Framing St. Peter's: Urban Planning in Fascist RomeAuthor(s): Terry KirkSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 88, No. 4 (Dec., 2006), pp. 756-776Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067285Accessed: 11/07/2010 14:18

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Framing St. Peter's: Urban Planning in Fascist Rome

Terry Kirk

The Via della Conciliazione in Rome is the thoroughfare that leads to St. Peter's basilica in Rome (Fig. 1). The construction of

the "Street of the Reconciliation," which entailed gutting the

medieval neighborhood in front of the Vatican known as the

district of the Borgo, opened a vista to St. Peter's and linked

the church complex to the city. The street extends from the

edge of Gian 'Lorenzo Bernini's piazza at the location of an

unrealized terzo braccio, or "third arm" of enclosing colon

nade, eastward to the area of the Castel Sant'Angelo. A

variety of preexisting and newly designed buildings face the

wide street, and twenty-eight obelisks that line its path serve

also as lampposts. The Via della Conciliazione was begun

under Fascist rule in 1936, designed by Marcello Piacentini and Attilio Spaccarelli and completed in 1950. Their concep tion took cognizance of many earlier urban design proposals

for this site dating back to the Renaissance. At the same time,

it incorporated symbolic aspects of the Lateran Pact of 1929, which normalized diplomatic relations between the Italian

Fascist state and the Roman Catholic Church. The street

frames St. Peter's, particularly its problematic facade, in a

new vista, makes concrete the union of church and state

imperative to Mussolini's political agenda, and exemplifies

strategies of urban planning widely used in Fascist Rome. The

Via della Conciliazione is the visual and political frame in

which we understand the relationship of the Catholic Church

and the Italian state today.

Received opinions on the Via della Conciliazione are

roundly negative.1 They rest often on a blind rejection of

modern intervention in historical places, a regret for the

effect on Bernini's piazza, or

nostalgia for the lost Borgo. For

scholars of the Baroque piazza, like Rudolf Wittkower or

Hellmut Hager, who hold that Bernini's work cannot ever be

finished, the Via della Conciliazione appears to be an insen

sitive intrusion driven by reprehensible politics.2 Bias against

the Via della Conciliazione is largely due to a prevailing view

of Bernini's piazza as an enclosed environment, despite evi

dence presented by Wittkower and others that Bernini ex

plored other options. It is not uncommon to find scholars

forsaking the thoroughfare for the dark alleys to accentu

ate an experience of contrast on

finally entering the bright

piazza.

Such scholars overlook the long history since the Renais

sance of proposals to clear the Borgo to which the modern

designers made explicit reference. In addition, the 1929

Lateran Pact between the papacy and the Fascist regime

furnished a political context in which the ultimate project was conceived. Within the aesthetic parameters informed by

the architects' own explanations and responses of contempo

raries, Piacentini and Spaccarelli featured St. Peter's in a

reconfigured "frame," or inquadratura,

to provide for the first

time a strategic adjustment of the view to its facade and dome

and a comprehensive vision of the Vatican (Fig. 2). The new

street's vista, with certain aspects having been edited out,

structures the viewer's gaze to isolate a significant historical

site and celebrate particularly Michelangelo's monumental

architecture. Under Benito Mussolini's close supervision,

their design also emphasized the regime's diplomatic union

with the Church, using the latter's supranational authority to

further its own imperialist agenda. The Via della Conciliazi one is the most

complete example of the strategies used to

reshape the urban experience of Fascist Rome.

Five Hundred Years of Proposals to Clear the Borgo

Clearing the Borgo district of its medieval fabric was an idea

half a millennium in the making. The renaissance of Rome

and the papal seat at the Vatican envisioned by Pope Nicholas V in the early 1450s would have required the total revision of

the area between the church and the Castel Sant'Angelo.3

For the Holy Year 1500, Pope Alexander VI sliced through part of it with a straight street called the Borgo Nuovo (Fig. 3).4 It marked the path of the possesso, the ceremonial march

from the Vatican by which, as temporal ruler, the pope took

possession of his capital. From the other direction, the Borgo

Nuovo focused the arriving pilgrim on the front door of the

Apostolic Palace, not the church (Fig. 4). The vista accented

the presence of the pope both as resident at the church of the

apostle and ruler over the city of Rome. Between the new

street and an older street, the Borgo Vecchio to the south, a

thin sliver of buildings called the spina remained.

When the architect Donato Bramante undertook the total

rebuilding of Old St. Peter's basilica into a Renaissance con

struction for Pope Julius II in 1506, he may also have consid ered a

corresponding urban design. A drawing attributed in

the nineteenth century to Bramante (in the Galler?a degli Uffizi, Florence) suggests a rebuilding of the Borgo (Fig.

13).5 Classical architecture lining the area here would have,

as in many of Bramante's projects, created a controlled per

spectival frame in which the church would be best viewed.

Bramante's idea of a sc?nographie urban setting for St. Pe

ter's remained, however, on paper, the first proposal in a

series to accumulate across the centuries for the rebuilding of

the medieval Borgo area to accord with the classical grandeur

of the new church.

By the end of the sixteenth century, with Michelangelo's dome for St. Peter's almost finished, Pope Sixtus V had

Domenico Fontana erect an obelisk in front of the site.

