Rome at Night
Photographing My Favorite City Between Sunset and Sunrise
This is the shortcut to the Rome at Night photos.
My time this trip was mostly spent out at night or up early in the
morning to capture sites that are very familiar but I don't normally see at odd hours. I
was also helped by the fact that one friend lives over near the Vatican so I would walk home to
the hotel after a visit and stop by the various places on the way. One night I stopped at the
Vatican and set up my gear only to be told they had closed for the evening. So, I picked
everything up and crossed the border by walking across the street and proceeded to take some
shots. Another night I ended up in front of the Pantheon, so I took some shots there. Early one
morning I woke up and went to the Spanish Steps and had the place all to myself for at least 45
minutes.
The Pantheon
The Pantheon was originally a temple built by Agrippa and then
"remodeled" by Hadrian. It was most likely completely rebuilt by Hadrian, who
considered himself a very artsy-fartsy type guy. He was a classy guy, too, since he left the
original inscription on the front, which reads "M(arcus) Agrippa L(ucius) F(ilus) Cos
Tertium Fecit" and can be translated as "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, built
it." The pronaos - the front part - consists of a row of eight gray granite columns in
front and a series of four columns in two rows inside. The pavement was lower in ancient times
(you can see how low on the left side of the building). The large rectangular structure placed
on top towards the dome's edge serves no structural purpose, but it blocked the sight lines
to the dome.
The roof is bare now, but until the 16th century it was covered with bronze tiles. One of the Barbarini popes removed the tiles and used them for the baldachino in St Peter's.
For hundreds of years, the pronaos of this magnificent building sheltered Rome's fish market. The huge bronze doors are original; they've been on those hinges and mounted in that doorframe for nearly 2, 000 years.
The dome is the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. No modern structure exceeds it. It is 150 Roman feet across (approximately 44 meters) and sits on a drum that is 75 Roman feet high. The result is a perfect proportion; a sphere inside a cylinder.
St Peter's Square
The church you see today is in fact "New St Peter's" and has almost nothing in common with Old St Peter's.
If you stand at the eastern edge of St Peter's Square (Piazza di San Pietro), you see in front of you a vast flat area with the largest church in Christendom as the centerpiece. This area did not always look like this; in ancient times the area where the church is now was a hill; the original architects of Old St Peter's carted off part of the hill to make room for the church; the architects for New St Peter's carted off more to make room for the bigger project.
The Romans called this area the Vaticanus and Nero had a large circus here. The spot you are currently standing on marks the corner of the north side of the track and the carcere, the starting gates. A slight turn to your left (counter or anti-clockwise) and you face down the northern edge of the track. The spina, the central divide of the track, began at a point about a third of the way down the straight structure on the left that connects the ellipse with the front of the church. The far end terminated well beyond the back of the current basilica, but the spina ended at a point perpendicular to the current church’s outer apse wall.
The obelisk in the center of the square was originally placed on the center point of the spina in Nero's time. Peter himself was crucified (upside down) on that spina in 64 CE. The legend is that Nero himself rode a chariot around the track as Peter was dying on his inverted crucifix.
There's nothing left of the stadium above ground, but a palazzo to your left apparently has some carcere remnants in it's basement.
After Peter's martyrdom, his followers buried him next to the circus, in a tomb that at the time was set into the bluff of the Vatican Hill. His was not the only tomb there, though. The necropolis was already well established, with a mixture of both pagan and Christian tombsites. Constantine ordered a large church be built on the site to commemorate Peter's martyrdom and to encourage the growth of the religion. The area was leveled and the church's altar center built directly over the tomb. Construction was started in 321 and completed 8 years later.
The original church's design included a large atrium in the front surrounded by porticoes. In the center of the atrium was a fountain called the Fountain of Symmachus whose centerpiece was a large bronze pinecone. This pinecone still exists and can be seen in one of the courtyards of the Vatican Museum today. To help orient yourself; the actual entrance to the old church was pretty much in the same location as the entrance to the current church is. To get a very good idea of what Old St Peter's looked like inside, we just need to (re)visit San Paulo Fuori le Mura. The layout and the style were very similar; both are and were five nave churches.
New St Peter's was built because Old St Peter's was ready to collapse. The new church had multiple architects during its construction; Bernini, Michaelangelo and Bramante among others. Constructed over the course of 120 years, St peter's is the largest church in Christendom. The dome is one meter smaller in diameter than the dome of the Pantheon. Its height is approxiamtely 136.6 meters and its diameter is approximately 41.5 meters. Inside the rim of the dome written in Latin in letters 2 meters high is:
"TV ES PETRUS ET SUPER HANC PETRAM AEDIFICABO ECCLESIAM MEAM. TIBI DABO CLAVES REGNI CAELORUM"
"...you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. ... I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven..."
Piazza di Spagna and The Spanish Steps
Piazza di Spagna
In Roman times this part of town contained some water distribution buildings; large reservoirs used for storing water from one of the aquaducts that terminated there. The water was distributed in pipes all over this part of town.
In the Renaissance era the fountain seen at the foot of the Spanish Steps - "Fontana della Barcaccia (the old boat)" - was placed here. The water is fresh and cool and tastes great. make sure you drink it from the flowing spouts, though. This fountain was then and is today fed by an ancient aquaduct pipe.
The Spanish Steps
The Spanish Steps consist of 138 steps connecting Piazza di Spagna with the Trinita dei Monti church at the top of the bluff. It is the longest staircase in Europe.
Built in 1717 and restored several times since the Spanish Steps are basically a huge version of terrace garden stairs. Eating is forbidden on the Steps and in Springtime the city decorates the Steps with pots of beautifully blooming azaleas.