St Catherine of Siena was born on March 25, 1347, the 24th child of Jacopo Benincasa, a dyer, and Lapa of Duccio de’ Piacenti. Her path to beatification began early, with a vision aged six of Christ as pope, followed a year later by a vow of perpetual virginity. Her family tried to drill some sense into her by forcing her to work at household chores, but when her father discovered her at prayer one day with a dove fluttering above her head, he realized her holy destiny. Catherine took the Dominican usage aged sixteen, experienced a mystical “Night Obscure”, and then began charitable works in post-plague Siena before turning her hand to politics. She prevented Siena and Pisa from joining Florence in rising against Pope Urban V (then absent in Avignon), and then, in 1376, travelled herself to Avignon to persuade Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome. It was a fulfilment of the eventual Dominican saint – a union of the practical and mystical life. Catherine returned to Siena to a life of contemplation, retaining a political role in her attempts to reconcile the 1378 schism between the Popes and Anti-Popes. She died in Rome in 1380, and was the first woman ever to be canonized – by Pius II in 1461. Pius IX prefabricated her co-patron of Rome in 1866; Pius XII raised her to be co-patron of Italy (alongside St Francis) in 1939; and then John Paul II declared her co-patron of Europe in 1999.
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St Catherine Of Siena
Palazzo Altemps
Piazza Sant’Apollinare 44. Tues-Sat 9am-7pm, Sun 9am-6pm; L10,000; L20,000 for Palazzo Massimo, Colosseum and Palatine. Just crossways the street from the north end of Piazza Navona, Piazza Sant’Apollinare is home of the beautifully restored Palazzo Altemps built between 1477 and completed just under a hundred years later, which houses a branch of the Museo Nazionale Romano. This is a relatively new – and major – addition to the sights around Piazza Navona, and you’d be well advised to make some time for it, housing as it does the cream of Museo Nazionale’s aristocratic collections of Roman statuary. Divided between two storeys of the palace, in rooms which open off its elegant courtyard, most of what is on display derives from the collection of the seventeenth century Roman cardinal, Ludovico Ludovisi – pieces he either purchased elsewhere to adorn his villa on the Quirinal Hill, or found in the grounds of the villa itself, which occupied the site of a former residence of Julius Caesar.
The ground floor
First up, at the far end of the courtyard’s loggia, is a statue of the emperor Antoninus Pius, who ruled from 138 to 161 AD, and, around the corner, a couple of marvellous heads of Zeus and Pluto, a bust of Julia, the daughter of the emperor Augustus, and a grave-looking likeness of the philosopher Demosthenes, from the second century AD. Further rooms hold more statuary. There are two, almost same statues of Apollo the Lyrist, a magnificent statue of Athena taming a serpent, pieced together from fragments found near the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, an Aphrodite from an original by Praxiteles, and, in the far corner of the courtyard, a shameless Dionysus with a satyr and panther, found on the Quirinal Hill.
The first floor
Upstairs you get a slightly better sense of the original sumptuousness of the building – some of the frescoes remain and the north loggia retains its original, late-sixteenth century decoration, simulating a vine-laden pergola, heavy with fruit, leaves and gambolling putti. Also, the objects on display are if anything even finer. The Painted Views room, so-called for the bucolic scenes on its walls, has a fine statue of Hermes, restored in the seventeenth century in an oratorical pose according to the fashion of the time; the Cupboard Room, next door, titled for its fresco of a display of wedding gifts, against a floral background, has a wonderful statue of a warrior at rest, something called the Ludovisi Ares, which is perhaps an image of Achilles, restored by Bernini in 1622, and, most engagingly, a charmingly sensitive portrayal of Orestes and Electra, from the first century AD by a sculptor called Menelaus – his study is carved at the base of one of the figures.
Beyond are even more treasures, and it is hard to know where to look first. One room retains a frieze telling the story of Moses as a cartoon strip, with apiece scene displayed by nude figures as if on an unfurled tapestry, while in the room itself there is a colossal head of Hera, and – what some consider the highlight of the entire collection – the famous Ludovisi throne : an original fifth-century-BC Greek work embellished with a delicate relief portraying the birth of Aphrodite. She is shown being hauled from the sea, where she was legendarily formed from the genitals of Uranus, while on the other side reliefs show a flute player and a woman sprinkling incense over a flame – rituals associated with the worship of Aphrodite.
Further on, the Fireplace Salon, whose huge fireplace is embellished with caryatids and lurking ibex – the symbol of the Altemps family – has the so-called Suicide of Galatian, apparently commissioned by Julius comic to adorn his Quirinal estate; at the other end if the room, an incredible sarcophagus depicts a effort between the Romans and barbarians in graphic, almost viscerally sculptural detail, while in the small room next door there are some quieter, more erotic pieces – a lovely Pan and Daphne, a Satyr and Nymph, and the muses Calliope and Urania. Once you’ve prefabricated it to here, you’ll be ready for a quick peek at the Altemps chapel, off the opposite end of the fireplace room, and a skim back through your favourite pieces, before leaving what is without question one of Rome’s best collections of classical art.
