Via della Conciliazione

Coordinates: 41°54′08.28″N 12°27′43.20″E

Via della Conciliazione (Road of the Conciliation[1]) is a

Via della Conciliazione
street in the Rione of Borgo within Rome, Italy. Roughly
500 metres (1,600 ft) in length,[2] it connects Saint Peter's
Square to the Castel Sant'Angelo on the western bank of the
Tiber River. The road was constructed between 1936 and
1950, and it is the primary access route to the Square. In
addition to shops, it is bordered by a number of historical
and religious buildings – including the Palazzo Torlonia, the
Palazzo dei Penitenzieri and the Palazzo dei Convertendi,
and the churches of Santa Maria in Traspontina and Santo
Spirito in Sassia.

Despite being one of the few major thoroughfares in Rome

A view from ground level of the Via della
able to cope with a high volume of traffic without
Conciliazione. Note that the dome of the
congestion,[3] it is the subject of much ire both within the
Roman community and among historical scholars due to the Basilica is not centered, as Piacentini
circumstances under which it was constructed.[4][5] The chose instead to centre on the obelisk,
area around the church was rebuilt several times following which had been moved on the orders of
the various Sacks of Rome, and again after having Sixtus V.
deteriorated due to the loss of prosperity resulting from the
Papacy's relocation to Avignon during the 14th century.
Through all of these reconstructions, the area in front of the
short courtyard of Saint Peter's Basilica remained a maze of
densely packed structures overhanging narrow side-streets
and alleyways.

Previous plans
A 1776 concept for an open
V-shaped boulevard.
Plans were drawn up several
times over the years for the Click on the map for a fullscreen view
construction of a major link
Location Rome, Italy
between the Vatican City
and the centre of Rome; the Coordinates 41°54′08.28″N
number of submissions 12°27′43.20″E
increasing dramatically with
the onset of the Italian Renaissance. The first design was submitted by
Leone Battista Alberti during the reign of Pope Nicholas V,[6] and formed
one of the two perennial designs proposed for the area. Alberti envisioned
an "open" plan, consisting of a single voluminous V-shaped boulevard,
widest at St. Peter's Basilica itself and tapering as it approached the Tiber.
The other scheme of designs submitted by architects was a "closed" plan
that would consist of two roads arching outwards in an ellipse, with the
Tiber and the Square at opposite ends. Proponents of a closed plan would
usually suggest that the space between the two causeways be separated by a
colonnade, or by a row of inhabited structures whose designs would be scrutinised and approved by
architects employed by the Holy See. Variations on both themes were submitted time and time again.
Proponents of an "open" plan included such architects as Giovanni Battista Nolli and Cosimo Morelli.[7][8]
A number of other architects, such as Carlo Fontana, and at least one Pope (Sixtus V) favoured a "closed"
design, with a number of streets radiating from the central square, maintaining the "spina", or spine, of the
structures of Borgo directly between the square and the Tiber.[9] Neither approach moved beyond sketches
and blueprints. Both open and closed designs were considered by the Vatican, but were ultimately
discarded for reasons of expense. A thorough examination of the costs of constructing a thoroughfare was
made by the Vatican-approved St. Peter's Building Commission in 1651. Their conclusion was that "the
cardinals' proposal to demolish all the buildings between the Borgo Nuovo and the Borgo Vecchio for a
greater and longer vista to the church" would be infeasible due to inordinately high expropriation costs and
vested property interests.[7]

Further momentum was lost when Gian Lorenzo Bernini was

commissioned to redesign the terrace in front of the Basilica in
1656. After discarding several sketches, Bernini settled on a
colossal open space in the shape of an ellipse. With the potential
expense of clearing Borgo, Bernini decided instead to make use of
the warren of poorly maintained medieval buildings to obscure any
view of the Vatican structures from any significant distance. In this A photograph of Saint Peter's Square
way, pilgrims emerged from the relative darkness of the city into the and the area now occupied by the
vast open space and grandeur of the Square and its surrounding Via della Conciliazione, taken c.
buildings – a sight calculated to inspire awe in first-time visitors to 1900.
the Holy See's seat of power.[5] Bernini had originally planned to
demolish a square roughly 100 m to a side directly in front of the
square, filling the space with a third colonnade (or "terzo braccio")
to match the two still standing today. This would afford a longer
vantage point to allow visitors a better viewing angle of the new
Basilica. The death of his patron, Pope Alexander VII, put a halt to
Bernini's work. The third set of columns was abandoned, and
Bernini's piazza remained open-ended and incomplete.[10]