Sixtus's resolve to effect a significant urban transformation of

the Borgo was implicit. Of the four obelisks Sixtus V relocated

in strategic positions in Rome to orient pilgrims to important

locations, only the Vatican obelisk did not already have an

open vista leading to it. Furthermore, Fontana placed this

obelisk off axis in relation to the orientation of the church

construction. This can be easily verified by noting in any view

of the exterior of St. Peter's today the lack of alignment of the

FRAMING ST. PETER'S: URBAN PLANNING IN FASCIST ROME 757

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1 Marcello Piacentini and Attilio Spaccarelli, Via della Conciliazione, Rome, 1936-50 (photograph ? Fratelli Alinari, Florence)

2 Marcello Piacentini framing the vista

for Benito Mussolini, with Giuseppe Bottai, Di?o Alfieri, Attilio Spaccarelli, Cipriano Efisio Oppo, Virgilio Testa, and an unidentified figure, October 1937 (photograph ? Istituto Luce,

Rome)

758 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4

3 Giovanni Battista Nolli, map of Rome, detail of the Borgo area between St. Peter's and the Castel Sant'Angelo, 1748 (artwork in

the public domain; photograph provided by Studium Urbis, Rome)

4 Borgo Nuovo (right), Borgo Vecchio

(left), and the spina in between, early 20th century (photograph in the public domain, provided by the Fototeca

Unione, American Academy of Rome)

obelisk's tip to reference points behind it. It never

aligns to

both the facade's pediment and the central window of the

dome's drum. The new church, continuing under Michelan

gelo's plans, was in Fontana's day still a work in progress; its

nave and facade had not yet been conceived, and parts of the

old church still stood in the midst of the work site. But it is

unlikely that a discrepancy of the obelisk's alignment was the

engineer's oversight. By this specific placement of the obelisk

approximately thirteen feet (four meters) to the left while

looking out from the church's front door, the imagined

visual axis extending away from the complex was shifted a few

degrees to the north.6 It would have run down the center of

the spina block, as can be seen on accurate maps like the plan

by Giovanni Battista Nolli (Fig. 3). Thus, a long, westward

axial approach could have been realized economically by

simply extracting the spina; however, during Sixtus V's short

reign no demolition was

accomplished.

In the early seventeenth century, Carlo Maderno com

pleted the church construction. Rather than following Bra

mante and Michelangelo by employing a centralized scheme,

FRAMING ST. PETER'S: URBAN PLANNING IN FASCIST ROME 759

5 Ideal view of St. Peter's, ca. 1588, fresco. Biblioteca

Vaticana, Palazzo Apost?lico, Rome (artwork in the public domain; photograph reproduced in a 1937 article on

Borgo clearance projects, provided by the Musei Vaticani, Rome)

he gave it a very long nave and a

large facade. In contrast to

an architectural solution dominated by the cupola, as re

corded, for example, in a fresco in the Vatican Library (Fig. 5), Maderno's facade compromised the view to the dome.

Retaining the church's original axial orientation, Maderno's

facade is also oblique in relation to the preset obelisk. By

most assessments, Maderno's work posed other problems as

well.7 Deprived of the intended vertically rising bell towers, it

presented a rather too-broad image. Maderno's facade added

complications to the site, and later architects were keen to fix

its errors.

In 1651, the St. Peter's building commission made explicit its intention of opening

a thoroughfare. The cardinals dis

cussed a proposal "to demolish all the buildings between the

Borgo Nuovo and the Borgo Vecchio for a greater and longer vista to the church."8 High expropriation costs and vested

property interests kept them from proceeding. Only a few

structures in the spina nearest the church were at this time

cleared.

With the possibilities of demolishing the spina limited, Bernini then developed the piazza at St. Peter's within these

spatial and financial constraints. The Borgo Nuovo remained

focused on the Apostolic Palace entrance, and the obelisk lay off axis to the church's nave. His solution for the space in

front of the church combined a trapezoidal

area connected

to Maderno's facade with a lower transverse oval centered on

Fontana's obelisk defined by arcs of colonnades. Curves and

subtly irregular angles at the junctures helped to overcome

all problems of misalignment. The northern arm of columns

stopped short to leave the Borgo Nuovo vista clear (Figs. 3,

4). Bernini also explored plans that would call for the com

Vaticana, Rome, Codice Chigi AI19, fol. 68r (artwork in the

public domain; photograph ? Biblioteca Apost?lica Vaticana)

p?ete demolition of the Borgo. As full clearance became more and more

unlikely, he then sought to mask the irreg

ular spina structures standing nearby with a so-called terzo

braccio, a third freestanding range of columns. A drawing

attributed in the late nineteenth century to Bernini proposed an alternative location for the terzo braccio pulled back into the

spina (Fig. 6).10 Demolition of only a few structures would

have afforded a longer vantage point

to improve the angle of

vision over the tall facade to the dome. This position, roughly 330 feet (100 meters) further back, would, according to

Bernini's calculations seen on the drawing, still have guaran

teed a satisfactory lateral panorama into the piazza's breadth.

After the death of Pope Alexander VII, work slowed to a halt,

leaving the terzo braccio unbuilt, and Bernini's piazza re

mained open-ended and incomplete.

At the end of the seventeenth century, Carlo Fontana,

assistant to Bernini and descendant of Domenico Fontana,

the obelisk engineer, assessed the complex state of affairs. He

reiterated the need to open an axial approach and to deter

mine an optimal viewing point "to take in easily the whole

church."11 To this end, he presented two (by some

analyses,

three) distinct plans. His first project entailed the demolition

of more of the spina and the setting of Bernini's terzo braccio

at the end of a deep trapezoidal forecourt. Another envi

sioned the total rebuilding of the Borgo area around a fun

nel-shaped space (Fig. 7). To maintain some integrity of

Bernini's piazza, Fontana planned what he called a nobik

interrompimento (noble interruption) to divide the sacred area

around the church from the profane presence of the city.

