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ROMA Things to see - Squares
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Piazza Bocca della Veritą ("The Mouth of Truth")
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| This beautiful piazza with its garden dominates the Roman-style belltower of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, guardian of the "Bocca della Veritą", a stone mask that according to legends bites the hands of liars. In the piazza there are two Roman temples, the temple of Portuno and that of Ercole Vincitore, as well as a fountain from the eighteenth century. On the north side is the Casa dei Crescenzi, which belonged to a powerful Roman family. |
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Piazza Campo dei Fiori
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| A typical Roman piazza, noted above all for its market of flowers, fruits and vegetables, this tranquil spot is where those condemned to death were once executed. One of these was Giordano Bruno, who was accued of heresy and burned alive. The statue of the philosopher, at the center of the piazza, recalls this event. |
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Piazza del Campidoglio
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| Located in a low spot between the two peaks of the Capitoline Hill, this was carried out in the seventeenth century according to the plans of Michaelangelo, who also designed the three palaces that surround it: the Senatorial Palace (see chart), the Conservators Palace, and the New Palace. The last two palaces contain the Capitoline Museums (see chart). |
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Piazza del Popolo (the People's Piazza)
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This grandiose urban square was created in the beginning of the nineteenth century by Valadier, who abandoned the traditional concept of closed space and opened the piazza to the east, along the tree-lined hills of the Pincio (see chart).
Its limits are defined by two semi-circles, each one decorated by a fountain at one end, with sphinx and statues representing the seasons. In the southeast corner are two little baroque churches. Santa Maria di Montesanto is on an elliptical plan and Santa Maria dei Miracoli is on a circular plan. They were begun by Rainaldi but finished by Bernini and Fontana.
At the center of the piazza is the oldest obelisk of Rome, which came from Egypt and dates to the twelfth century B.C. Behind the obelisk is the Porta del Popolo ("People's Gate"), built in the middle of the sixteenth century by Nanni di Baccio Bigio and completed by Bernini, who added the internal facade in 1655. |
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Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Piazza)
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Piazza di Spagna is one of the most celebrated and evocative piazzas in Rome, with the fountain of the Barcaccia, designed by Pietro Bernini in the early seventeenth century, at the center. On the south side of the piazza is the scenic stairway of Trinitą dei Monti, a monumental eighteenth-century work by de Sanctis, which leads to the baroque church of the same name.
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| Two of the most important streets in Rome, via Condotti and via Frattina, now pedestrian islands, lead away from the piazza. Many famous people once lived in the surrounding area, among them Wagner, Liszt, Balzac, Stendhal, Rubens, Tennyson, Byron and Keats. |
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Piazza Navona
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This famous baroque elongated piazza traces the perimeter of the stadium of Domiziano, the Circus Agonalis. Its name derives from the deformation of the word "n'Agona." The arena, once the site of athletic competitions, was used for games and tournaments up until the seventeenth century.
Innocent X made it a masterpiece of baroque style, charging Bernini with the construction of the Fontana dei Fiumi (Fountain of the Rivers), a monumental work of the seventeenth century presenting allegorical statues of the four rivers Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Rio de Plata, symbolizing the four parts of the world.
At the extreme end of the piazza there are two other fountains, that of Neptune and that of the Moor with Triton, constructed according to Bernini's models. |
The large facade of the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, with its belltowers on either side, overlooks the piazza. The church was begun in 1652 by Girolamo and Carlo Rainaldi and finished by Borromini in 1657. Even Bernini took part in the work, making decorations and modifications to the external design. The inside, in the form of a Greek cross, contains frescoes, altarpieces and sculptures. The subterranean parts contain remains of the stadium of Domiziano and a marble bas relief representing the miracle of Saint Agnes. Next to the church is the Pamphili Palace, a sixteenth-century building constructed by Girolamo Rainaldi and donated by Innocent X to his cousin Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphili. |
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Piazza San Pietro (Saint Peter's Square)
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Piazza San Pietro is Bernini's architectural masterpiece. In 1656 he encircled the elliptical area with two majestic semicircles, each formed by four files of doric columns crowned with 140 statues of saints rising towards heaven. At the center rises an obelisk (26 meters high), which originated in Heliopolis and was brought here in 1585 by the order of Sixtus V, under the direction of Domenico Fontana. On each side there are two huge fountains from the seventeenth century, the work of Maderno and of Carlo Fontana. In the background stands the largest Christian church in the world, Saint Peter's (see chart), dominated by the dome designed in the style of Michaelangelo. |
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Piazza Venezia
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Situated at the center of the city, this piazza is teeming with continual traffic, because the main arteries of the city converge here. The grandiose Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II (also known as the Altar of Patriotism), erected between 1885 and 1911 by Giuseppe Sacconi to glorify the first king of Italy, is at the center of the piazza. At the base of the monument is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, by Zanelli. Nearby is the Venetian Palace (see chart), which, together with the ancient church of San Marco (fourth century) and the Venetian Palazzetto, forms a vast architectural complex. |
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