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Look around you, wrote Cassiodorus one and a half thousand years ago.
And you'll see how this abundance of water has beautified the city.
But what would become of all this beauty if the queen and mistress of the world
were not constantly supplied with these crystal waters?
Rome is like a goddess come to earth. None can compare to her, nor take second
place, wrote Julius Sextius Frontinus when he beheld the volume of water
flowing down solemn aqueducts into the city.
Fountains, water grottos and a myriad water sprouts murmured from every corner
of the ancient capital.
How can I find words to describe the rivers streaming into the city 90 feet
above the ground to water the vast public and private gardens, the woods and
the stately villas. The thermae alone absorb entire lakes enthused the younger
Pliny 2,000 years ago.
Rome has been called the city of fountains and so we have chosen these
immemorial fountains to introduce us to the great monuments of the Eternal City.
Let us begin by observing that there are very few cities which have swung from
greatness to decadence and back again as Rome has in the 26 centuries of its
history.
Ever since the first century BC the city was famous for its parks with gardens
fountains and ninfea. Most celebrated of all were the gardens of Lucullus on the
Pincian Hill, Mycenae's garden on the Esquiline and the parks Julius Caesar
left at his death to the people of Rome. In the last years of the Republic the
Romans had developed the art of topiary that is the method of clipping trees
into living sculpture. Green sculptures which rivaled the profusion of marbled
figures in these splendid parks.
The gardens of the Villa Shara give us only a pallid idea of what the Roman
gardens must have looked like.
These are the ruins of a decorative pleasure dome known as the maritime
theater though its real function remains a mystery. They form one of the
intriguing features of the Emperor Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli near Rome.
The villa itself was the largest and grandest summer residence ever to be
built. An astonishing architectural complex calculated to house a staff of
some 20,000 people.
This arcaded pool the Canopus was also part of the villa. It shows how much care
was devoted to the ornamentation of water in Imperial Rome.
The pool in the house of the Vestal Virgins and one of the most ancient in
the long history of the city. Here we see a restoration. It was the duty of the
Vestal Virgins to tend the everlasting sacred fire which had blazed without
interruption in the nearby temple of Vesta since the time of Romulus.
We find ourselves in the most evocative part of ancient Rome, the Roman Forum.
This huge public square which began as a common marketplace was destined to
become the political fulcrum of Rome.
This reconstruction of the Forum area shows the Rostrum, a massive platform
where the orators addressed the crowd of citizens assembled in the Forum. The
names of some of these orators are as fresh today as they were in the last days
of the Republic. Cicero, Brutus, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony.
Beside the Rostrums stands the Senate House or Curia
and to the north of the square the temple of Julius Caesar.
Here we have a reconstruction of the temple with the sacred way, the Via Sacra.
At the far end the Arch of Titus, the Emperor who destroyed Jerusalem and
brought about the dispersion of the Jews.
Here we follow the sacred way as it crosses the Forum.
Another view of the Forum from the Palatine Hill, the most renowned expanse
of public monuments which have witnessed more than 2,000 years of history.
As the city grew the Forum became too confined for the requirements of a
capital. More Forums were created.
Julius Caesar was the first to build his own Forum on the slopes of the Capitol
Hill. He lined it on one side with a row of shops called Tabernes and erected the
temple of Venus and Genetrix with a famous portrait of Cleopatra inside.
Some decades later the Emperor Augustus followed his example by building the
temple of a venging Mars in a Forum of his own.
The bronze statue which now stands before it is a recent copy of the famous
Prima Porta Augustus.
To return to the fountains of Imperial Rome, here is all that remains of the
Meta Sudans. According to popular tradition gladiators came here to wash
after their cruel and bloody fights in the arena of the nearby Flavian
amphitheater better known as the Colosseum.
It has remained one of the greatest architectural achievements of all time.
Its construction was begun in 73 AD under the Emperor Vaspasianus. It took
40,000 slaves to erect this giant of a building which measures a hundred and
eighty eight meters long and a hundred and fifty four meters wide.
Its height 54 meters is equivalent to a modern 16 story office block.
Today unfortunately only a third of the original structure survives.
