Urban Renewal in Baroque Rome

Presented by: Brendan Dooley, Research Coordinator, The Medici Archive Project

DOCUMENT CITATION:
Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato 4027a, unnumbered folio. (Entry 7855 in the "Documentary Sources" database.)

TRANSLATION:
The church of San Giuliano has been reduced in size in order to enlarge the Piazza di Pietra, where work is well along on the wooden sheds for those who used to sell bread, vegetables and fruit in Piazza la Rotonda [Piazza del Pantheon]. Fish will be sold in the adjoining area where there used to be that courtyard containing the small structures shared by three organizations: the Confraternity of the Holy Crucifix, the House of Orphans and Saint James of the Incurables. They are to be compensated and it is said that estimates have been made but in the meantime they are left without a courtyard, without those structures, without a piazza and without tenants. In Piazza La Rotonda, the sheds have all been cleared away and the low walls between the columns in the portico have been torn down. Next week they will begin demolishing the houses that block the view from the portico of the Rotonda [the Pantheon], where a pork butcher, a poulterer and a knife sharpener lived on one side and where there were little shops of tinsmiths and lantern-makers on the other. Next week we expect them to begin demolishing the Arco di Portogallo [Arch of Portugal] as well. It is expected that the canonical benefices of the Church of the Rotonda [Pantheon] will be discontinued as they fall vacant. The Jesuits had destined those canonical benefices for the celebration of public masses there and these might well be made over to the good Fathers of the Mission [of Vincent De Paul] who go around the countryside here teaching the true way to heaven to poor rustics who are otherwise entirely ignorant of it. In the previously mentioned church of San Giuliano, there were various burial places including two belonging to the Jacovacci family. The Jacovacci de Facceschi have clear title to one of these which will remain intact but the other is being despoiled, even though the man who created it is still alive. The same coat of arms, more or less, have been carved there and the inscription that goes around the stone. These are in the courtyard of the House of Orphans, one intact and the other broken up to be taken away by anyone who wants it.

TEXT:
[...] È la Chiesa di S. Giuliano ridotta in agumento della piazza di Pietra, e nella medesima son ridotti a buon termine li casini di legniame per quelli che vendevano prima in quella della Rotonda, pane, erbe e frutti. Il pesce in luogo contiguo dove era cortile ad alcune casette commune a tre luoghi pii, compagnia del Santissimo Crocifisso, Casa dell' Orfani, e S. Giacomo dell' Incurabili, se gli doveran pagare, dicendosi essersi fatte stimare. Intanto, si sta senza cortile, case, piazza e peggioni. Nella piazza della Rotonda, è di tal casini al tutto sgombra, e li parapetti tra l'una colonna e l'altra del portico sono in terra. Della seguente settimana si dar à principio alla dimolitione delle case che hora occupano la vista del portico della Rotonda, e sono dove abitano pizzicarolo, pollarolo et arrotatore da una parte, dall'altra botteghini di stagniari, manifattori di lanterne. Si attende anchora nella seguente settimana si dia principio à dimulire l'Arco di Portugallo. Li canonicati della chiesa della Rotonda, che si aspetta secondo vacheranno si vadino supprimendo, havevono li padri Gesuiti fattovi sopra assegniamento per esercitarvi le communioni generali. Si crede possi tocchare à quei buoni padri dell'ammissione [della missione] che vanno per queste compagnie [proposed reading: campagne] ad insegnare la vera via del cielo a poveri villani del tutto ignori. Nella chiesa sudetta di San Giuliano vi erano diverse sepolture, e tra l'altre dui di casa Jacovacci, l'una indubitata di detta fameglia detta Jacovacci de Facceschi, quale intatta si conserva, l'altra adulterata. È vive [vivo] il manifattore. N'è stata fatta scarpellare l'arme quasi simole e l'iscrittione attorno la lapide. Sono nel cortile della casa dell'Orfano, la prima intatta, l'altra scassa per chi la vuole [. . .]

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
Though Rome is universally known as the Eternal City, "eternal" is by no means synonymous with "unchanging", as vividly demonstrated by this "avviso" from the early-1660s. Indeed, the picture that emerges here is of Rome as a vast construction site, like Paris or Florence in the nineteenth century or New York at any time since its inception.

Rome was the spiritual capital of world Catholicisim, the territorial capital of the State of the Church (then occupying a full third of the Italian peninsula) and the cultural capital of a Europe which defined itself above all by its relationship to the classical past. Each successive pope sought to leave his mark on the city, outdoing his predecessors in the grandeur of his vision. This competition swung into high gear with Sixtus V Peretti (reigned 1585-90), the first protagonist of Rome's new imperial age of monumental urban planning. It picked up further momentum with Paul V Borghese (1605-21), Urban VIII Barberini (1623-44), Innocent X Pamphili (1644-55) and then Alexander VII Chigi (1655-67.) The present avviso was written in 1662, at the midpoint of the reign of Alexander VII.

