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The following text is in most parts an extract from Rom im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert – Konstruktion eines Mythos [Rom in the 19th and 20th Century – Construction of a Myth], Franz J. Bauer 2009, translation by studio karonga
For the city of Rome, the two centuries between the pontificates of Martin V Colonna (1417-1431) and Paul V Borghese (1605-1621) became the Golden Age, in which a fundamental transformation of the urban form took place.
At the beginning of the 15th century, the papacy was finally able to permanently return to its place of origin with Pope Martin V. By this time the age of the Renaissance also begins for Rome – belatedly compared to other cities in Italy, and especially Florence – and the Middle Ages have to give way; a turning point, no less epochal in terms of the long-term changes in the shape of the city that resulted from it than the beginning of the Principate under Emperor Augustus. The papacy develops into a powerful monarchy, with the Pope as absolute sovereign.
The means for this are provided on the one hand by the fine arts, and on the other hand by architecture and urban planning, which demonstrate the titanic self-confidence of the rulers of this era.
The popes, moved by the humanistic ideal of antiquity found and revived, pursued a building program of perseverance and great ambition throughout this entire period. Its aim is nothing less than renovatio urbis, the restoration of Rome according to the splendid example of its imperial past. The Rome of the Popes emerge as a closed, well-organized capital with a grandiose appearance.
Popes of the Renaissance, together with the cardinals, created a new Golden Rome of unheard of, grandiose splendor as biblia pauperum, the Bible of the poor.
The papacy is on the way to becoming a far-reaching Renaissance principality that asserts its political sovereignty against all particular authorities.
The guiding idea of the Renaissance and Baroque papacy: the capital, in its size and splendor, had to have an uplifting effect in the literal sense, presenting an immediately understandable demonstration of the power of God and his church
The construction program for the Roma Capitale dei Papi, which the popes implemented with astonishing consistency despite all church-political vicissitudes, shows their sovereign self-image.
In cities where major Urban Turning Points occured in the 19th century like Munich, Barcelona, Vienna, Paris etc. very accurate historic maps are available to show the ante- and post-status of the respective transformation.
Rome is different since the Turning Point happened from 1400 onward when accurate carthography was not yet invented. And Rome is different even in another way – the turning lasted for two centuries while in most other cities it took only a couple of decades.
For Rome before the great transformation only maps of this kind are available:
| 1420 – 71 | When Pope Martin V took possession of the urbs again in 1420 three years after his election, the city presented a picture of misery: Rome was dilapidated and desolate, no semblance of a city could be seen anymore. Only a small part of the huge area within the Aurelian Wall was still built up and inhabited, characterized by a tangle of small, decaying houses, narrow and angled streets, and a few open squares. Martin V re-established the municipal institution of the magistri.Cattle grazed in the Roman Forum… |
| ca. 1450 | Rome has 20,000 inhabitants |
| Pope Nicholas V Parentuccelli, the first of the great city planners of the Roman Renaissance, comes to St. Peter’s Throne. He improves basic infrastructure like improving water supply, repairing the bridges and strengthening the fortifications. | |
| 1447-55 | Rome has, different from most other cities, at least two centers – the Vatican and the Capitol. The connection between the curial and the municipal center through the Via Peregrinorum via the Campo de’Fiori and the Via Papalis was therefor a crucial urban intervention.
The Vatican with St. Peter’s Church, together with the Ponte S. Angelo, formed the curial heart of the city. This is where the bold future projections of a new urban development plan originated. |
| ca. 1450 | Rome has 40,000 inhabitants |
| 1453
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In 1453 the papal building program came to a certain standstill because there was a lack of money and, on the other hand, because after the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, the threat to the West from the East required other priorities |
| 1471-1484
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Pope Sixtus IV is considered the new founder of the city. With him, the planned expansion of Rome began again with unprecedented vigor. Sixtus removed the office of magistri viarum from municipal jurisdiction and placed it directly under his cardinal chamberlain. He subjected the anarchic patchwork of medieval architecture to a stricter order. Main streets cleaned, widened, straightened and paved |
| 1500
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Nevertheless, the city still does not have a coherent settlement pattern. The city has no center, or rather, it does not have just one center. but several of them. The development problems of Rome therefore differ fundamentally from those of other modern cities; because it does not take place as an expansion starting from the central core in growing rings of concentric peripheries, but rather within a broad but largely still deserted urban area through the densification of existing nuclei, their connection by means of streets and their gradual merging into a closed urban texture. |
For the following visualisation of urban interventions by various Popes between 1500 and 1600 we will use the famous map engraved by Giovanni Battista Nolli in 1748 under the title Nuova Topografia Di Roma. With this map cartography entered a new level of accuracy and beauty. It was by far the most accurate description of Rome produced to date at the time. For decades it continued to be used as a base map for many of the maps of Rome that followed it. Even today Nolli’s design is still used to map urban form with public and private space.