Century after century the Colosseum was looked upon as an inexhaustible quarry
for building materials. Especially travertine, the marble most used for
building in Rome.
What is even more remarkable about the Colosseum is the fact that it is the
first building to introduce advanced anti-seismic construction.
Instead of using mortar they applied bronze clamps to hold the enormous
blocks of travertine in place. Those holes you see between the blocks
were made during the Middle Ages when the clamps were removed to be converted
into coins and later on into cannons.
This wholesale pillaging of the monument only came to an end when the Church
agreed to dedicate what was left of the Colosseum to the early Christian martyrs.
Entrance and exit for the huge populace of Rome was through 80 archways leading
to an interior corridor which circled the building. Here flights of steps ushered
them into the enormous banks of seats which could accommodate up to 60,000 spectators.
The elliptical arena measures 86 meters by 56. Beneath it, wild animals were kept in
cages which could be hooked up into the arena. Here the crowd flocked to enjoy
savage fights called Venaziones. The stars of these bloody spectacles were
not only between wild animals and gladiators but also criminals condemned
to be thrown ad bestias. The latter were forced to fight with or without weapons
according to their punishment. We know that 5,000 animals were slain on the day
the colossal amphitheater was inaugurated by the Emperor Titus and yet
the name of its architect has not come down to us. The Romans were also fans of
the Ludi Gladiatori. These were skilled combats between trained gladiators.
Many of their names as well as their portraits in mosaic have been preserved.
During the events the so-called Velarium was drawn across the top of the
amphitheater. This was a vast canvas awning originally made of sail cloth to
protect the public from the Sun. An ivory white skin was greatly admired by the
ancient Romans and they took considerable trouble to keep out of
direct sunshine. The most celebrated fountains in ancient Rome were the water
grottos or nymphae like the one built to inaugurate the aqua Giulia. Many
centuries later Renaissance architects were to be inspired by these ancient
fountains. The nymphaium of the Villa Giulia commissioned by Pope Julius III
was executed by the Florentine architect and sculptor Ammanati in the grand
tradition of ancient Rome.
The wealth of flowing water in ancient Rome was entirely due to the aqueducts
which carried spring water 70 kilometers across mountains and over the Roman
Campagna.
Both the Claudian and the new Agnene aqueducts were inaugurated by the
Emperor Claudius with the monumental Porta Maggiore.
Through the two great central arches passed the Via Casilina and the Via
L'Abicana.
Unfortunately the aqueducts turned out to be an Achilles heel for Rome. Many
historians date the beginning of the city's grim medieval period destined to
last 800 years from the time the king of the Goths smashed the aqueducts and cut
the water supply.
The vast population of Imperial Rome, one and a half million, was reduced to a few
thousand who managed to survive along the banks of the Tiber near the bridges.
Most of these bridges exist today like the Ponte Milvio, the site of the battle
between the rival emperors Constantine and Maxentius.
As we know Constantine won and it is due to his victory that the Christians were
finally granted freedom of worship.
Some distance downstream stands the elegant Sant'Angelo bridge which linked
the Vatican to the city center.
Only three of the original arches remain of the bridge the Emperor Hadrian built
for his Mausoleum.
In the Middle Ages this great stone cylinder was converted into a fortress
and called the Castel Sant'Angelo. Today it is a historical museum famous for its
prisons which once lodged quite a number of celebrities like Galileo Galilei,
Giordano Bruno, Cellini and Caravaggio.
Moving on down the river we come to the two bridges of Cestius and Fabricius.
They both connect the city shores with the island in the Tiber.
In ancient times this little island was clad in marble and given the form of a
boat with the temple of Aesculapius the god of healing rising from the center.
It was only through the restoration of the ancient aqueducts that Rome was able
to resume its long faded glory. The Renaissance saw the first fountains of a
new epoch. Ancient sarcophagi were now used as basins. So were votive sculptors
like the Navicella. This small marble boat was probably an ex voto of some
unknown Roman soldier. More often the elegant ancient bath tubs from the
Thermae were used for the basins of fountains.
Often marble masks and other sculptures were placed above the basins like this
one the Mascherone fountain in the famous 16th century street via Giulia.
