Piazza del Popolo

Coordinates: 41°54′39″N 12°28′35″E / 41.9107°N 12.4763°E / 41.9107; 12.4763
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Piazza del Popolo
City square
The Piazza del Popolo.
The Piazza del Popolo.
LocationRome, Italy
Map
Click on the map for a fullscreen view
Coordinates: 41°54′39″N 12°28′35″E / 41.9107°N 12.4763°E / 41.9107; 12.4763

Piazza del Popolo is a large urban square in

Latin, pioppo in Italian) after which the church of Santa Maria del Popolo
, in the northeast corner of the piazza, takes its name.

The piazza lies inside the northern gate in the

executions
, the last of which took place in 1826.

Valadier's design

Heliopolis
stands in the centre of the Piazza.
Santa Maria in Montesanto (left, built 1662–75) and Santa Maria dei Miracoli (right, built 1675–79). The Via del Corso
exits between the two churches.
Porta del Popolo

The layout of the piazza today was designed in

Bernini's plan for St. Peter's Square, replacing the original cramped trapezoidal
square centred on the Via Flaminia.

Valadier's Piazza del Popolo, however, incorporated the verdure of trees as an essential element; he conceived his space in a third dimension, expressed in the building of the viale that leads up to the balustraded overlook from the Pincio (above, right).

An

plinth). The obelisk was brought to Rome in 10 BC by order of Augustus and originally set up in the Circus Maximus. It was re-erected here in the piazza by the architect-engineer Domenico Fontana in 1589 as part of the urban plan of Sixtus V. The piazza also formerly contained a central fountain, which was moved to the Piazza Nicosia in 1818, when fountains, in the form of Egyptian-style lions, were added around the base of the obelisk.[3]

Looking from the north (illustration, right), three streets branch out from the piazza into the city, forming the so-called "

Bernini and Carlo Fontana, define the junctions of the roads. Close scrutiny of the twin churches reveals that they are not mere copies of one another, as they would have been in a Neoclassical project, but vary in their details, offering variety within their symmetrical balance in Baroque
fashion.

The central street, now known as the Via del Corso, was the ancient Via Lata, and to the north it links with the ancient Roman road, the Via Flaminia, beyond the city gate and southwards, to the Piazza Venezia (formerly the Piazza San Marco), the Capitol and the forum. The Via di Ripetta leads past the Mausoleum of Augustus to the River Tiber, where the Baroque riverside landing called the Porto di Ripetta was located until it was destroyed in the late 19th century. The Via del Babuino ("Baboon"), linking to Piazza di Spagna, takes its name from a grotesque sculpture of Silenus that gained the popular name of "the Baboon".

To the north of the piazza stands the

Roman Catholicism and her abdication.[4] Opposite Santa Maria del Popolo stands a Carabinieri
station, with a dome reflecting that of the church.

Fontana del Nettuno

In his urbanistic project, Valadier constructed the matching palazzi that provide a frame for the scenography of the twin churches and hold down two corners of his composition. He positioned a third palazzo to face these and matched a low structure screening the flank of Santa Maria del Popolo, with its fine Early Renaissance façade, together holding down the two northern corners. Valadier outlined this newly defined oval forecourt to the city of Rome with identical sweeps of wall, forming curving exedra-like spaces. Behind the western one, a screen of trees masks the unassorted fronts of buildings beyond.

Fountains

One side of the Fontana dell'Obelisco

The aqueduct carrying the Acqua Vergine Nuovo was completed in the 1820s, and its water provided the opportunity for fountains and their basins that offered the usual public water supply for the rione or urban district. Ever since the Renaissance such terminal fountains also provided an occasion for the grand terminal water show called in Rome a mostra or a show. "What makes a fountain a mostra is not essentially its size or splendor, but its specific designation as the fountain that is a public memorial to the whole achievement of the aqueduct."[5] Valadier had planned fountains in the upper tier of the Pincio slope, but these were not carried out, in part for lack of water.[6]

Fountains by Giovanni Ceccarini (1822–23), with matching compositions of a central figure flanked by two attendant figures, stand on each side of the piazza to the east and west, flanked by neoclassical statues of The Seasons (1828).

Dea Roma armed with lance and helmet, and in front is the she-wolf feeding Romulus and Remus.[6]

At the center of the piazza is the Fontana dell' Obelisco: a group of four mini fountains, each comprising a lion on a stepped plinth, surround the obelisk.

Urbanisation in three dimensions

From Piazza del Popolo, the steps lead to the Pincio, to the east.

Valadier's masterstroke was in linking the piazza with the heights of the Pincio, the Pincian Hill of ancient Rome, which overlooked the space from the east. He swept away informally terraced gardens that belonged to the Augustinian monastery connected with Santa Maria del Popolo. In its place he created a carriage drive that doubled back upon itself and pedestrian steps leading up beside a waterfall to the Pincio park, where a balustraded lookout, supported by a triple-arched nymphaeum is backed by a wide gravelled opening set on axis with the piazza below; formally planted bosquets of trees flank the open space. The planted Pincio in turn provides a link to the Villa Borghese gardens.

Before its restoration and conversion into a pedestrian zone in 1997–1998, the Piazza del Popolo was often choked with traffic and parked cars.[9]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Valadier published his first proposal for the Piazza del Popolo in 1794; the final proposal as built appeared in 1816, when the works were already in progress.
  2. ^ Della Porta's fontana dello trullo has been cleaned and re-erected in piazza Nicosia.
  3. ^ This obelisk was originally a set of two but the 'mate' has not been found with a degree of certainty.
  4. ^ Whereas such festive structures elsewhere were built of weather-resistant plaster, this structure was more permanently executed in stone. See the festive tradition of the royal entry.
  5. ^ Peter J. Aicher, "Terminal Display Fountains ("Mostre") and the Aqueducts of Ancient Rome" Phoenix 47.4 (Winter 1993:339–352), p. 339. Aicher makes a case for the terminal fountains as features of modern Rome, but not of ancient Rome, as commonly assumed in the standard works listed in his bibliography p. 339.
  6. ^ a b M.G. Tolomeo, "Le fontane del piazza del Popolo e la mostra del nuovo aquedotto Vergine elevato", Il Trionfo dell'acqua (Rome, 1986:240–243).
  7. ^ Touring Club Italiano, Roma e dintorni 1965:181, gives the names of the four sculptors responsible: Filippo Guaccarini (Spring), Francesco Massimiliano Laboureur (Summer), Achille Stocchi (Autumn), and Felice Raini (Winter).
  8. ^ This fountain should not be confused with the Fountain of Neptune in the Piazza Navona.
  9. ^ "Piazza del Popolo: the newly restored Fontana dei Leoni". Milestone Rome. 2016-04-06. Retrieved 2022-02-17.

References

External links

Media related to Piazza del Popolo (Rome) at Wikimedia Commons

Preceded by
Piazza d'Aracoeli
Landmarks of Rome
Piazza del Popolo
Succeeded by
Piazza della Minerva