sant'Andrea della Valle (also Maderno's work), although several parts (among them the upper cup, which was Ancient Roman) were missing and had to be remade.[40]

The memory of the square survives in a short street ("via Scossacavalli") which links Borgo Santo Spirito and Via della Conciliazione.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Gigli 1992, p. 7.
  2. ^ Delli 1988, p. 194.
  3. ^ Delli 1988, p. 199.
  4. ^ Baronio 1697, p. 65.
  5. ^ a b c Gigli 1992, p. 8.
  6. ^ a b c Delli 1988, p. 857.
  7. ^ Cambedda 1990, p. 50.
  8. ^ a b Gigli 1992, p. 26.
  9. ^ a b Gigli 1992, p. 24.
  10. ^ De Caro 1961.
  11. ^ Ceccarelli 1938, p. 20.
  12. ^ Gigli 1990, p. 9.
  13. ^ Gigli 1992, p. 9.
  14. ^ Borgatti 1926, p. 4.
  15. ^ Borgatti 1926, p. 62.
  16. ^ Gigli 1990, p. 8.
  17. ^ a b c d Borgatti 1926, p. 161.
  18. ^ a b Gigli 1990, p. 25.
  19. ^ Aurigemma 2016, p. 125.
  20. ^ Gigli 1992, p. 22.
  21. ^ Cambedda 1990, p. 48.
  22. ^ a b Cambedda 1990, p. 47.
  23. ^ Cambedda 1990, p. 62.
  24. ^ a b Gigli 1992, p. 44.
  25. ^ a b Gigli 1992, p. 72.
  26. ^ Gigli 1992, p. 64.
  27. ^ a b Gigli 1992, p. 46.
  28. ^ Borgatti 1926, p. 162.
  29. ^ Borgatti 1926, p. 163.
  30. ^ a b c Gigli 1992, p. 50.
  31. ^ a b Gigli 1992, p. 10.
  32. ^ Cambedda 1990, p. 57.
  33. ^ Gigli 1992, p. 70.
  34. ^ Borgatti 1926, p. 211.
  35. ^ Gigli 1990, p. 33.
  36. ^ Gigli 1992, p. 12.
  37. ^ Gigli 1992, p. 28.
  38. ^ Gigli 1992, p. 56.
  39. ^ a b Gigli 1992, p. 60.
  40. ^ Renzi 2016, p. 171.

Sources

  • Baronio, Cesare (1697). Descrizione di Roma moderna (in Italian). Roma: M.A. and P.A. De Rossi.
  • Borgatti, Mariano (1926). Borgo e S. Pietro nel 1300 – 1600 – 1925 (in Italian). Roma: Federico Pustet.
  • Ceccarelli, Giuseppe (Ceccarius) (1938). La "Spina" dei Borghi (in Italian). Roma: Danesi.
  • Castagnoli, Ferdinando; Cecchelli, Carlo; Giovannoni, Gustavo; Zocca, Mario (1958). Topografia e urbanistica di Roma (in Italian). Bologna: Cappelli.
  • De Caro, Gaspare (1961). "Luigi d'Aragona". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian). Vol. 3.
  • Delli, Sergio (1988). Le Strade di Roma (in Italian). Roma: Newton & Compton.
  • Gigli, Laura (1990). Guide rionali di Roma (in Italian). Vol. Borgo (I). Fratelli Palombi Editori, Roma.
    ISSN 0393-2710
    .
  • Gigli, Laura (1992). Guide rionali di Roma (in Italian). Vol. Borgo (II). Fratelli Palombi Editori, Roma.
    ISSN 0393-2710
    .
  • Cambedda, Anna (1990). La demolizione della Spina dei Borghi (in Italian). Fratelli Palombi Editori, Roma.
  • Benevolo, Leonardo (2004). San Pietro e la città di Roma (in Italian). Laterza, Bari.
    ISBN 8842072362
    .
  • Aurigemma, Maria Giulia (2016). Claudio Parisi Presicce; Laura Petacco (eds.). Palazzo di Domenico della Rovere (in Italian). Rome.
    ISBN 978-88-492-3320-9. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  • Renzi, Tania (2016). Claudio Parisi Presicce; Laura Petacco (eds.). Una fontana senza pace: la fontana di piazza Scossacavalli (in Italian). Rome.
    ISBN 978-88-492-3320-9. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )

External links
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