SPANISH STEPS

SCALINATA DI TRINITÀ DEI MONTI
Piazza di Spagna

1723/26 Francesco De Sanctis (1693/1740) for Innocent XIII Conti (1721/24) and for the French King Louis XV (king from 1715 until 1774) who financed the project

It was obviously inspired from the now disappeared Port of Ripetta designed in 1705 by the brilliant Alessandro Specchi

“It replicates the main theme of the Port of Ripetta, but doubling it and complicating it. A scheme less concise and simple than that of Specchi, but that complies the natural slope with the undulating rhythm of the profile and calls for a peaceful stroll, never monotonous” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

At the base reliefs with the French lilies of King Louis XV and eagles of Pope Innocent XIII

136 steps divided into eleven dozen plus four and into three parts to evoke the Trinity and celebrate the peace between the crowns of Spain and France

It corresponds to the main body with the steps of the Horti Luculliani, the gardens of Lucullus, the villa built by Lucullus immediately after the triumph over Mithridates celebrated in the year 63 BC, one of the grandest villas in Rome

The square is named after the Palazzo di Spagna (Palace of Spain), Spanish Embassy to the Holy See and in English the steps are known as Spanish Steps though, actually, it is a French staircase and should more properly be called French Steps

It is defined as cristianissima piazza (the most Christian square) for the shape that would remind the monogram of Christ and references to Christian worship: the Trinity Church, the Palace of the Propagation of the Faith, the Column of the Immaculate Conception and the Barcaccia (ugly boat) Fountain reminiscent of the ship of St. Peter
It was always a place for meetings and socializing, so much so that already in 1737 were forbidden the “scandalous dances between men and women” that took place here in the summer nights

HOLY TRINITY OF THE MOUNTAINS

SS. TRINITÀ DEI MONTI
Piazza Trinità dei Monti 3

The construction began in 1502 for the French king Louis XII (reigned 1498-1515) and it was consecrated in 1585 for Pope Sixtus V Peretti (1585/90)

FAÇADE
1584 maybe by Giacomo Della Porta (1533/1602) but, more likely, by Annibale Lippi (active in Rome in the second half of the sixteenth century), son of Giovanni Lippi aka Nanni di Baccio Bigio, and Gregorio Caronica, collaborator of Giacomo Della Porta

STAIRS
1587 by Domenico Fontana (1543/1607) with ancient capitals and reliefs
Sixtus V wanted two side ramps, not a front ramp, so as not to hinder the Via Felice, which had just been opened

In 1798 the church was used as a stable by French revolutionary troops

In 1800 the vault collapsed

Restored 1816 by Carlo Francesco Mazois (1783/1826) for the French King Louis XVIII (he reigned in the years 1814/24)

French National Church granted to the French nuns of the Sacred Heart

INTERIOR modified in 1774

1^st RIGHT - ALTOVITI CHAPEL 
Above the altar “Baptism of Christ”, on the sides “Stories of St. John the Baptist” about 1580 by G.B. Naldini (about 1537/91)

“All in all, in the art of this successor of Vasari there is certainly still alive a great expression of the old tradition. The accuracy and security of the drawing style of Naldini are still due mostly to his master, Pontormo” (Hermann Voss)

3^rd RIGHT - DELLA ROVERE CHAPEL
Frescoes 1548/60 by Daniele da Volterra (1509/66) helped by Marco Pino aka Marco da Siena (about 1525/87), Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527/96), Giovanni Paolo Rossetti, Michele Alberti (active in the years 1535/82) and the Spanish Gaspar Becerra (1520/70):
In the center, above the altar “Assumption” with a portrait of Michelangelo staring at the viewer
On the right “Presentation in the Temple” by Daniele da Volterra
On the left “Massacre of the Innocents” by Michele Alberti

“To save space, Daniele da Volterra imagined the altar of the chapel as the tomb around which the apostles gathered, so that they, at the side of the altar, came to stand directly on the floor, it was an innovation that sparked a lot of discussion but on the whole failed, and rightly so. More important as a composition is the scene of the Massacre of the Innocents executed by Alberti, worthy of praise for the great spatial arrangement, which features the theme of the stairs, and the richness of the plastic patterns” (Hermann Voss)

