PALACE OF JUSTICE

PALAZZO DI GIUSTIZIA

Piazza dei Tribunali/Piazza Cavour

1888/1911 Guglielmo Calderini (1837/1916) from Perugia in collaboration with, among others, Giulio Magni (1859/1930) at the behest of Giuseppe Zanardelli, first Minister of Public Works and later Minister of Justice

It is the Seat of the CORTE SUPREMA DI CASSAZIONE (Supreme Court of Cassation)

Huge building of 170 x 155 m (558 x 508 feet)

About 900 rooms and 30 courtrooms

Covered with travertine but the internal structure is in reinforced concrete, one of the first examples in Europe

Crowned with a “Quadriga in bronze” 1907 by Ettore Ximenes (1855/1926). It was put in place only in 1925

ABOVE THE PORTAL “Justice between Force and Law” by Enrico Quattrini (1863/1950)

ON THE FAÇADE two beautiful allegorical representations of “Fame” by Eugenio Maccagnani (1852/1930)

“Statue of Jurisconsults” by Ubaldo Pizzichelli (1858/1942), Silvio Sbricoli (1864/1911), Mauro Benini (1850/after 1907), Arturo Dazzi (1881/1966), Luigi De Luca (1856/1938), Augusto Rivalta (1837/1925), Ernesto Biondi (1855/1917) and Emilio Gallori (1846/1924)

ON THE PEDIMENT OF THE FAÇADE ON PIAZZA CAVOUR “Group in bronze” by Paolo Bartolini (1859/1930)

COURTYARD

“Statue of Jurisconsults” Mauro Benini and Michele Tripisciano (1860/1913)

HALL OF HONOR

Frescoes “Legal History” by Cesare Maccari (1840/1919) and pupils including Paride Pascucci (1866/1954)

It is derogatorily known as PALAZZACCIO (ugly palace) for its alleged excessive grandeur and pomposity and also for the fact that it is a court, a designated use which does not contribute to the love for the building

Guglielmo Calderini died in circumstances that led to thinking of suicide as a result of the fierce criticism that rained down on his work

However, it is a beautiful product of its time and it can be considered an architectural version of the musical genre of French Grand-Opera, popular in the last decades of the 1800's, or rather, its Italian interpretation that the genius of Giuseppe Verdi expressed with the magnificent Don Carlos

The building is always much admired by the vast majority of foreign visitors who appreciate the overwhelming Calderini's architecture oblivious and unaware of the judgment of many critics, who have, probably wrongly, lambasted it for a century now

The choice of location was not accidental, in order to emphasize the contrast between the new courthouse of the young Italian secular state with the massive nearby Castel Sant'Angelo, a symbol of the judicial brutality of the late state of the popes

The alluvial soil created stability problems and the very long time to build it, which did raise costs and fed suspicions of corruption, led to a parliamentary inquiry. There were also suspects of recommendations from Zanardelli, who was from Brescia, for companies from the same town involved in the processing of the Botticino marble used for the interiors

MONUMENT TO CICERUACCHIO

MONUMENTO A CICERUACCHIO

Passeggiata del Gianicolo

1907 Ettore Ximenes (1855/1926)

Shown in the moment of his execution in 1849 with his son Lorenzo. The original location of the monument was Lungotevere Arnoldo da Brescia

In 1959 it was moved slightly in Lungotevere in Augusta for the construction of the tunnels along the River Tiber and finally, in 2011, it was placed in the Promenade of the Janiculum Hill

The hero Ciceruacchio from Trastevere district, whose real name was Angelo Brunetti, was shot along with his two children at Ca' Tiepolo during the long march of Giuseppe Garibaldi in the direction of Venice, after the fall of the Roman Republic

Ciceruacchio's other son Luigi was excluded from the monument primarily because he was an embarrassing character: he was suspected of being the perpetrator of the assassination of Pellegrino Rossi, the Interior Minister of the papal government, stabbed in 1848 in Palace of the Chancellery

JANICULUM HILL

GIANICOLO

Passeggiata del Gianicolo

Dubbed the eighth hill and connected to the history of Rome just as much as the legendary seven hills

It is 82 m (270 feet) high

It is located on the right bank the Tiber, originally in Etruscan territory

The name of the hill in the tradition derives from the god Janus, who would have founded a town on the hill known by the name of Ianiculum. In reality, the name is in relation to this divinity on the Janiculum Hill there was only a chapel dedicated to his son Fons or Fontus

There was a small town (Pagus Ianiculensis) at the foot of the hill in the area corresponding to today's Piazza Mastai

It would have been occupied and annexed to Rome by Anco Marcio (640/616) who would have fortified it and connected to the city via the SUBLICIO BRIDGE on which the ancient road going through the hill and coming from Etruria used to pass; it later became the Via Aurelia

The original bridge was named Sublicio for the sublicae, planks of wood with which it was built, fixed by bronze nails. Horatius Cocles, according to legend, in 507 BC stopped the Etruscans on the bridge Sublicius and the Romans cut it behind him

The hill was not very much inhabited for the water shortage until the construction of the Trajan aqueduct

The Romans used to raise a flag on the Janiculum as a safety signal when the speeches were held in the Campus Martius outside the city walls

An area of the Janiculum Hill was covered with the sacred woods of the TEMPLE OF FURRINA near which Gaius Gracchus killed himself in 121 BC

Another area of worship, in a later period, was the SANTUARIO SIRIACO (Syrian Shrine) on the east slope of the hill, today Via Dandolo

The road winding from Via Garibaldi towards S. Pietro in Montorio was traced in the years 1865/68 by Federico Arcangeli and was lined with elm, locust, plane trees and melie azedarach

The PASSEGGIATA DEL GIANICOLO (Janiculum Esplanade) was opened in the years 1883/96. The stretch between the "Fontanone" of the Acqua Paola and Piazzale Garibaldi was inaugurated in 1884 and other large sections were opened to the public in 1887

Along the walking path of the hill there are “Eighty-four marble busts of Garibaldi's heroes” 1883/1949 made by various sculptors including:

 “Luigi Mercantini” beginning of 1900s by Ettore Ximenes (1855/1926)

“Angelo Tittoni” 1902 by Ettore Ferrari (1845/1929)

“Achille Sacchi” about 1908, “Eugenio Agneni” 1923 and “Giovanni Costa” 1926/27 by Giovanni Prini (1877/1958)

“Colomba Porzi Antonietti” 1910/11 by Giovanni Nicolini (1872/1956)

“Paolo Narducci” 1921, “Augusto Valenziani” about 1920 and “Raffaele Cadorna” 1923 by Publio Morbiducci (1889/1963)

Four busts represent foreigners fighting with Garibaldi: an Englishman, a Finn, a Hungarian and a Bulgarian

Under the Belvedere (viewpoint) of the Janiculum Hill every day since 1904 at 12 o'clock three soldiers load a cannon with blanks and fire a shot

The tradition dates back to Pius IX Mastai-Ferretti (1846/78) who instituted this service in 1846 to avoid confusion with time. Before firing from the Janiculum Hill, the cannon used to fire from Castel Sant'Angelo first and then from Monte Mario