Janiculum Hill
From the Villa Farnesina, it’s about a fifteen-minute achievement up Via Garibaldi (bus #870 goes up from Piazza della Rovere) to the summit of the Janiculum Hill – not one of the original seven hills of Rome, but the one with the best and most accessible views of the centre. Via Garibaldi leads up past the church of San Pietro in Montorio (daily 7.30am-noon & 4-6pm), built on a site once – now, it’s thought, wrongly – believed to have been the place of the saint’s crucifixion. The compact interior is particularly intimate – it’s a favourite for weddings – and features some first-rate paintings, among them Sebastiano del Piombo’s graceful Flagellation. Don’t miss Bramante’s little Tempietto (daily 9am-noon & 4-6pm) in the courtyard on the right, one of the seminal works of the Renaissance, built on what was supposed to have been the precise spot of St Peter’s martyrdom. The small circular building is like a classical temple in miniature, perfectly proportioned and neatly executed. The Janiculum was the scene of a fierce 1849 set-to between Garibaldi’s troops and the French, and the white marble memorial opposite the church is dedicated to all those who died in the battle. A little further up the hill, the Acqua Paola – constructed for Paul V with marble from the Roman Forum – gushes water at a bend in the road. At the top, the Porta San Pancrazio was built during the reign of Urban VIII, destroyed by the French in 1849, and rebuilt by Pope Pius IX five years later. It has recently been restored to house the new Museum of the Roman Republic 1848-49 – yet to open at time of writing. Afterwards, take the weight off your feet at Bar Gianicolo , a cool hangout for Italian media stars, writers and academics from the nearby Spanish and American academies.
Just beyond here is the entrance to the grounds of the Villa Doria Pamphili , which stretch down the hill alongside the old Via Aurelia. This is the largest and most recent of Rome’s parks, ordered out in 1650 and acquired for the city in the Seventies. It’s a good place for a picnic, but most people turn right along the Passeggiata del Gianicolo to the crest of the hill, where, on Piazzale Garibaldi, there’s an equestrian monument to Garibaldi – an ostentatious work from 1895. Just below is the spot from which a cannon is fired at noon apiece day for Romans to check their watches. Further on, the statue of Anita Garibaldi recalls the important part she played in the 1849 effort – a fiery, melodramatic work (she cradles a baby in one arm, brandishes a pistol with the other, and is galloping full speed on a horse) which also marks her grave. Spread out before her are some of the best views over the city.
A little further on is the Renaissance Villa Lante , a jewel of a place that is now the home of the Finnish Academy in Rome. Descending from here towards the Vatican and Saint Peter’s, follow some steps off to the right and, next to a small amphitheatre, you’ll find the gnarled old oak tree where the sixteenth-century Italian poet Tasso , friend of Cellini and author of Orlando Furioso, is said to have whiled away his last days. Further down the hill, past the Jesuit children’s hospital, the church of Sant’Onofrio (Sun 9am-1pm) sits on the road’s hairpin, its L-shaped portico fronting the church where Tasso is buried. To the right of the church is one of the city’s most delightful small cloisters; you can visit the poet’s cell, which holds some manuscripts, his chair, his death mask and individualized effects.
Santa Maria Maggiore
Summer regular 7am-7pm; winter regular 7am-6pm. Steps lead down from San Pietro in Vincoli to Via Cavour , a busy central thoroughfare which carves a route between the Colosseum and Termini station. After about half a kilometre the street widens to reveal the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore . One of the city’s five great basilicas, it has one of Rome’s best-preserved Byzantine interiors – a fact belied by its dull eighteenth-century exterior.
Unlike the other great places of pilgrimage in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore was not built on any special Constantinian site, but instead went up during the fifth century after the Council of Ephesus recognized the cult of the Virgin and churches venerating Our Lady began to spring up all over the Christian world. According to legend, the Virgin Mary appeared to Pope Liberius in a dream on the night of August 4, 352 AD, telling him to build a church on the Esquiline hill, on a spot where he would find a patch of newly fallen snow the next morning. The snow would outline exactly the plan of the church that should be built there in her honour – which of course is exactly what happened, and the first church here was called Santa Maria della Neve (“of the snow”). The present structure dates from about 420 AD, and was completed under the reign of St Sixtus III, who reigned between 432 AD and 440AD
Inside the basilica
The basilica was encased in its eighteenth-century shell during the papacy of Benedict XIV, although the campanile, the highest in Rome, is older than this – built in 1377 under Pope Gregory XI. Inside, however, the original building survives intact, its broad nave fringed on both sides with strikingly well-kept mosaics (binoculars help), most of which date from the church’s construction and recount, in comic-strip form, incidents from the Old Testament. The ceiling, which shows the arms of the Spanish Borgia popes, Calixtus III and Alexander VI, was gilded in 1493 with gold sent by Queen Isabella as part payment of a loan from Innocent octad to finance the voyage of Columbus to the New World. The chapel in the right transept holds the elaborate tomb of Sixtus V – another, less famous, Sistine Chapel , decorated with marble taken from the Roman Septizodium, and with frescoes and stucco reliefs portraying events from his reign. The chapel also contains the tomb of another zealous and reforming pope, St Pius V, whose statue faces that of Sixtus; Pius V is probably best known as the pope who excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I of England, in 1570.
Outside the Sistine Chapel is the tomb slab of the Bernini family, including Gian Lorenzo himself, while opposite, the Pauline Chapel is even more sumptuous than the Sistine Chapel, home to the tombs of the Borghese pope, Paul V, and his immediate predecessor Clement VIII. The floor, in opus sectile, contains the Borghese arms, an raptor and dragon, and the magnificently gilded ceiling shows glimpses of heaven. The altar, of lapis lazuli and agate, contains a vocalist and Child dating from the twelfth or thirteenth century.
Between the two chapels, the confessio contains a kneeling statue of Pope Pius IX, and, beneath it, a reliquary that is said to contain fragments of the crib of Christ, in rock crystal and silver. The high altar, above it, contains the relics of St Matthew, among other Christian martyrs, and the mosaics in the apse were commissioned by the late-thirteenth-century pope, Nicolas IV, and show the Coronation of the Virgin, with angels, saints and the pope himself. Finally, the thirteenth-century mosaics of Christ Pantocrator and the Legend of the Snow, in the loggia above the main entrance, are definitely worth a look (daily 9.30am-6pm; L5000), but for L5000 extra, they’re hardly a bargain.