From the final major reconstruction of Borgo in the 15th century, The view down Via della
the site which the Via della Conciliazione now covers remained Conciliazione from Saint Peter's
occupied by residential, religious, and historical buildings for nearly Basilica in 1946.
500 years. The final impetus behind the road's construction was
primarily political. Borgo, along with the rest of the Papal States
outside of the Vatican itself, was taken by the Kingdom of Italy
during the Italian unification in the 19th Century – leading to Pope
Pius IX's declaration that he had become a prisoner in the Vatican
and the formation of the Roman Question. For the next 59 years,
the Popes refused to leave the Vatican, in order to avoid any
appearance of accepting the authority wielded by the Italian
government over Rome as a whole. Initially, parts of the Italian
government welcomed this, expecting the influence of the Papacy The view down Via della
to fade to the point that enough political support could be gained to Conciliazione from Saint Peter's
Basilica, as it appeared in 2007.
abolish it altogether.[11] However, this failed to come to pass, and
eventually a compromise acceptable to both states was reached in
the Lateran treaty of 1929.

Mussolini and Rome

Dictator Benito Mussolini, who had signed the accord on behalf of
the King, resurrected the idea of a grand thoroughfare symbolically
connecting the Vatican to the heart of the Italian capital. To fulfil View from Via della Conciliazione to
this vision, Mussolini turned to the prominent Fascist architects Saint Peter's Basilica, as it appeared
Marcello Piacentini and Attilio Spaccarelli. Drawing inspiration in 2007.
from a number of the designs submitted by Carlo Fontana,
Piacentini came up with a plan that would preserve the best aspects
of both the "open" and "closed" designs – a grand boulevard that would nonetheless obscure the majority
of the Vatican buildings per Bernini's intentions. The vast colonnaded street would require the clearance of
the whole "spina" of Borgo placed in between the Basilica and the Castle. Since the facades of the
buildings lining this space did not align perfectly, in order to create the illusion of a perfectly straight
causeway traffic islands would be erected along both sides, with rows of obelisks leading towards the
Square, doubling as lampposts. These were also intended to reduce the effect that the funnel-shaped design
would have on perspective when facing the Basilica. The wings of those buildings closest to the square
would be preserved to form a propylaea, blocking the greater portion of the Vatican City from approaching
visitors and framing the Square and Basilica at the head of a grand open space that would allow for easy
vehicular access.[12][13]

Construction
Demolition of the spina of Borgo began with Mussolini's symbolic strike of the first building with a pickaxe
on 29 October 1936 and continued for twelve months. Even at the time, the demolition proved
controversial, with many Borgo residents displaced en masse to settlements ("borgate") outside of the
city.[14] Among the buildings dismantled, either totally or in part, and rebuilt in another position, were the
Palazzo dei Convertendi, the house of Giacomo Bartolomeo da Brescia, the Church of the Nunziatina, and
the palaces Rusticucci-Accoramboni and degli Alicorni (the latter had been already demolished in 1931).
Other buildings, including the palace of the Governatore di Borgo and the Churches of San Giacomo
Scossacavalli and Sant'Angelo al Corridore, were not rebuilt after their destruction. Facing into the cleared
area are five other historical buildings, the Palazzo Giraud Torlonia, the church of Santa Maria in
Traspontina, the Palazzo dei Penitenzieri, Palazzo Serristori, and Palazzo Cesi (which was mutilated).[15]

The construction of the road was only a small feature in the reconstruction of Rome ordered by Mussolini,
which ranged from the restoration of the Castel Sant'Angelo, the clearance of the Mausoleum of Augustus,
to the vastly more complicated site of the Via dell'Impero through Rome's ancient imperial remains. His
plan was to transform Rome into a monument to Italian fascism.[16]

In five years, Rome must appear marvellous to all the peoples of the world; vast, orderly,
powerful, as it was in the time of the first empire of Augustus.