Rather than solving the problems, Fontana elided them in his

drawings. He fictitiously aligned the church nave, piazza, and

obelisk with his new avenue, shifting the church to align with

the urban axis. Although his emphasis on the sc?nographie nature of urban space was reminiscent of Bramante, Fontana

overlooked difficulties that moving to and through an inter

rupting colonnade could have caused.12 However unrealistic,

Fontana's images had the value of encapsulating the essential

design problems: to open a proper vista to the church, to

750 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4

7 Carlo Fontana, Borgo clearance project with nobile

interrompimento, 1694, from R Tempio Vaticano e sua origine, Rome,

1694, pi. 231 (artwork in the public domain; photograph ? Fototeca Biblioteca Hertziana, Rome)

maintain the integrity of the piazza, and to articulate the

nature of a rebuilt Borgo district. His published drawings served as the starting point for numerous

subsequent

projects.

Cosimo Morelli, an architect in the court of Pope Pius VI,

worked up a project in 1776 (Fig. 8).13 He, too, would have

simply eliminated the spina. Even so, he could not resolve a

telling discrepancy between his perspective and the reality of

the street alignment as seen in the Nolli map (Fig. 3) at the

juncture of the Borgo Vecchio and Bernini's southern colon

nade. Unlike the Borgo Nuovo, the older street did not in

truth align with the edge of the colonnade opening, despite the appearance of Morelli's perspective view. The shortcom

ing of Morelli's project accentuated the tension between

minimizing costly demolition and achieving a coherent visual

space. Pope Pius VI, who added significantly to the Vatican

complex, could not extend his finances nor his hold on

power long enough to accomplish urban improvements here

before he was overthrown in the Napoleonic uprising in

Rome in 1798.

8 Cosimo Morelli, Borgo clearance project, 1776. BAV, Gabinetto di Stampe, Cartella San Pietro?Morelli (artwork in

the public domain; photograph ? Biblioteca Apost?lica Vaticana, Rome)

Napoleonic revolutionaries centered their political propa

ganda in St. Peter's piazza. A ritualistic pledge of confedera

tion to the spirit of the French Revolution was staged before

the church to emphasize the shift in Rome from papal to civil

authority.14 Citizens filed up the Borgo Nuovo in a possesso in reverse to a

"patriotic altar" erected in the piazza (Fig. 9).

The event transformed the space with strong propagandistic

symbols that fired the imaginations of the designers in Rome,

only to be pulled back by Napoleon, who urged his planners to focus on economy, civil hygiene, and decorum. A project

subsequently drawn up for Borgo improvements by Giuseppe Valadier, Pietro Camporese, and Rafaello Stern of the Napo

leonic Commission d'Abellissement in 1811 would have sim

ply demolished the spina, disregarded the discrepancies of

Morelli's project, and placed a line of fountains through the

irregular open space.15

Projects continued to appear throughout the nineteenth

century. Their execution was hampered by high costs or short

reigns, such as the later 1848 republican revolution, with its

own interest in reshaping the area. Only during Pius IX's

long pontificate were a few buildings cleared on the far end near the Castel Sant'Angelo and matching structures by Luigi

Poletti erected in 1858 flanking the entrance to the two

FRAMING ST. PETERS: URBAN PLANNING IN FASCIST ROME 7g1

9 Giuseppe Camporese, Andrea Vici, and Paolo Bargigli, "Patriotic altar" in

the Piazza of St. Peter's, 1798, in

Felice Giani, La Festa delta Federazione a

Piazza S. Pietro, oil on panel, 15 X 21

in. (38 X 53 cm). Museo di Roma, Rome (artwork in the public domain)

10 Alessandro Viviani, master plan for

Rome (preliminary unratified project), detail of right bank and Vatican area,

1873 (artwork in the public domain;

photograph provided by Studium Urbis, Rome)

streets (Fig. 4).16 Although the vista to the church was not

opened, Poletti's classical buildings recalled Bramante's sc?

nographie idea of a new architectural framework for the

Borgo.

In 1870, the political context changed significantly with the

seizure of Rome as the national capital for united Italy. Pope

Pius IX's successors could no longer march the possesso,

as the

city was no

longer theirs to possess. Thus began the peculiar

situation of a state that hosted within its borders its over

thrown temporal foe, which nonetheless remained the spiri

tual focus for its people. The topography around the Vatican

became the contested ground on which the state marked out

the relationship to its church.

Alessandro Viviani drafted the capital's first master plan

(Fig. 10), and he, too, projected the simple extraction of the

spina of the Borgo, but government officials could not ratify his proposal of 1873 because they were still unsure about the

extent?if any?of territorial concessions that might eventu

ally be made to the pope.17 Ideas of reserving a small bit of

land inscribed by the preexisting Vatican Hill fortifications, or ceding the entire right bank of the city, or even diverting the Tiber River around the Castel Sant'Angelo as a rerouted

762 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4

v; ^4

11 Giuseppe Bertagnolio, development plan for the Vatican

area and right bank, ca. 1880. Location unknown (artwork in

the public domain)

water boundary were considered at the time to

provide for a

separate papal state. But in 1876 the incoming Leftist major

ity in Parliament adopted tough interventionist policies with

regard to the Church and proceeded unilaterally in capital expansion and urbanization on Rome's right bank. The new

minister of justice, for example, chose a site as close as

possible to the Vatican for the Supreme Court building, a seat

of temporal justice to counterbalance the spiritual symbolism of St. Peter's.18 Although Viviani, who went on

elaborating

ideas, was inspired by Sistine urban planning, the streets laid

out on the right bank provide neither a vista nor a direct

traffic connection to the church. In the end, the medieval

Borgo was

entirely ignored in the nineteenth-century expan

sion. To the contrary, pro-papal planning ideas, like a scheme

by Giuseppe Bertagnolio, anticipated a papal state on the

right bank and a centralized street pattern with respect to the

dome (Fig. 11). Viviani's master plan for the capital was

eventually ratified in 1883, and it guided urban development in Rome for the next twenty-five years. The plan did not

intervene in the Borgo except to demolish the fortification walls that bordered the area to the north, the only part of the

circuit walls of Rome destroyed in the modern era.