4^th RIGHT - ORSINI CHAPEL
Above the altar “Flagellation” 1817 by the French Louis Vincent Palliere (1787/1820)
Frescoes “Scenes of the Passion of Christ” by Paris Nogari (about 1536/1601)
On the walls “Gravestones of Cardinal Rodolfo Pio da Carpi and of Cecilia Orsini” 1567 by Leonardo Sormani (before 1530/after 1589)

6^th CHAPEL ON THE RIGHT
Frescoes of the beginning of 1500s of Umbrian school, maybe by a follower of Perugino

OVAL CHAPEL 
Altar on the right “St. Michael the Archangel” about 1758 by Domenico Corvi (1721/1803) from Viterbo

MAIN ALTAR
Designed in 1676 by ​​Jean de Champagne
On the right “St. Louis receiving the royal crown” 1820 by Charles Theenin
In the center “Crucifixion” by Cesare Nebbia (1536/1614)
On the left seventeenth-century copy of the “Deposition” by Daniele da Volterra

CHAPEL TO THE LEFT OF THE MAIN ALTAR
Above the altar “Coronation of the Virgin Mary” by Federico Zuccari (about 1542/1609)

7^th LEFT - PUCCI CHAPEL
“Stories of the Old and of the New Testament” 1520/27 by Pietro Bonaccorsi aka Perin del Vaga (1501/47)

“The main scene is a Visitation rich of figures and architectural elements. It later became the visual model for numerous religious ceremonies” (Hermann Voss)

The cycle was completed in the years 1563/66 by Taddeo Zuccari (1529/66) and, after his death in 1566 by his younger brother Federico Zuccari

6^th CHAPEL ON THE LEFT
On the right “The Wise Virgins and the Foolish Virgins” and on the left “The Prodigal Son” by Alexander Maximilian Seitz (1811/88), a pupil of Friedrich Overbeck and father of Ludovico Seitz

5^th LEFT - MASSIMO CHAPEL
“Eternal Lord with the dead Christ”, “Assumption, Augustus and the Sibyl” began in 1537 by Pietro Bonaccorsi aka Perin del Vaga in collaboration with Daniele da Volterra (1509/66)
Completed in the years 1563/89 Federico Zuccari and Taddeo Zuccari. Little remains of the original decoraion

4^th LEFT - CARDELLI CHAPEL
Above the altar “St. Joseph with the Child Jesus” about 1840 by Lucien Theophile Langlois (1803/45)

3^rd LEFT - ORSINI CHAPEL
Above the altar “Immaculate Conception” 1830 by Philipp Veit (1793/1877) the best colorist among the Nazarene painters
On the right “Annunciation” and on the left “Visitation” by Joseph Ernst Tunner (1792/1877) another Nazarene painter, a pupil of Philipp Veit

2^nd CHAPEL ON THE LEFT
Above the altar “Deposition” 1541/45 by Daniele da Volterra (1509/66) commissioned by Elena Orsini. It was originally located in the Orsini Chapel

“It still shows the influence of Perin del Vaga in the restless and moved arrangement of the drapes; but what for the latter was resolved in a sophisticated formal elegance, it does translates here into a more tense and dramatic vision. The work is one of the most representative of the second phase of the Mannerist style not only for stylistic originality due to the animated monumentality and to the accurate breakdown of the levels, but also for the personal reading of the cultural components that converge in here: from the lesson of the Tuscan artists of the previous generation, like Rosso Fiorentino, to the formal and philosophical torment of the last period of Michelangelo’s life” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

Other frescoes 1571/77 by Paolo Céspedes and Cesare Arbasia

1^st LEFT - CHAPEL OF THE CRUCIFIXION
Granted in 1574 to Marcantonio Borghese whose children commissioned “Stories of Passion” 1589/90 by Cesare Nebbia (1536/1614)
The “Crucifixion” was moved behind the altar and now there is a plaster cast of the destroyed “Pietà” of the Cathedral of Munster by Wilhelm Theodor Achtermann (1799/1844)

VESTIBULE OF THE SACRISTY
“Coronation of the Virgin Mary”, “Annunciation” and “Visitation” by Taddeo Zuccari (1529/66)