Benito Mussolini[17]
Construction of the road continued long after Mussolini's death and
the abolition of Italian Fascism. The obelisks along the road were
installed in time for the Jubilee of 1950.[4]

Today
Since its completion, the road has acted as the primary access point
to St. Peter's Square, and by extension to the Vatican City itself. At
times, such as during the funeral of Pope John Paul II, it has acted
Crowds spilling into the Via della
as an extension to the square itself, allowing a greater number of
Conciliazione during the funeral of
visitors to attend functions conducted there.
Pope John Paul II.

See also
Index of Vatican City-related articles

References

Notes
Via della conciliazione at night.
1. The name finally settled upon for the project was chosen
by journalist Franco Franchi after World War II; Delli,
Sergio (1975). Le strade di Roma. Rome: Newton &
Compton. p. sub vocem.
2. Microsoft; Nokia (June 6, 2012). "Via della
Conciliazione" (https://www.bing.com/maps/?lvl=16&cp=
41.9023~12.462&FORM=MMREDR) (Map). Bing Maps.
Microsoft. Retrieved June 6, 2012.
3. McClendon, p. 34.
4. Cutler, Teresa. "Via Della Conciliazione" (https://web.arc
hive.org/web/20170725095135/http://www.lifeinitaly.com/
tourism/lazio/conciliazione.asp). LifeInItaly.com. Archived
from the original (http://www.lifeinitaly.com/tourism/lazio/c
onciliazione.asp) on July 25, 2017. Retrieved
February 10, 2007.
5. Kirk, p. 1.
6. McClendon, p. 36.
7. Kirk, p. 2
8. McClendon, pp. 36, 42
9. McClendon, pp. 37, 44
10. Kitao, T.; Kitao, Timothy K. (October 1976). "Circle and
Oval in the Square of Saint Peter's: Bernini's Art of
Planning". The Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians. 35 (3): 234–235. doi:10.2307/989049 (https://
doi.org/10.2307%2F989049). JSTOR 989049 (https://ww
w.jstor.org/stable/989049).
11. Guerzoni, Giuseppe (1882). Garibaldi: con documenti
editi e inediti. Vol. 11. Florence. p. 485.
12. McClendon, pp. 38–39
13. Baxa, P. (February 2004). "Piacentini's Window: The Modernism of the Fascist Master Plan
of Rome". Contemporary European History. 13 (1): 1–20. doi:10.1017/S0960777303001449
(https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0960777303001449). S2CID 144244380 (https://api.semantics
cholar.org/CorpusID:144244380).
14. Kirk, p. 9.
15. Kirk, p. 16.
16. Agnew, J. (1998). "The impossible capital: Monumental Rome under liberal and fascist
regimes, 1870-1943". Geografiska Annaler. B: Human Geography. 80 (4): 229–240.
doi:10.1111/j.0435-3684.1998.00042.x (https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.0435-3684.1998.00042.
x).
17. Scritti e discorsi di Benito Mussolini. Vol. 5. Milan: Hoepli. 1934. pp. 243–45.

Sources
Kirk, T (December 2006). "Framing St. Peter's: urban planning in Fascist Rome". The Art
Bulletin: 1–16.
McClendon, Charles B. (1989). "The History of the Site of St. Peter's Basilica, Rome".
Perspecta. 25: 34–65. doi:10.2307/1567138 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1567138).
JSTOR 1567138 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1567138).

External links
Media related to Via della Conciliazione at Wikimedia Commons
Lucentini, M. (31 December 2012). The Rome Guide: Step by Step through History's
Greatest City (https://books.google.com/books?id=laMDAQAAQBAJ). Interlink.
ISBN 9781623710088.

Preceded by Landmarks of Rome Succeeded by

Via del Corso Via della Conciliazione Via dei Fori Imperiali

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