Political tensions between the papacy and the Italian gov

ernment eased in the late 1880s, and Viviani correspondingly

explored the possibility of an open, crosstown vista to the

"Cupolone di Michelangelo"?as nineteenth-century plan ners referred to the Vatican in secular terms. With the inten

tion of either binding the monumental church to the city or

setting it within its own independent sphere of urban influ

ence, designers of various political stripes pondered what to

do with the Borgo. Andrea Busiri-Vici conceived a covered

galleria of iron and glass in 1886 by which he attempted to

focus the view down a narrow passage.19 This time, the real

estate collapse of 1889 stopped all planning, leaving the

Borgo's redesign an academic exercise. A fellow at the Amer

ican Academy in 1915, Henry Gugler, dedicated his Rome

prize to the problem.20 The wide variety of proposals belied

the fluctuating and uncertain process toward a reconciliation

of church and state during this period.

Intervening in the urban setting of the Vatican was still too

politically volatile. Improvements were

again omitted from

consideration in Rome's second master plan, of 1909, be

cause of Mayor Ernesto Nathan's strident anticlericalism. The

year 1911 marked the fiftieth anniversary of Italian national

unity, and the capital hosted a world's fair, which the mayor

called Rome's secular jubilee. Thirty-year-old architect Mar

cello Piacentini designed the fairgrounds around a columned

piazza and domed structure whose correspondence to the

architecture of the Vatican nearby made the event explicitly a secular equivalent

to ecclesiastical celebrations.21 Without

official diplomatic clarification of the role of the Roman

Catholic Church within the Italian state for its first fifty years, a radical political climate developed and rather grandiose

projects for the Borgo appeared, like that by the neo-Baroque

designer Armando Brasini in 1916.22 The Borgo remained a concrete symbol of the political

obstacle between the nation and its church. Throughout this

period no one involved in the project recommended saving

the Borgo. Some individual elements were valued, including

the house of Giacomo and Bartolomeo da Brescia, Palazzo

Giraud-Torlonia, and S. Maria in Traspontina on the north

ern curb of the Borgo Nuovo, but nothing in the spina elicited much interest. The notion of preserving its vernacu

lar fabric and shadowy streets, which provided a

striking contrast to the sunlit expanse of Bernini's piazza, was not in

wide currency in early-twentieth-century Rome. Gustavo Gio

vannoni, Rome's leading urbanist at the time, was influential

in curbing much Haussmannian-type gutting of the historic

city, but he did not extend this protection to the Borgo. Giovannoni advocated the Borgo's clearance so that the Vati

can might dominate the urban environment surrounding

it.23 Implicit in all considerations?from Bramante and Ber

nini to Brasini and Giovannoni?was the notion that the

small-scale medieval condition of the Borgo lay at cross

purposes to the monumental classical elements of the Vati

can. After five centuries of proposals, a rich design experi

ence had accumulated with which architects could confront

all the complex problems of the project: an axial visual

alignment with larger urban configurations, visibility to the

dome and adjusting the visual relation to the facade, and an

architectural setting in tune with the monumental church

and the spirit of the times.

The Lateran Pact

On February 11, 1929, Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini

signed the Lateran Pact that finally clarified the political rela

tionship between the Italian state and the Vatican. It established

the parameters within which a definitive Borgo project could

take shape. Italy officially adopted Catholicism as the state

religion (others were tolerated within the law), and the

Church lent its support to the regime's social and political

positions. This support came at a price. The Italian govern

ment paid the Vatican an enormous

indemnity and accepted all the pact's urbanistic implications, including utilities con

nections to the Vatican City and the clearance of the Borgo. Each party recognized the other's sovereignty,

so the pact

hinged on the pope's renunciation of temporal claims out

FRAMING ST. PETER'S: URBAN PLANNING IN FASCIST ROME 753

j m 1 ?A. ,m '?{}?

rA-i%^**t

12 Palazzo dei Convertendi, housing the Sacra Congregazione per la Chiesa Orientale, Rome, during the demolition of the spina,

August 1937 (photograph ? Istituto Luce, Rome)

side the boundaries of the Vatican walls. Indeed, in 1922 Pius

XI had already been sworn in with a diplomatic omission of

the clause regarding temporal power. With the pact signed,

precise territorial demarcation could be determined. A line

of flush granite paving at the edge of Bernini's open-ended

piazza indicates the border of the new city-state. Specific sites

beyond the Vatican walls where important religious institu

tions had been located for some time, such as the papal

chancellery or Rome's bishopric at the Palazzo della Cancel

ler?a and St. John Lateran respectively, received extraterrito

rial status equivalent to a foreign mission. Among these sites

was also the Sacra Congregazione per la Chiesa Orientale

housed in a building, the Palazzo dei Convertendi, in the

center of the spina (Fig. 12). If plans to open a thoroughfare were to

proceed, special attention needed to be paid to this

property. The bilateral Commissione T?cnica ?talo-Vaticana

was established to clarify the practical applications of the

pact's articles, but its members worked slowly over the next

four years, and nothing definitive could be undertaken in the

Borgo until they finished.24

Meanwhile, the Fascist government was developing

a new

master plan for Rome. It was propelled by political impera

tives, uncontested administrative control over the city, and

the considerable design talents of the emerging group of

urban design professionals led by Gustavo Giovannoni and

Marcello Piacentini.25 Above concerns of traffic, hygiene, or

mere decorum in the capital's urban planning, the Fascist

regime valued representational grandeur. "In five years,"

Mussolini declared, "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." Mussolini's short

speech mandating the governatore (appointed mayor) of

Rome in December 1925 to undertake urban planning set

the priorities:

You will continue to free the trunk of the great oak tree of

everything that still obstructs it. You will open up space around the Theater of Marcellus, the Capitoline, and the

Pantheon. Everything that has grown around them during

the centuries of decadence must disappear. Within five

years, a great passage from Piazza Colonna must make the

monument of the Pantheon visible. You will also free the

majestic temples of Christian Rome from the parasitic and

profane constructions. The millennial monuments of our

history must loom in the required isolation. Thus the third

Rome will spread over the hills, along the banks of the

sacred river, to the beaches of the Tyrrhenian.26

The strategies of urban planning were here laid out: isolate

the significant monuments by eliminating the insignificant, and structure the vistas through the city to accentuate the

inherent historical resonance with contemporary political

aspirations.