By the middle of the 16th century fountains seemed to be sprouting from
every corner or piazza of Rome. They served two purposes. They supplied the
population with water and they were a refreshingly ornamental feature for the
city then being steadily restored to new splendor.
Their execution was in the hands of the foremost artists of the Renaissance like
Giacomo della Porta who created the beautiful fountain in Piazza Colonna.
Beyond it, just beyond the column of Marcus Aurelius, for years under
restoration we see the Italian Parliament, a building dating back to the 16th
century but reconverted in 1870.
Here in the heart of the ancient city stands the fountain of Piazza della
Rotonda. In spite of the addition of an obelisk and other mishandling, the
fountain is still recognisably the work of Giacomo della Porta.
Especially important is its placement as it stands directly in front of one of the
most universally admired monuments of ancient Rome, the Pantheon.
The Pantheon is the only major building of ancient Rome whose original structure
is still well preserved. It was built by the Emperor Hadrian as a temple to the
seven great gods and goddesses.
Inside, the diffused light streaming from the central high of the dome
reestablishes the solemnity of ancient Rome.
It remains the largest dome ever to be built in masonry.
It is said that Michelangelo was so impressed by this awesome structure that
he deliberately planned the dome of St. Peter's a mere 40 centimetres shorter,
leaving the Pantheon dome the widest in the world.
The impact of this temple's harmonious beauty springs from the building's ideal
proportions. The diameter of the dome, 43 metres 30 centimetres, is exactly equal
to the height of the building. The fact that the Pantheon was consecrated in the
name of the Virgin in 607 AD has ensured its perfect state of conservation.
Following the reunification of Italy, the first Savoy Kings chose the Pantheon as a
suitable place for the royal tombs, but long before it had been a famous burial
place for illustrious artists, chief among them the great Raphael, whose tomb at
his own request is an ancient sarcophagus.
Even today the Pantheon dome rises majestically among the other domes and
rooftops of the city in the magnificent panorama we can enjoy from the
Gianicolum hill.
Among a maze of twisting laneways we stumble upon a jewel of the late
Renaissance. The tortoise fountain, designed by the Florentine Tadeo Landini.
Four slim youths in bronze, each holding up a tortoise to drink from the upper
bowl.
Some say the Giacomo della Porta also had a hand in the design. He is certainly
the undisputed creator of the Araceli fountain, edged against a background
which is second to none, the Capitol. Two fountains of black porfido marble,
sporting Egyptian lions who seem superciliously unconscious of the snow
white mountainous mass of the Victor Emmanuel monument. Though they appear
very much at home with the superb medieval church of Santa Maria in
Araceli, poised high above Michelangelo's splendid balustrade with its
intimidating Greek statues of Castor and Pollux.
Like Olympian sentries they introduce us to the Piazza del Campidogno.
Within such a confined space one can only wonder at this miracle of city planning.
But in designing the piazza Michelangelo did much more than that. He restored to
Rome the vision of its former grandeur.
Unhappily the glorious center point of the piazza is missing. We can see it in
this photograph taken some years ago. Marcus Aurelius, the most famous bronze
equestrian statue to survive from the ancient world has been under restoration
for years.
Michelangelo designed the piazza, the two buildings at each side and the great
Palazzo Senatorio at the far end. Today it is the town hall of Rome.
One of its most powerful features is the double ramped staircase which links the
Palazzo to the fountain. It was to become a source of inspiration to architects for
centuries.
In the center of the fountain sits an ancient statue of Minerva transformed
into the goddess Roma. At either side recline two Herculean statues
representing the rivers Tiber and the Nile.
Rome, the city of fountains. In Piazza Farnese we find a curiously
amiable contrast between the ancient bath tubs and the elegant upper bowls
bearing the heraldic device of the Farnese family.
These two fountains welcome us to the grandest private residence of the
Renaissance, the Farnese Palace.
Designed by Antonio Sangallo, it was mainly completed by Michelangelo who
added the balcony and composed the monumental Farnese coat of arms above
it, adding a third story and crowned the palace with an almost overwhelming
cordiness. Among the hundred or so fountains to be found in the historic
center, these two are especially significant. They invite us to the heart
of Christianity, the square and basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican City.
