Hidden Rome:

interesting places and curiosities
that are worth a visit
during a holiday in apartments in Rome

A holiday in apartments in Rome can be the occasion in which to discover tucked away corners of the Eternal City. Rome is so rich in things to see, that tourists are often forced to limit themselves to visiting the more  celebrated monuments.

Curiosities in Rome that merit visiting

At Piazza Navona, one of the statues of the Fountain of Rivers (the fountain in the centre of the square) has a hand held up to protect its eyes, as if it in some way feared the collapse of the façade of the church before it. But in reality it all boils down to the rivalry between architects in Rome. Bernini, who made the fountain, doesn’t want to "see" the church façade, that was made by his rival Borromini.

Formula for making gold

Once you have chosen a holiday in apartments in Rome, you can see in the centre of Piazza Vittorio, near Termini Station, some ruins. One can here admire the Magic Gate, an arch upon which, according to legend, is inscribed the alchemical formula for making gold. In 1600 the owner of the villa where now stands the magic Gate offered an alchemist on holiday in Rome an apartment in his home, as well as funds and equipment with which to perform the miraculous transformation. The alchemist one night fled the apartment, leaving a fistful of gold on the table and the formula later inscribed on the monument.

The dome through the keyhole

From Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta one can have a restricted but original view of Saint Peter’s from the keyhole of the portal to the Palazzo dei Cavalieri, through which one can see the dome of the basilica. All of the garden, the portal and the square were all designed so as to allow for this optic effect.

The museum of purgatory in the Prati neighbourhood

The Museo delle Anime del Purgatorio (Souls of Purgatory) is situated in a small building next to the sacristy of the church of Sacro Cuore del Suffragio at number 18 of Lungotevere Prati. In a long cabinet one can see reproductions of strange findings, most of them from France, found between 1636 and 1919. These are impressions made with fire left by the dead on cloths, books, shirts and night caps as well as wooden tables. The story of each of these strange imprints is described. The idea for this singular museum on purgatory was born after a fire on 15 September 1897 that damaged the chapel of Madonna del Rosario that then existed. On one side of the alter the smoke left a strange image of a suffering face, still to be seen in a photograph kept in the museum.
The French priest Father Victor Jouet interpreted that disconcerting image as sign of a soul from Purgatory. He then dedicated himself to the study of this theory and travelled the length and breadth of Italy and Europe in search of the concrete testimonies that gave origin to the strange museum. A curiosity that can give an added dimension to a holiday in Rome, city of religion.

Borromini’s  perspective gallery

On the ground floor of the noble and elegant Palazzo Spada (Piazza Capo di Ferro) one can admire a grandiose colonnade with in the background the imposing statue of Mars. It is a well known tromp l’eoil  by Borromini, because the whole is contained in about 9 metres in length and Mars is less than one meter tall. The grandiose effect is given by a clever trick of perspective that creates this interesting and rather charming illusion. If you are on holiday in Rome, leave your apartment and go and enjoy one of the most extraordinary effects of perspective in the world.

Via Veneto: Guido Reni’s vengeance

When Cardinal Antonio Barberini, founder of the church of Cappuccini in Via Veneto, he ordered Guido Reni  to paint a picture representing The Archangel Michael Vanquishing the Devil (first alter to the right), and he made the artist promise that he would give the face celestial beauty. The cardinal’s wish was amply fulfilled, to the point that contemporaries judged the Archangel worthy of being compared to the Apollo of the Belvedere, that is in the Vatican in the courtyard of the papal apartment. Guido Reni instead tried to depict the devil as ugly as possible. He drew the devil with the physical features of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphili (later to become Pope Innocent X) as vengeance for having been ill-treated by the man!

The museum of skeletons

In the cellars of the church of Cappuccini in Via Veneto there is a rather strange artistic cemetery, in which there is a collection of the bones of something like 4.000 friars who died between 1627 and 1870. The bones decorate the walls of four chapels, in somewhat dubious taste. A touch of the macabre that is worth visiting whilst on holiday in Rome.

Saint Clement’s, a river under the alter

Under the very ancient basilica of Saint Clement there is a small underwater river that has a little waterfall. Onetime they were both visible but in late, for reasons of prudence, they were hidden by a wall through which one can still today distinctly hear the noise of running water.