With a map generator based on Open Street Map you can produce a ‚Nolli-Map‘ of any part of the world. This is how it looks like for Rome:
| 1503 – 13
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The ‚Golden Age‘ of Rome, as the 16th century in particular was called, begins with Pope Julius II. Two long, dead-straight streets now shape the appearance of Rome: • Via Giulia running from S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini to Ponte Sisto • Via della Lungara parallel to it on the right side of the Tiber with the almost endless prospects of their straight lines that ruthlessly cut through the settlement fabric, represent a bold challenge to people’s viewing habits and attitude to life |
| 1513 – 34
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1513-1521 Medici Pope Leo X. 1523-1534 Medici Pope Clement VII. Construction of two more dead-straight streets, the Via Leonina (today Via di Ripetta) on the right and the Via Clemenzia (Via del Babuino) to the left of the Via Flaminia (today Via del Corso), the famous “trident” created by from the Piazza del Popolo, which remains one of the most spectacular motifs in Rome’s urban landscape to this day. |
| 1526 | Rome has 55,000 inhabitants |
| 1534 – 49
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Pope Paul III Farnese gives new impetus to Rome urban studies
1536 The via triuinphalis of Charles V, coming from the Via Appia Antica, led through the Porta S. Sebastiane to the Colosseum and over the Capitol to St. Peter’s Basilica on a newly laid out street across the Roman Forum through the triumphal arches of Constantine, Titus and of Septimius Severus. |
| 1559 – 65
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Pope Pius introduced a new element of great importance for the future development of the city: He shifts the planning emphasis from the previous central settlement zone between the Vatican and capital to the still largely undeveloped high-altitude regions east of the city: • The Baths of Diocletian at the top of the Virninal are being restored • create a dead straight connection between the two major basilicas of S. Maria Maggiore and S. Giovanni in Laterano • an arterial road drawn as if drawn with a ruler in a north-easterly direction with a new magnificent gate, the Porta Pia. |
| 1534 – 49 | Pope Paul III Farnese gives new impetus to Rome urban studies
1536 The via triuinphalis of Charles V, coming from the Via Appia Antica, led through the Porta S. Sebastiane to the Colosseum and over the Capitol to St. Peter’s Basilica on a newly laid out street across the Roman Forum through the triumphal arches of Constantine, Titus and of Septimius Severus. |
| 1559 – 65 | Pope Pius introduced a new element of great importance for the future development of the city: He shifts the planning emphasis from the previous central settlement zone between the Vatican and capital to the still largely undeveloped high-altitude regions east of the city: • The Baths of Diocletian at the top of the Virninal are being restored • create a dead straight connection between the two major basilicas of S. Maria Maggiore and S. Giovanni in Laterano • an arterial road drawn as if drawn with a ruler in a north-easterly direction with a new magnificent gate, the Porta Pia. |
| 1572 – 85 | By Pope Gregory XIII. Boncompagni decided to continue the urbanistic turn towards the east initiated by Pius IV with a huge program of construction projects 1574 This Pope combined his passion for urban planning and development with the professional lawyer’s knowledge of the importance of generally binding and systematic legal regulations: Gregory XIII issued 22 building regulations (Constitutiones de aedificiis). the first modern building regulations for Rome. |
| 1585 – 90
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Pope Sixtus V. Peretti completed the transformation and expansion of Rome into a modern metropolis of grandiose modernity and monumentality with a truly pharaonic city building program in just five years of his pontificate. With radical consistency he pursued an orientation towards the eastern periphery. |
| His truly grandiose concept was no longer based on the old center, but instead took a bird’s-eye view of the urban area enclosed by the Aurelian Wall as an overall space to be designed urbanistically. To organize this space, he laid out a wide-meshed network of straight streets, with the pilgrim churches and large squares as prominent junctions. The center of this network was the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore, which was particularly valued by Sixtus, and from which street axes radiated in a star shape:
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| The main route of the new road system was the one named after the Pope himself – Via Felice/Via Sistina, which was planned in a dead-straight route from S. Maria Maggiore to S. Trinita dei Monti and from there to Piazza del Popolo – a street prospect that is not easily surpassed in terms of urbanistic boldness, even in today’s Rome. The Sistine road network opened up a new settlement area for Rome’s future expansion, which, due to its extension over the eastern hills, offered much healthier climatic conditions than the damp lowlands along the Tiber, which were plagued by frequent floods. Construction of a new aqueduct, the Acqua Felice, and construction of numerous magnificent fountains.With the pontificate of Sixtus V, which brought about an astonishing concentration of urban planning interventions of the greatest importance in an incredibly short space of time, the last major chapter of Rome’s urban studies closes until the city’s entry into the nation-state-industrial era. |
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| What is interesting is that the city showed a comparatively balanced social structure: there were neither exorbitantly rich districts nor downright slums; Rather, in the rioni and even in individual streets, the basic pattern of a closely interwoven cohabitation of nobles in stately palaces and the middle and lower classes in their more modest homes, workshops and shops was apparent – a happy mixture of the most diverse life situations and circumstances, which ensures the living connection of these characterized the city well into the 19th century.
At the end of the 16th century, with the network of straight main streets that paid homage to the era’s penchant for long perspective escapes and that met and intersected with monumental buildings in spectacular squares, the modern structure, the basic urban pattern of Rome, was already fully developed. |
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| ca. 1600 | Rome has 100,000 inhabitants |