This world-renowned complex was the work of some of the greatest artists of the
Renaissance and the Baroque. Bramante, Raffael, Sangallo, Maderna, Bernini, Borromini
and Giacomo della Porta who completed the great dome. All of them worked upon
giving life and form to Michelangelo's titanic concept.
The capital is the ideal center of the historic city, but St. Peter's is the
ideal center of the religious city.
In order to redeem the function of the dome, which had become a mere backdrop and
to modify the effect of the facade, which is too wide for its height, Bernini
conceived the grand colonnade to reflect the curve of the dome and extend it into
an oval. It was a stroke of genius which not only corrects the proportions of the
basilica, but forges a gigantic link connecting St. Peter's to the city and
ideally to the entire Christian world. The image is aragorical, the church
opening wide its arms to welcome the pilgrim. In other words, Bernini has
fused the separate elements of basilica, dome and square into a unit of
incomparable and universal beauty.
We are inside St. Peter's.
Michelangelo's spatial concept was later modified by the addition of the first
three arches, which transformed his plan of a Greek cross into a Latin cross,
making St. Peter's the largest church in the world.
However, the moment we reached the third arch and enter the space conceived by
Michelangelo, we are wonderstruck. It is only now that the mighty spectacle
intended by the great master opens up before us.
In spite of the wealth Michelangelo had earned, he lived alone and very simply
out of touch with a world which he regarded as unaccountably hostile.
I have no friends nor do I wish for any, he wrote to his brother.
Michelangelo had taken Bramante's excellent ground plan and reduced it to
its essentials.
His mystical dedication to the building of St. Peter's is one of his most
inspiring achievements.
He was 71 when he accepted the Commission.
The master's love for unified spaces is expressed by the perfect continuity in
design from the basilica to the great dome above it, itself a synthesis of all
the elements of the building.
The architecture of St. Peter's represents the triumph of the Renaissance,
but its decoration is the apotheosis of the baroque.
Take for example the baldachin by Bernini. It was forged from the portico of
the Pantheon. This mighty sculptural structure weighing 18 tons rears above
the papal altar which stands immediately over the Apostles tomb.
Bernini also designed the papal throne in bronze and gold in the apse and the
Gloria above it.
Among the many monumental tombs Bernini erected in St. Peter's, this one, the
tomb of Pope Alexander VII, is certainly the most fascinating.
Notable exceptions to baroque decoration in St. Peter's are a number of mosaics
like this one, the transfiguration. It is a copy of the famous painting which
Raphael was working on at the time of his death at the age of 37.
The great artist of Urbino had already produced his best work in the frescoes
decorating the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello. In the room of the
Signatura we have the Disputation of the Sacrament. On the wall opposite the
School of Athens.
Here the great artist borrowed the faces of the great men of his time and lent
them to the immortal intellectuals of antiquity. There is Leonardo as
Aristotle, Michelangelo as Heraclitus, Bramante, Raphael's uncle, as Euclid, and
here is the painter himself with Sodoma.
Returning to St. Peter's, let us end our visit with the first of Michelangelo's
four Pietas, the Vatican Pieta, which he produced at the tender age of 24.
We cannot leave the Vatican without mentioning Michelangelo's frescoes in the
Sistine Chapel, among them the famous Creation of Man.
Michelangelo has conceived Adam as pure beauty, a godlike hero.
In the flood Michelangelo exalts man's heroic struggle for survival while God's
wrath lets loose the tempest on self-indulgent humanity.
Then there are the Inudi, as they are still called in Florence. Some think that
here Michelangelo idealized his own blazing passion for physical beauty as
represented by the male.
However, it was to the prophets that the divine master, as his contemporaries
called him, transmitted his soul. And it is no coincidence that the prophet
Jeremiah is the artist's self-portrait.
These titans of the Sistine ceiling are really sculptures in paint and were
Michelangelo's inspiration for his awesome statue of Moses.