Swearword in a church

In the lower basilica of Saint Clement one can admire numerous and interesting frescos (IX-XII century) and among them a series of cartoons (XI century) in medieval Italian, the precursor to the Italian language, that could be considered as the first comic strips ever. They tell the story of St. Alexius and St. Sisinnus. According to tradition, Sisinnus, a perfect pagan of Rome, tells his henchmen to capture the Pope. When they go to tie him they end up tying a heavy column by mistake that they find impossible to move, the Prefect shouts an imprecation, calling to his men "fili de le pute, trahite !" or "sons of whores, pull!"

Other curiosities that are worth a visit during a holiday in apartment in Rome

Tiberina Island and the sacred snake

In 293 BC, so a legend tells, whilst Rome was struck by a terrible plague, a commission of experts went to Epidaurus in Greece, to ask Aesculapius the god of medicine for help. Suddenly, a large serpent, the symbol of the god, comes out of the temple, heads for the Roman’s ship and climbs aboard. The event is interpreted to mean that the divinity wishes to … transfer itself. Delighted, the Romans head for home. Once in proximity of Tiberina Island, there is another surprise, the snake jumps off the ship onto the island. This too is interpreted as a sign and a fine temple to Aesculapius is immediately built there. It is almost as if the god of health had transferred himself to his apartment in Rome. The plague immediately disappeared. In medieval times a church dedicated to St. Bartholomew was built upon the ruins of the temple.

The cannonball of the miracle

In the chapel of the church of Saint Bartholomew upon the Isle, there is a large (14cm diameter) cannonball lodged in the wall where it struck it during the siege of Rome of June 1849. When it hit the building it was full of people , who went miraculously untouched. The cannonball, known as of the miracle was left in the wall as a memento of the event.

Castel Sant’Angelo, the angel and the plague

Once you have chosen a holiday in apartments in Rome, you can see the bronze angel on top of Castel Sant’Angelo. It is linked to an ancient legend according to which, in 590, during a terrible plague in Rome, Pope St. Gregory I the Great (590-604) led a procession with a miraculous image of the Madonna. Also some of the sick, pressed by their faith, left their apartment so as to follow the religious event. As the procession arrived before Hadrian’s mausoleum – as Castel Sant’Angelo was then known – Pope Gregory had a vision of an angel putting his sword back in its sheath.
The vision was immediately said to mean that the plague was over. And so it was. The statue of the angel was later raised on the top of the castle.

The famous canterani

The famous canterani, the two buildings that were thus depreciatively named by Filippo Raguzzini because they are made in the shape of the furniture of the time, look onto the incredibly beautiful square of Sant’Ignazio. Despite early critics they are now much admired. To have an apartment in one of those canterani is today a sign of distinction.

Father Pozzo’s fake dome

Among the many Baroque works of art that generate stupor for the excellence of their illusionary technique, there is certainly that of the dome of the church of Sant’Ignazio, a dome that does not exist but would appear to be there if one looks up at it from within. The author of this masterpiece of architectural and pictured perspective was one Father Pozzo. It was done in 1685, on a canvas 13m wide. As soon as it was completed, many Romans and foreigners on holiday in Rome rushed to see it. How they marvelled to discover that the dome "looked at from an angle, looked as if it was about to collapse".
So as to be able to admire the perfect effect of perspective it is indeed necessary to place oneself in the exact spot marked on the pavement by a marble disk.

Pasquino

The Roman populace is well known for its polemical spirit, above all addressed at the powerful. In Piazza Pasquino, at the back of Palazzo Braschi, there is the armless bust of a group of statues from the Hellenic period, that has gained fame under the name of Pasquino.
On the pediment the Romans used to affix pieces of violent satyr in verse against the city’s authorities. He who wished to protest about something used to leave his apartment in the dead of night and go and place his lampoon or satirical sonnet on the statue. These written works were one of the few forms of protest that the people could use during the period of the secular power of the popes.

Legends and curiosities of Saint Peter’s Basilica

Michelangelo’s only signature

The celebrated Pietà, commissioned to Michelangelo by Cardinal Giovanni Bilhères de Lagraulas, French ambassador to Rome, and that one can admire in the first chapel of the right-hand aisle of Saint Peter’s, is one of the great master’s most important works, and the only one to have been signed by him.

It is told that the great artist, that was then 24 and still little known, hearing the opinion of some art experts who were praising his work but attributing it to Cristoforo Solari, was piqued and decided to put the author’s true name on it, by signing the belt that girth’s the Madonna’s breast.