As the university professor in "architecture della citt?" (lit

erally, city architectures, or urbanism) and ranking architect

of the prestigious Accademia d'Italia, Marcello Piacentini

clarified Mussolini's directives for the new master plan for

754 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4

Rome: "In the necessary demolitions and in making the new

roads every chance will be seized to advantage important

historical buildings and to make the best of monumental and

scenic views, until now all too neglected by Roman town

planners."2 The work of the master planners, Piacentini

concluded, needed "to respond to the imperatives of gran

deur by creating an

unequaled monumental ambience ... in

which the representation of Fascism . . . may find its worthy

frame."28 With the landmark Lateran Pact signed, the Borgo

offered a prime opportunity for a

significant urban interven

tion: opening the visual axis to "the majestic temple" to make

clear the relation between the universal authority of the

Church and the Fascist nation that hosts and protects it.

The 1931 master plan was developed during Francesco

Boncompagni Ludovisi's term in office as governatore (1928

35). It did not at first include plans for the Borgo because the

pact's subcommission still had not finished with the bound

ary issues. Only in June 1933, after the Vatican was satisfied

with the ongoing negotiations, did Pope Pius XI mention to

the governatore of Rome that an urban project for the Borgo, now outside the pope's purview,

was opportune.29 Giuseppe

Bottai, governatore in 1935, pursued the Borgo clearance

project even after his transfer to the ministry of education

(Ministero della Educazione Nazionale) in 1937, demonstrat

ing a keen interest in the strategy of urban planning that

concretized ideals of the regime he served. Addressing the

first national congress on urban planning, Bottai declared

before the gathering of engineers, architects, jurists, and

sociologists that "among the sciences most conditioned by

the political life of the country urbanism is the least ab

stract. . . . moreover, urbanism is itself political. . . . The city

must be considered a functional element of the nation."30

The seats of government administration and its cultural in

stitutions were conceived to fuse Rome's design with the

nation's interests. "The development of the city, isolating its

monumental areas and restructuring residential zones, is the

material sign that hails the resurgence of the Empire."31

Although the group of urban design professionals were at

work on many aspects of Rome's development, the official

"foundation legend" for the Borgo project, typical of Fascist

public works, has it that Mussolini himself, on inaugurating

the restored Castel Sant'Angelo in April 1934, turned then to

the Borgo nearby and "spontaneously," as the trope goes,

"resolved to confront the problem that had remained un

done for centuries."32 The restoration of the castle, orga

nized by Attilio Spaccarelli, indeed presented an apposite model for the intervention in the Borgo.33

The Castel Sant'Angelo originated as the mausoleum of

Emperor Hadrian, but it had been converted under papal

dominion into medieval Rome's most powerful fortress. For

its modern restoration, Spaccarelli began with a reconnais

sance of the layered site by which he assessed the relative

value of its various elements. The less significant accretions

were edited out and the remaining salient features empha

sized with carefully framed views to them. Thus, Spaccarelli created a setting that best explained the inherent importance of the place. He called it "an optimal position from a sc?no

graphie point of view" that "might give a comprehensive

impression" of the complex.34 Ceccarius, the historian and

supporter of the restoration, applauded Spaccarelli's work,

which managed "to frame the suggestive picture."35 This

procedure of editing, isolating, and framing views to histori

cal monuments was repeated

across Rome with varying de

grees of success, from the Theater of Marcellus and the

Capitoline, mentioned by Mussolini in 1925, to imperial monuments of the Mausoleum of Augustus and the Imperial

Fora. As Ceccarius explained it, "Il Duce wanted them [the

Emperors] close to Him."36 Spaccarelli urged Mussolini to let

him do the same for the Borgo: open the vista to bring the

pope closer to II Duce.

Mussolini brandished the ceremonial pickax over the "par

asitic and profane constructions" of the spina on October 29,

1936, and within twelve months all were cleared away, includ

ing the Vatican's Palazzo dei Convertendi. The Vatican

agreed to this property's demolition, pending negotiation of

a shift of its extraterritorial status to another comparable site

nearby. Meanwhile, decorative elements from the Palazzo dei

Convertendi and other buildings of any aesthetic interest

were saved and stored in warehouses. Bottai ordained that

"the buildings of notable historical or monumental value be

kept or rebuilt along the new

alignment."37 The residents of

the district, however, were displaced

en masse in settlements

("borgate") beyond the city's edges, following the regime's

policy in the 1930s of urban depopulation.