The 17th century is Rome's second Golden Age. This is clearly demonstrated by the
work of Bernini, along with his inseparable rival Borromini, to whom we
owe the lovely Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone. Perhaps in the same spirit of
rivalry, which has always linked their names, Bernini placed his famous fountain
of the four rivers right in front of Borromini's church.
The huge marble figures at the four corners of the fountain personify the
great rivers of four continents.
The Ganges for Asia, the Danube for Europe, the River Plate for America, and
the Nile for Africa. The curious treatment of the Nile with his face
covered symbolizes the mystery of its then unknown source.
But popular legend has it that it was because he refused to look upon the
facade of Borromini's church.
The story goes on to say that the figure of the River Plate is a native with his
arm raised in terror of the façade collapsing.
Borromini, however, countered with a serene statue of the saint, calmly
assuring those in any doubt that the church is there to stand for centuries
to come.
Of course, all these stories are mostly popular gossip with no solid foundation.
All the same, they do illustrate the intensity of the rivalry between the two
great architects who are regarded as the fathers of the Baroque.
The fountain of the four rivers, so like an extravagant scene from Baroque opera,
is in fact amazingly alive in naturalistic detail with its vegetation
sprouting from the rock and wild animals emerging menacingly from the water.
Here, Bernini's teeming imagination does not stop to toy with reality. It passes
on into the surreal, the joy and enthusiasm which this fountain engenders
becomes a hymn to life.
At the southern end of the Piazza Navona, this elegant marble basin is the
work of Giacomo della Porta, and once again we're aware of the famous
Borromini-Bernini rivalry.
Here, however, Bernini contributed the lower basin reflecting della Porta's
design and provided the statue of the moor for whom the fountain is named.
The third fountain to the north of the square is the fountain of Neptune.
Its decoration was held up until 1873 when a late 19th century Neptune appeared
in the center, spearing an octopus with his trident.
The marble basin is also by Giacomo della Porta.
From here, we get an excellent impression of the stadium of Domitian
whose grandstands have become the foundations for the picturesque
buildings surrounding the square.
20 centuries later, it was used as a model when the Marmi
stadium was built in the italic Forum, formerly known as the Mussolini Forum.
Similar in form but of far greater proportions to accommodate up to
300,000 spectators was the Circus Massimus.
This was where the four or six horse chariot races were held,
as well as horseback races.
The tiers of seats in the Circus Massimus were built along the slopes of the
Palatine and Aventine Hills. On the Palatine stood the great imperial
palaces as we see from the reconstruction.
Not far from the Circus in one of the most picturesque corners of Rome stands
the 18th century fountain of the two tritons
and nearby the circular so-called Temple of Vesta
and the Temple of Manly Fortune.
Both of them owe their conservation to the fact that they were converted into
Christian churches during the Middle Ages.
Facing them is the medieval church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin,
whose portico houses the legendary mouth of truth.
Actually this enormous marble disc was an ordinary drain,
but popular tradition insists that the mouth will bite off the hand of any wife
who fails to answer her husband's questions with the truth.
And so we continue our search for the fountains which reveal
Rome's most famous places.
We are in the Piazza di Spagna with its little central fountain called
Barcaccia or riverboat.
It is the work of Pietro Bernini, father of the illustrious
Gian Lorenzi. When he arrived in Rome from his native Tuscany,
he based his design on the old riverboats which carried casks of wine
down the Tiber from the north.
The world-famous Spanish Steps date from the mid 18th century and link the piazza
with the twin-towered Trinita dei Monti at the top.
This is a place everybody loves, especially foreign visitors to Rome.
The steps are even more animated on holidays when artists from all over the
world exhibit their paintings.
During the spring azalea show, the mast flowers are a blaze of colour against
the limpet sky of Rome.
At the top of the steps we pause to admire one of the most beautiful views
in Rome.
Once again, water introduces us to the nearby Piazza Barberini
with a particularly splendid centrepiece, Bernini's Triton Fountain.
Tucked into an upper corner of the square, we find the fountain of the bees,
another work by Bernini. It marks the beginning of the Via Vittorio Veneto,
immortalized in Ferlini's film of the late 50s La Dolce Vita.
