Piazza del Popolo
Piazza del Popolo | |
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City square | |
The Piazza del Popolo. | |
Location | Rome, Italy |
Click on the map for a fullscreen view | |
Coordinates: 41°54′39″N 12°28′35″E / 41.9107°N 12.4763°E |
Piazza del Popolo is a large urban square in
The piazza lies inside the northern gate in the
Valadier's design
The layout of the piazza today was designed in
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
Looking from the north (illustration, right), three streets branch out from the piazza into the city, forming the so-called "
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
station, with a dome reflecting that of the church.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
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).
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
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
- ^ 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.
- ^ Della Porta's fontana dello trullo has been cleaned and re-erected in piazza Nicosia.
- ^ This obelisk was originally a set of two but the 'mate' has not been found with a degree of certainty.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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).
- ^ 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).
- ^ This fountain should not be confused with the Fountain of Neptune in the Piazza Navona.
- ^ "Piazza del Popolo: the newly restored Fontana dei Leoni". Milestone Rome. 2016-04-06. Retrieved 2022-02-17.
References
- Giedion, Siegfried, Space, Time and Architecture pp. 151–54
- Thais-Rome: Fountains
External links
- Roberto Piperno "Piazza del Popolo"
- Riccardo Cigola, "Piazza del Popolo"
- Piazza del Popolo
- Rome and Piazza del Popolo
- High-resolution 360° Panoramas and Images of Piazza del Popolo in Art Atlas
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 |