Spaccarelli had been working on a

Borgo urban develop

ment plan since 1934, when he had Mussolini's ear, but his

plans met with harsh criticism in the press.38

Piacentini in

tervened by working up a counterproposal, and he eventually

invited Spaccarelli to collaborate. Piacentini, whose influence

with government officials was far greater than Spaccarelli's,

always encouraged collaborative work because in his experi ence it not only produced better results but also presented to

the regime overseers the image of a

productive and efficient

professional syndicate.39 The team answered only to Governa

tore Bottai, while the pope played no direct role in the devel

opment of the new street. The designers took suggestions

from the Vatican, for example, from Giuseppe Momo, direc

tor of the Vatican architectural office, author of articles with

implicit papal benediction, onetime collaborator with Piacen

tini, and architect selected for the rebuilding of the Palazzo

dei Convertendi at its new site. Giulio Tardini, a Vatican

researcher, made all earlier historic projects from the ar

chives available to the designers.40 Bottai's guidance

was in

strumental in realizing the scheme in a period of simulta

neous, often competitive urban projects across Rome. The

clearance of the Mausoleum of Augustus or the design of the

Via dell'Impero through the Imperial Fora with its planned site of the Fascist party headquarters were high-priority party

projects. The Foro Mussolini sports complex or the fair

grounds for E42, the upcoming world's fair, could also have

drawn away vital support and funds. Bottai, keeping vigilant

to ways in which his project could best serve the regime,

relied on the collaboration of several cabinet colleagues,

especially the minister of propaganda, Dino Alfieri. It was

Bottai who defined the political nature of the urban project when he chose the name for the new street: the Via della

Conciliazione?the Street of the Reconciliation.41

Piacentini, involved in numerous large planning commis

sions, including two of the aforementioned (Via dell'Impero and E42), was the ideal project designer. Piacentini often

FRAMING ST. PETER'S: URBAN PLANNING IN FASCIST ROME 755

repeated that the work of urbanism concerned "the concep

tion of space, of the perspective setting, and research into the

best points of view from which to enjoy a monument or

monuments according to their architectural characteristics?

sometimes even their errors."42 Piacentini rarely articulated

his design ideas in terms of politics, and he never held a

political post, in contrast to his counterpart in Nazi Germany,

Albert Speer. Bottai's supervision and the project's relation

to the Lateran Pact provide the political context in which the

Via della Conciliazione can be read. The political importance to the Fascist state of a reconciliation with the Roman Cath

olic Church was demonstrated in the efforts the state then

undertook to design on its side of the boundary the grandest entrance any government ever built to a

neighboring state.

Fascist Urban Design Strategies Piacentini and Spaccarelli synthesized the design ideas accu

mulated since Bramante and fulfilled the contemporary po

litical agenda implicit in the Via della Conciliazione project. In a series of articles published between 1936 and 1944 the

designers spelled out their guiding issues: isolation of the monument and visibility to the dome, control of perspective

depth and framing of the vista, and investing the new space

with symbolic meaning.43 Spaccarelli's design strategy mani

fest at the Castel Sant'Angelo informed their procedure.

They evaluated the layered site and edited out the medieval

structures, then went on to frame the classical features of the

church to create an explanatory, comprehensive vision of it.

In carrying out their intentions, the Via della Conciliazione

shapes the urban vista to express the state's relationship to

the church in terms consistent with the Lateran Pact. This

strategy of urban planning is evident in other, although less

complete, examples elsewhere in Fascist Rome.

In looking to achieve isolation and visibility for the monu

ment, Piacentini and Spaccarelli naturally turned to Bra

mante as their starting point.44 Ever since Bramante first

thought of a dome for St. Peter's, the distinct skyline element

became the salient feature for all Roman churches. The

modern designers interpreted Bramante's drawing, which

they featured on the cover of their report,45

as a reorganiza

tion of the Borgo according to classical architectural princi

ples compatible with the new church (Fig. 13). On Tardini's

authority, Piacentini and Spaccarelli did not question either

the attribution or the subject matter of this drawing: "Bra

mante could'nt [sic] have conceived that people should ac

cede to the great Temple of the Catholics through narrow

and crooked lanes, and he had understood both the moral

and spiritual need of a noble and monumental transit, alto

gether proportionate to the

temple."46 Piacentini and Spac

carelli extrapolated from this drawing a logic that might determine a modern space consonant with the ideas of the

earlier masters who had worked there.47 Similarly, the six

teenth-century fresco in the Vatican Library that anticipated a

completed St. Peter's was taken as authentic to Michelan

gelo's intention (Fig. 5).48 Not until the demolition of the

spina had the dome ever been satisfactorily seen from the

front. Furthermore, the drum of the dome and the smaller

subsidiary domes over the aisles could not be glimpsed from

the front of the building in any meaningful way in relation to

the structure from which they rise. This was only possible

from the side. For example, the central window of Pius XI's

new Vatican Pinacoteca (picture gallery) built by Luca Bel

trami in 1932 framed what was poetically called the gallery's

"quadro michelangiolesco" (Michelangesque picture) (Fig. 14) ,49 Tardini pointed out that "no one has ever been able to

verify with his own eyes what impression the simultaneous and

complete vision of Maderno's facade and Michelangelo's cu

pola make."50 Recalling Fontana, Piacentini and Spaccarelli

sought a comprehensive vision of the whole building. Simply

by virtue of pulling back the vantage point far enough, the

clarity of a coherent elevation of the structure's parts was

perceivable also from the front. Now one saw, Piacentini

wrote, the "structure in its entirety, in all its divine propor

tions that tie together the facade, the cupola and the smaller

domes, and explain them."51 The idea that the setting of a

famous monument might be made more comprehensible

to the viewer through a later remanagement was

key to Pia

centini and Spaccarelli's urban design. The street was thus

conceived "through the various means of urban design to

bring together the ensemble understood in an organic and

unifying idea in order to accentuate better the Michelan

gesque miracle."52 The visual emphasis on

Michelangelo's

dome, especially in relation to Bramante's original concep

tion for the church, is consonant with the stature both Re

naissance architects enjoyed in the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries as exemplars of architectural achieve

ment. The historical memory of Michelangelo, particularly as

a paragon of Italian genius, was instrumental in creating

proud cultural touchstones of nationalist spirit by the Fascist

regime.