Santa Maria Maggiore is one of Rome's four
great basilicas. The virgin statue stands very high on the ancient column
right in front of it with a charming small fountain below.
This is a good vantage point to view the basilica's 18th century façade.
The rear prospect dates from the late 17th century.
Further on we find the fountain of Saint John Lateran,
bearing the coat of arms of Paul V. It stands immediately beneath an Egyptian
obelisk of 14th century BC, the oldest and the highest in the world.
The fountain and the obelisk allow us a glimpse of the Holy Staircase in the
background. The Lateran Palace, once the official
residence of the Holy See, and the transept façade of Saint John
Lateran. Here with the monument to Saint Francis
is the façade of San Giovanni Laterano, which is not only one of the four great
basilicas, but also the cathedral of Rome and
consequently of the entire Catholic Church.
Alongside it we see part of the ancient Aurelian walls of Rome.
Here is the Porta San Giovanni, which dates from the 16th century,
and the original Porta Asinaria, or donkey gate,
leading into the Via Appia Nuova. Today the donkey gate
provides space for a modest flea market. Another of the ancient gates in the
Roman wall is the Porta San Paolo, right next to the pyramid tomb of Caius
Sestius. Visitors will inevitably pass here on
their way to Saint Paul's Beyond the Walls,
which is the fourth of the great basilicas.
We show the façade in this photograph.
Our search for fountains brings us to the monumental gate of San Sebastian,
the ancient Appian gate.
It's set triumphantly in walls that extend for 18 kilometers around the city.
It led out of the city onto the Appian Way.
This first and by far the most important of the consular roads went all the way
to Brindisi, linking Rome with Greece and Asia.
The blind consul Appius Claudius ordered the road to be built in the fourth
century BC.
The scattered ruins it passes through today are the remains of the funeral
monuments of rich and powerful citizens.
In spite of centuries of neglect and plundering, the Appian Way can still
offer one of Rome's most romantic walks.
Once again, water which becomes the leitmotif of our journeys
expresses the beauty and mystery of Rome, its power
and its suberance.
The restoration of the aqueduct built by the emperor Trajan
was inaugurated by Pope Paul V with this particularly palatial fountain
for the aqua paula, the fontanone.
The fountain is crowned by Pope Paul V's coat of arms
and it is one of the most magnificent in Rome.
Placed on the Gianicolo hill, it overlooks a wonderful view of the city.
It is characteristic of Roman decoration to assemble pieces belonging to different
cultures and periods.
Take the Quirinal fountain, an Egyptian obelisk,
two Roman copies of Greek statues, and an enormous Roman basin.
Three civilizations harmoniously fused into one
18th century fountain.
It faces the Quirinal palace, residence of the president of Italy.
The fountain is the center point of the Quirinal piazza
with its long white balustrade and breathtaking view of Rome
with the soaring dome of Saint Peter's against the sky.
If the 17th century be Rome's golden epoch,
the 18th century is a worthy continuation.
At the foot of the Quirinal hill the Trevi fountain has become a legend.
The imperious ocean rides forth in a giant cockle shell
drawn by two fiery seahorses which a pair of tritons
struggle to control.
But the real heroes of the fountain are more elemental,
water and stone. The stone is the famous travertine which two centuries of
streaming water have turned into gold.
Inspired by the full flowering of the baroque,
Nicola Salvi created his masterpiece, dedicating to it the last 20 years of
his life. Though as his biography tells us,
receiving only bitterness and misfortune in exchange.
The fountain was commissioned by Clement XII for the inauguration of the
Acqua Vergine and completed in 1762 when the Roman aqueduct was finally
restored to its original function.
There is a legend that a young girl showed some thirsty Roman soldiers
to the springs and that when the emperor Augustus heard of it,
he immediately ordered the aqueduct to be built and named it
the virgin water of Acqua Vergine.
This grand orchestration of stone and water
is one of the noblest expressions of the art of the fountain.
There is another legend which scarcely needs telling.
Throw a coin in the fountain and you will come back to Rome.
In Rome the 18th century design was a continuation of the baroque,
except for the Piazza del Popolo which designed after the neo-classical style
by Giuseppe Valadier.