Pope Alexander VII's focus was on widening and straightening streets and clearing squares, thus maximizing the dramatic impact of buildings associated with the papacy in general and his own reign in particular. Many of his chief projects (like those of his predecessors) involved the expropriation of ancient sites and the reworking of ancient symbols, adding further layers of religious, cultural and historical meaning to the city's already richly allusive urban fabric.

One of the most evocative sites in Rome was the Pantheon, a second-century pagan temple dedicated to all the gods. Already in antiquity it had been made over to Christian worship, becoming known as the church of "Santa Maria ad Martires" or more popularly, "Santa Maria della Rotonda". By the time of the building boom of the seventeenth century, the Pantheon probably embodied the "eternal" aspect of the city's identity more clearly than any other monument, since it was both a highly visible reminder of the city's ancient past and a venerable focus of continuing Christian devotion.

Urban VIII Barberini (1623-44) had already undertaken a haphzard remodeling (one is tempted to say "remuddling") of the Pantheon, which had earned him the ridicule of the Roman pundits. He stripped the original bronze fittings from the ceiling of the portico and melted them down for use at St. Peter's ("That which the Barbarians left undone was done by the Barberini") and added two trifling bell towers designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (derided as "ass's ears".) By contrast, the plans of Alexander VII Chigi were more coherently conceived and intended above all to liberate the building from later accretions and reveal its ancient dignity.

Removing accretions for the sake of civic betterment is never easy, least of all in so complex an environment as that of Baroque Rome. Not only did the grandiose requirements of public ceremony need to coexist with the humble demands of daily life, but the various religious orders had their own rights and prerogatives, as did the diplomatic community and the great local families.

In 1658, Alexander VII proposed the banishment of indecorous commercial and manufacturing activity from the major ceremonial sites of the city of Rome and won the consensus of the municipal government. His plan was to clear out all of the major piazze except for Piazza Navona while creating two organized shopping districts around Sant'Agostino and the Piazza di Pietra.

In such schemes of urban renewal there are always winners and losers. In the present case, the Church of San Giuliano (soon to be demolished entirely) lost a sizeable portion of its premises, including the seat of several (presumably rent-paying) organizations. The Jacovacci lost fundamental rights of patronage in that church (including burial for one branch of their family and the display of their coat of arms.) Such privileges were usually costly and their abridgement could give rise to public outrage, as well as protracted suits in both civil and canon law. The religious function of the renovated church of Santa Maria della Rotonda (in the Pantheon) was revised to the evident advantage of the new order of Vincent de Paul (who had in fact died only two years earlier in 1660) and the detriment of the Jesuits. The "Arch of Portugal," a picturesque amalgam of ancient and modern elements, was deemed to be of insufficient artistic and historic importance to continue blocking traffic in the Corso. (The reference to Portugal derived from the nearby house of Georgius de Costa, cardinal and archbishop of Lisbon, who lived there in the late fifteenth century.)

This update on the changing face of Baroque Rome is only one of various news items included in this avviso from 5 August 1662. At the same time in the same city, the Pope's nephew Cardinal Flavio Chigi paid a state visit to the French ambassador; a spy was unmasked in the entourage of that ambassador but managed to save himself through a subterfuge; meanwhile, rogue soldiers were going AWOL to avoid apprehension and punishment.

"Avvisi", or anonymous handwritten news sheets, were one of the chief means of communicating current events throughout Europe in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were produced in multiple copies and sent to subscribers (often powerful and influential ones, like the Grand Duke of Tuscany and his ministers of state.) In some cities, most notably Venice and Rome, the production of avvisi developed into a thriving if semi-clandestine industry that involved a motley assortment of unemployed scholars, junior diplomats and literary hacks. The writer of the present avviso was quite likely based in the area around Piazza Navona or nearby Piazza Pasquino, which were hotbeds of such activity. More than merely serving the Tuscans, he might well have been Tuscan himself, to judge from his spelling and diction.

The Archivio Mediceo del Principato includes one of the world's richest troves of these avvisi. In addition to detailing the latest news from across Europe, they document how such news was reported and who had access to it, where and when. Avvisi thus form a crucial-and largely unstudied-phase in the development of modern journalism.

For further information on avvisi, see Brendan Dooley, The Social History of Skepticism. Experience and Doubt in Early Modern Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1999)

SPECIAL THANKS to Fabrizio Nevola, Medici Archive Project Fellow, for his notes on urbanism in Rome.