Although the dome was the most salient feature, Piacentini

did not take it as the reference point for the axial alignment of the new

thoroughfare. With the dome-nave orientation out

of alignment with the obelisk-piazza line, Piacentini and

Spaccarelli chose the axis suggested by Sixtus's obelisk?that

is, shifted slightly to the north in relation to the body of the

church. The dome is off center in the vista of the Via della

Conciliazione. The street locks into the geometry of the

piazza, obelisk, and facade center line. The modern design ers judged that given the large bulk, circular form, and great

height of the dome, the unprepared eye was less likely to

notice its displacement, while the obelisk's needle provides a

precise and obvious reference point against the facade down

the axial vista. The trajectory of the new street axis also

corresponded to Viviani's extended crosstown artery, which

was included also in the 1931 master plan. Concepts of visual

alignment on the obelisk typical of the planning tradition of

Sixtus V prevailed, as

they had for Rome's expansion in the

late nineteenth century, and a coherent connection between

the church of St. Peter's and the city was

finally realized.

Controlling the perspective and framing was the next pri

ority. With the spina cleared, the breadth of the space opened between the Borgo Nuovo and the Borgo Vecchio proved immense. The space needed to be carefully structured. Its

funnel-like shape posed a

problem, for unlike the trapezoidal

space of Bernini's piazza nearest Maderno's facade that en

hances the sense of scale, here the divergent street walls of

such a long and vast space would, Piacentini predicted, dilate

scale references and risk swallowing even St. Peter's in a

reverse perspective effect. "The two 'monumentalities,' that

756 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4

f*ft?' .?VEisM-i" *'/ ? 'i4*f?r* ' ' (,\ ??\-"V*,," '' 'V"41

?S: * ' : ..: .'. "! . * . ' ' >. :' ' * ' V:

' ' '/' '"' '' *- "' ''???"*'- ??"?i.'S'-'?*'' '?? : ? ' ?' 13 Attributed to Donato Bramante,

Borgo clearance and reconstruction

sketches, ca. 1510, as reproduced

on

the cover of Piacentini and Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi, 1944 (artwork in

the public domain; photograph ? Biblioteca Apost?lica Vaticana)

of space and that of the buildings, in some ways counteract

each other," Piacentini wrote.54 The pope concurred.55 Dis

tant axial vistas can often eliminate the sense of space alto

gether, like the famous keyhole telescoping view through the

Maltese garden on the Aventine Hill through which the

dome of St. Peter's seems close by. "This funnel solution, with

its reverse perspective," Piacentini concluded, "would have

canceled any rapport between the street and the facade of St.

Peter's, abolishing the optical effect of distance and bringing the church forward in an

incomprehensible fashion."56

The designers delimited the space in a controlled perspec

tive setting (Fig. 15). They proposed to straighten the sides of

the opened area, setting the facade walls of the new street in

a parallel corridor of space as

opposed to diverging walls that

would have been implied by the Borgo Nuovo trajectory. The

sides of this new perspective setting were referred to as

quinte,

the word for a theater set's side flats that allow the eye to

perceive perspective depth.57 The masters of Renaissance

perspective and urban space, like Bramante, worked out

systems of fictive space for paintings and the stage to then

bring the same visual rigor to the perception of real space in

the city. Piacentini and Spaccarelli carried on this tradition in

the creation of a calibrated and legible urban vista. The

measured perspective view created at St. Peter's permits the

viewer approaching it to be fully cognizant of the deep space,

to perceive the real distance and then differentiate the space

of the Vatican from the city that leads to it. The Via della

Conciliazione therefore was designed to set the Vatican apart

from the city, as Fontana's interruption would have done,

and to make clear the distinction inherent in the diplomatic

pact of mutual sovereignties.

With parallel street facades brought closer together along the new thoroughfare, the Borgo Vecchio's troublesome

point of entry, apparent in Morelli's 1776 project (Fig. 8), was

FRAMING ST. PETER'S: URBAN PLANNING IN FASCIST ROME 757

14 Framed view of St. Peter's dome from the central window

of the Pinacoteca Vaticana, reproduced in an article on the

Borgo clearance project, Llllustrazione Vaticana 8 (1937): 881

no longer

a problem. Indeed, the encroaching line of the

Borgo Vecchio that frustrated earlier designers did not need

to be altered after all, and three buildings there were saved:

the Penitenzieri, Serristori, and Cesi palaces (Figs. 16, 20). The decision for parallel street facade walls preserved the line

of the Borgo Vecchio to the south, but the Borgo Nuovo to

the north was obliterated.

As eliminating the Borgo Nuovo was rife with political

implications, it could not have been undertaken merely for

the aesthetic reason of changing the perspective. It forever

blocked the departing path of the pope's possesso and shifted

the focus of the street away from the pope's palace onto the

church instead. Canceling the path of the possesso was indeed consonant with the pope's renunciation of temporal claims

according to the Lateran Pact. The Vatican was in accord with

this move, which is confirmed in a signed agreement to

transfer its Palazzo dei Convertendi, once in the center of the

spina, to a plot laid across the former Borgo Nuovo roadbed

(Fig. 17).58 The Vatican's own building blocks the Borgo Nuovo. This constitutes a

significant change to the city's

historical fabric, and its alteration is tied to a specific act of

exact and still applicable political parameters. Neither the

Roman Catholic Church nor the Italian state required the

Borgo Nuovo any longer.