The sound of water murmurs from every corner of the square.
In the center of the western curve stands a large fountain with the statue
of Neptune.
Directly opposite is the Pincian hill,
arranged by Valadier in a series of ramps and terraces.
In the center of the eastern curve stands the fountain of the goddess Roma
between the rivers Agno and Tiber. Above it the cascading fountain beneath
the Pincian terrace, our viewpoint for this shot of the piazza.
This obelisk is the only obelisk which has remained intact
for 32 centuries. It was erected by Ramesses II,
the pharaoh whom Moses pursued, to free his people.
The base of the obelisk is decorated with four charming fan-shaped fountains
with Egyptian lions as sprouts.
East of the square stand the twin baroque churches.
It almost seems as though they were placed there to form traffic lanes
leading into the historic center.
Their splendid domes appear to herald the triumphant
entrance into the city of the Caesars and the Popes.
Facing them across the square is Bernini's ceremonious Porta del Popolo,
which he built on the occasion of Queen Christina's entry into Rome.
The design of the exterior of the gate comes from the hand of Michelangelo.
Near the gate we see the dome of Santa Maria del Popolo
and a little further back one of the many entrances to the vast
green park of the Villa Borghese.
Among the Roman pines, a host of fountains enliven this tranquil corner of the city.
Certainly one of the most delightful is the seahorse fountain
by the Bolzano sculptor Unterberger.
The summer residence, then called a Casino, was commissioned by Ippolito Borghese
as a
museum in the early 17th century and houses the distinguished art collection
known as the Borghese Gallery.
Among the many famous works are two paintings by Raphael,
the Lady with the Unicorn and the Deposition.
The Venetian school is well represented by Titian's early masterpiece,
Sacred and Profane Love,
and Venus, Blinding Cupid, an explosion of colour of the Venetian master's later manner.
Within the 15 hectares of the Villa Borghese, there is a delightful little lake with a temple to Escolapius, the god of healing.
By now we've come to Rome, capital of reunified Italy, 1870.
Having replaced the power of the popes, the new government was not always sensitive to the grandeur and poetry of the city.
Demolition and ruthless clearance were the order of the day, and much was indiscriminate.
The design of the new buildings was already out of date,
as for example the Palace of Justice.
An even louder discord was struck by the grandiloquent monument to Victor Emmanuel II,
irreverently hailed as the typewriter or the wedding cake.
Perhaps because of its sheer rhetorical volume, it can never hope to harmonise with the essential character of Rome.
In 1921, the monument also became the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, fallen in the First World War, and took the name of the Altar of the Fatherland.
Rearing above this focal point of the city, Victor Emmanuel's monument dwarfs the beautiful 15th century Palazzo Venezia, which marks the transition from Medieval to Renaissance.
Its one simple balcony was used by Mussolini for his public speeches.
In the Piazza della Repubblica, the lively fountain of the Nians also belongs to the opening of the 20th century.
Though an admirable work of the Palermo sculptor Rutelli, it caused an uproar among the more righteous and public spirited of the city council of the day.
The fountain was never inaugurated. For months it stayed shrouded from the public eye until finally a group of boys beat down the surrounding fence and revealed this bronze revelry to the Romans.
According to newspaper reports of the time, nobody was in the least scandalised.
The fountain is the centre of the Icedra of the Great Baths of Dioclesian. They were the largest ever built, and much of them has remained intact.
In the 16th century, Michelangelo transformed the Hall of the Frigidarium into the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Angeli.
Two centuries later, Vannbitelli transposed nave and transept to the present arrangement.
We should like to draw special attention to the vaulting. After 16 centuries it remains the widest cross vaulting in existence.
The mighty columns with their powerfully moulded capitals are also original.
The baths of Dioclesian were the largest ever built. They could hold 3,500 persons.
Very famous for their luxury and splendour were the baths built by the Emperor Caracalla, of which we see the reconstruction of the Thepidarium for the hot baths.
Here are the impressive remains of the Caracalla baths. They were not only meeting places, for the imperial baths included gardens, art galleries, libraries and restaurants.