“Taddeo Zuccari died thirty-seven year old and at the peak of his success. If one would take a look at the work of his whole life, it looms very clearly the image of a new generation that is no longer content to latch on to the school of Raphael or Michelangelo, a generation aspiring to a kind of art that would like to blend the best of both artists, pictorially fused together with the echo of a third one: Correggio” (Hermann Voss)

CORRIDOR
“Meridian” 1687 designed by the French Emanuel Maignan (1601/76) to figure out the time of the major cities in the world when it was noon in Rome
Maignan also painted the amazing “Anamorphosis” with landscape and St. Francis of Paola hermit in Calabria
Another anamorphosis by his pupil Jean François Niceron has been lost

CLOISTER
Lunettes painted with “Stories of St. Francis of Paola” by:
Giuseppe Cesari aka Cavalier d'Arpino (1568/1640), Paris Nogari (about 1536/1601), Cristoforo Roncalli aka Pomarancio (1552/1626), Girolamo Massei (?/1614-19), Giacomo Semanza (1580/1638) and Marco Marchetti aka Marco da Faenza (about 1526/88)

 “Portraits of the Kings of France” 1616 by Avanzino Nucci (1552/1629) and others

REFECTORY
La plus belle salle à manger qu'il eut dans Rome (the most beautiful dining room to be found in Rome) with quadrature architecture representing “Stories of the Order of the Minims” 1694 by Andrea Pozzo (1642/1709)

HERMITAGE ROOM
Small room known as “Room of ruins” painted like the interior of an ancient temple in ruins in 1760 by Charles Louis Clérisseau (1721/1820)

SALLUST OBELISK

OBELISCO SALLUSTIANO

Piazza Trinità dei Monti

It is an ancient Roman obelisk made in imitation of the Egyptian ones, dating back to the imperial period, maybe to the time of Aurelian (270/275), with hieroglyphics, which the Romans imitated from those of the Flaminium Obelisk

It comes from the Horti Sallustiani (Gardens of Sallust) where perhaps used to adorn the central section of a private circus (hippodrome), the Porticus Miliarensis

The knowledge of the Egyptian language was obviously rough at the time, as some hieroglyphs are engraved upside down

It was erected here in 1789 by Giovanni Antinori (1734/92) for Pius VI Braschi (1775/99)

The original base of the obelisk is in the garden of the Capitoline Hill to the left of the Senatorial Palace where it was arbitrarily transformed into an “Altar of the dead fascist” during the fascist period

GARDENS OF LUCULLUS

HORTI LUCULLIANI

Piazza Trinità dei Monti

Villa built by Lucullus soon after the triumph over Mithridates celebrated in 63 BC

It was one of the largest villas in Rome, corresponding to the current church of Trinità dei Monti and the Spanish Steps on the Pincian Hill

Under the reign of Claudius (41/54) it became property of Valerius Asiaticus and in 46 BC it became imperial property when he was forced to commit suicide by Messalina, the unfaithful wife of Claudius

The Villa continued to be owned by Emperors at least until the time of Trajan (98/117) who maybe preferred the gardens of Sallust, located on the eastern part of the Pincian Hill

In the third century it was occupied by the noble family of the Acili, who in the fourth century gave it to the Pinci, from whom the present name of the hill came. Although they gave the name of the hill, little is known of this family

It was a complex similar to the Temple of Fortuna at Palestrina. At the top there was a round building, maybe a Temple of Fortuna

In the cellars of the convent of the Sacred Heart, there are SUBSTRUCTURES and under Palazzo Zuccari there is a large wall with semicircular niches, certainly a NYMPHEUM (fountain)

LITTLE RED HOUSE

CASINA ROSSA

Piazza di Spagna 26

1726 Francesco De Sanctis (1693/1740). Home since 1909 of the FOUNDATION KEATS-SHELLEY MEMORIAL with adjoining rich library specialized in romantic literature with more than 8,000 volumes

John Keats (1795/1821) lived and died here twenty-five years old and the house has remained virtually untouched since then

It contains a rich collection of paintings, sculptures, manuscripts and objects relating to John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron

AMONG THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECES:

A reliquary containing a lock of hair from John Milton and Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A carnival mask of wax of Lord Byron

Manuscripts of Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Mary Shelley, William Wordsworth, Robert Browning and Joseph Severn, friend and traveling companion of Keats