The "Coronation Wheel"

Few are those who, having come to Rome for a holiday, notice a great disk in red porphyry, set in the pavement just past the door to the aisle. This is the famous rota porphyretica or wheel of coronation, that comes from the old Saint Peter’s, the ancient basilica built by Constantine. It was on this stone that stood the emperors when they were crowned by the popes. On this great wheel, opportunely preserved, knelt the great Charlemagne, king of the Franks, the eve of Christmas of the year 800 when Pope Leo III (795-816) crowned him "Roman Emperor" (so was he acclaimed by all those present), placing the Imperial Diadem upon his head.

On that same wheel numerous other emperors were also crowned, among them Lotarian I, Ludvic II, Lambert of Spoleto, Berengar, the two Ottonians, Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II.

The cathedral … that is not Saint Peter’s

Inside Saint Peter’s there is the pontifical throne said to be of Simon, known as Peter, the first Pope. It is placed in a colossal case that rests against the wall of the apse and was built by Bernini in bronze, marble, stucco work, gold and glass, and is sustained by four saints: St. Ambrose and St. Augustine at the front, and St. Anastasias and St. John Crisosthomus  at the back. The composition is so masterful that it must be seen during a holiday in Rome.

Further to careful analyses conducted during restoration carried out by a special commission of experts nominated by Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) in 1968, it turned out that the pontifical seat – known as the Cathedral of Saint Peter – only dates back to the IX century. It is probably the Carolingian throne brought to Rome by Charles the Bald in 875 when he was crowned in the basilica by Pope John VIII (872-882).

The phases of maternity

 According to a legend reported by Willy Pocino,  in his book Curiosities of Rome (pub. Newton Compton), Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644) charged Bernini with the task of representing the various fazes of maternity, from conception to birth, this on the base of the columns of the baldachin of the Vatican basilica, so as to free him from the votive promise that he apparently made whilst waiting for the birth of his nephew Taddeo’s son.
This is an allusion, writes Carlo Galassi Paluzzi, "in some way done as a cartoon. Indeed we have here a true and proper series of the final phases of child bearing, from the contorted face of the woman in labour through to the last pontifical emblem that shows the head of the new born child".

A pillar the size of a church

The four gigantic pillars that support the dome of Saint Peter’s have an irregular pentagonal shape. Each is about 30 metres high and has a circumference of about 71 metres, and each one could contain Borromini’s church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, known as San Carlino for its modest size.

The statue of Saint Peter

The much revered bronze statua of St. Peter was made, tradition has it, by Pope St Leo the Great (440-461) after having met Attila (452).
It is said to have been made from the bronze of the statue of Jove, the most sacred of statues for ancient Romans, that for ten centuries had, from the top of the Capitoline Hill, watched over its worshippers as they became lords of the world. If this were indeed so it would be one of those coincidences that leave one speechless. The same mass of metal, after having been adored for a millennium in one place, simply changes temple and theological horizon and name. Here is a mass of matter made holy by ten centuries of incense and prayer, that after having simply been bathed in fire moves but a few paces and makes itself ready for more millennia of uninterrupted worship.
This is the tradition that surrounds one of the most venerated statues in the world, one that deserves a visit during an apartment holiday in Rome. Probably, the statue is rather the creation of an anonymous artist of the end of the XIII century, derived from a similar early Christian one. The statue of St. Peter carries the signs of great veneration, the right foot is indeed much worn due to the reverent kisses that millions of faithful have bestowed upon it across the centuries.

The best looking lions and the hidden elephant

The most beautiful marble lions are considered to be those that adorn the sepulchral monument of Clement XIII in the Vatican Basilica and that are the work of Antonio Canova (1792). These marble compositions are worthy of a visit, during a holiday in Rome. The two beasts are crouched, one roaring and the other sleeping, and symbolise Pope Clement XIII’s strength and at the same time the good sense that moderates it. So as to portray them live Canova left his apartment in Rome and went to Naples to draw those in a cage in the royal gardens.
But the curious aspects do not finish here. It is said that in order to execute the monumental complex the artist enlisted numerous assistants, among them a humble sculptor named Elefante (Elephant) , who had but one ambition: he wanted his name to appear on the sepulchre. And Canova made his dream come true in a most original way. If one moves over to the left of the statues one can see how the posterior of one of the lions looks like an elephant’s head complete with snout, large ears and tusks.