The Nyad Fountain is usually the first Roman monument the traveller sees when he arrives by train at the Termini Station.
The station was begun shortly before the Second World War by Mussolini and completed only in the 1950s.
Most of it was designed in a period when the arch symbolised the power of imperial Rome.
It was the period of the Palace of Labour, out of the city of the Eur, later to be known as the Palace of Civilisation. Some refer to it as the Square Colosseum.
This Eur quarter was intended by Mussolini for the Universal Exhibition, which was due to open in 1942. Here we see the Palazzo dei Congressi.
Apart from its various museums, this important new urban area also contains a number of ministries.
Eur has now become an upper class district.
Here is the Palazzo dello Sport, one of the finest works of the great engineer architect Pier Luigi Nerri. It was built for the Rome Olympics of 1960.
With the Eur, its Palazzo dello Sport, its parks, pools and lake, we end our 70 minute journey into Rome through its fountains.
Documentarista culturale looks forward to being with you again. See you next time in Florence.
Among the ancient Romans, it was their custom to bury their dead alongside their consular roots, and since the Appian Way was the first and remained among the most important, it was adorned with the most ostentatious of their tombs.
Among them remains today that of Cecilia Metella from the 1st century BC.
With the spread of Christianity, it was the Appia Antica that saw the first of the Christian cemeteries, which became known as the Catacombs.
One of the most famous is this one of San Sebastiano, where the sacred memory of the two apostles, Peter and Paul, is preserved.
Then again there are the others of Santa Domitilla, granddaughter of the emperor Domitiano, who gave her land to the Christian community.
As a testimony to the immutability and triumphant spread of the word of Christ, there are still left in Rome alone over 50 catacombs.
We are standing in the grounds over the Catacombs of San Callisto, which were singled out by Pope Callisto as the official burial ground of the popes.
Pilgrims the world over come to these catacombs to admire and to pray, for they have become a universal emblem of Christianity.
But thousands of tourists of every faith and culture come to visit.
The catacombs represent the reverent and authentic testimonies to the faith and the religious life of the first Christians.
But they are also the principal sources, without any doubt, of the institutions and culture of Christians.
The catacombs consist of a complex network of narrow passages, tunneled out of the subsoil at various levels, one above the other.
These galleries extend for tens and tens of kilometers. They intersect with one another at different angles, thus forming an actual labyrinth in which it becomes extremely difficult to orientate oneself.
This is also one reason why one can only visit with a local guide, who is always of a religious order.
It is calculated that in Rome the galleries of the catacombs cover in all more than 500 kilometers.
In some of them, like this one of San Callisto, the galleries overlap by up to five floors.
All along the walls of these galleries were excavated the tombs, as we can see, from those simple rectangular cubicles to those more representative of prominent personages, which were vaulted and larger, called from the Latin arcosoli.
To the sides of the galleries open up areas called crypts, which were reserved for the martyrs as well as illustrious personalities, such as this one called the Crypt of the Popes.
Originally the vaulted arcosoli and the crypts, but much less so the cubicles, were decorated with painted frescoes.
It was in the catacombs, in fact, that Christian art was born, an art of symbols and allegories, such as this fish, whose name in Greek is formed from the initials signifying Christ the Savior, the Son of God, or this dove, the symbol of peace.
One often finds the figure of the Good Shepherd with the lost lamb, the symbol of Christ.
This can also be found in the form of sculptures.
Just as frequent are the representations of the figure at prayer, illustrating the manner of the early Christians.
This precious figure of Christ in the act of benediction is to be found in the crypt of Santa Cecilia in the catacombs of San Callisto.
It was here that in the year 1500 the body of the saint was brought, miraculously still almost intact.
She had been beheaded in her martyrdom.
The sculptor Stefano Maderno made a reproduction of the saint in the same position in which she was found.
As well as painting and sculpture, the catacombs offer us the first examples of Christian architecture.
We can see this in the Basilica of the saints Nereo and Achilleo in the catacombs of Santa Domitilda.
With the decline of the Roman Empire, Christianity began its triumphant ascent,
and Rome, which was the symbol of imperial power, became the universal emblem of spiritual power.