15 "Schema" for the conception of parallel facade walls along the Via della Conciliazione, 1938. Location unknown (from

Luigi Respighi, "Studio di prospettiva nella demolizione dei

Borghi,"L77r??>3, no. 3 [1938]: 35)

As the new perspective setting shifted the focus to the

church facade, the overall design problem for the modern

architects became coordinating all the various elements of

the site into a comprehensive vision: Maderno's facade, Mi

chelangelo's cupola, Bernini's piazza. Piacentini understood

Bernini's piazza as unresolved, especially in the issue of an

optimal view to the dome. He criticized the colonnade in this

respect: "It never aligns with the dome [non entra mai in

quadro con la cupola]" using

an expression, in quadro, that

means in Italian both visual alignment and pictorial fram 59

ing.59

One discovers the superb portico by Bernini only on en

tering the piazza, and it might exalt and reinforce the

facade, but it never aligns [in quadro] with the dome. What a magical effect it might have had (let us make a fanciful

hypothesis) had Bernini been able to connect his marvel

lous frame [cornice] to Michelangelo's work, fusing in a

single image the portico, the facade, and the cupola!60

Piacentini and Spaccarelli strove for a solution in which all

the various elements of the layered historical site might come

together in a coherent, self-explanatory framed picture. With

this site, they had taken on the challenge of making all its

elements make sense together.

They considered whether Bernini's piazza should remain

open-ended, as he left it at his death, or enclosed with a terzo

braccio. Piacentini, anticipating modern scholarship and rely

ing on Fontana's publication,

was convinced that Bernini

considered clearing the Borgo at the open end of his pi azza.61 The terms used in the twentieth-century debate op

posed a via aperta (open street) to an ambiente chiuso (en

closed space). The former corresponded to the political ten

dency of greater control of the state over the church, typical

of late-nineteenth-century interventionists, while the latter

idea of enclosing the piazza emphasized an isolating and

protective guarantee of the Vatican. Piacentini consulted

Tardini. Tardini clarified the desired visual effect, similar to

setting the church at a respectful distance down the perspec

tive axis, as "the full and perfect connection between Rome

768 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4

16 Marcello Piacentini and Attilio Spaccarelli, preliminary plans for Via della Conciliazione, "funnel"-shape versus "parallel" street

facade alignments, 1936. Location unknown (from Giulio Tardini, "Basilica Vaticana e Borghi," Llllustrazione Vaticana 7 [1936]: fig.

54)

and the Vatican, between the Capital of Italy and the brand

new Vatican City where a spiritual authority is exercised

without limits in time or space."62

Tardini recommended that

they think of a "binding" element, a

"separation. . . but not an

isolation" of the Vatican from the city.63

The modern designers developed a novel solution for de

fining this subtle relation between the arriving thoroughfare and the preexisting piazza unprecedented in the history of

thinking about the Borgo redevelopment. At a point 330 feet

(100 meters) from the edge of the piazza, they indicated a

constriction of the vista along the opened street with two

buildings to form what they called a "vertical separation" between two "robust shoulders," the "propylaea"

to the Vati

can City (Fig. 18).64 The pinch in the new street's width

suggests the separation, but it is not accompanied by an

interruption of the vista that isolates the Vatican. They called

these flanking structures quinte, or a

proscenium, relying

again on the language of the perspective stage. The architec

tural forms of Piacentini's propylaea were derived from Ber

nini's upper trapezoidal piazza. Piacentini located the propy

laea where Bernini once sketched the pulled-back terzo braccio

(Fig. 6). They indicate a conclusion to the piazza space in

distinction to the street that leads to it. The path reopens up at the best spot to take in, for the first time along the axis of

approach, the lateral extent of Bernini's colonnades.65 As

Piacentini understood it, Bernini considered the alternative

position for the terzo braccio in order to indicate "the perfect

position for the complete enjoyment of the two colonnaded

arms, the facade, and the cupola."66 Bottai's central point of

praise for Piacentini and Spaccarelli's project was that it "will

integrate Michelangelo's work with Bernini's, an urbanistic

problem among the most arduous, left unresolved for centu

ries."67 At Piacentini's propylaea, we stand at the threshold of

the Vatican, and in this comprehensive vision the cupola,

facade, and piazza are held together.

Not only did the modern designers want to bring the

elements of the historical site together in a comprehensive

vision, they also sought to give viewers a way to see the history

of this evolving site with a sharpened critical eye. Maderno's

facade remained an irksome problem. As it, along with nave

and narthex, was added to the complex after the dome in

back and obelisk in front were already in place, the length ened body of the church and the height of its facade made it

difficult to see the famous cupola from the front. The facade

design was further compromised by the fact that the planned

flanking bell towers were never built. Although many archi

tects throughout the seventeenth century wished to complete

the vertical accents that the bell towers would have offered,

FRAMING ST. PETERS: URBAN PLANNING IN FASCIST ROME 759

*I

frit** M: fhrt $~f

? ***-'

i'-Zzzf noNt xiv into

MHU Ma

17 Palazzo dei Convertendi, Rome, treaty agreement for shift of extraterritoriality, June 15, 1938. Governatorato di Roma, Servizio

Contratti, Archivio Storico Capitolino, Rome

structural complications forbade it. The facade, therefore, was

left with an overpowering horizontal accent, and Maderno's

work never enjoyed a favorable critical reception. Even the

normally equable Tardini wrote with irony, "And the facade?

It seems best to cover it up so that once the two masterpieces

[Michelangelo's dome and Bernini's piazza] are taken care

of, the faults of this worthy but not so great architect might remain as if in shadow."68 Between the masterpieces of Mi

chelangelo and Bernini, Maderno's facade was, in a way, a

weak link. Here was one of the "errors" Piacentini spoke of in

dealing with urban planning around famous preexisting works.69 Piacentini explained it judiciously:

Maderno created in this way a facade of aust?re and most

solemn lines, undoubtedly lively, but disorganized and

chaotic, not legible. (Pew architects would be able to draw

it from memory.) There is a series of unexplainable mold

ing lines that together seem almost senseless, full of vary

ing motifs. Some details are rather tasteful, but others are

poorly handled and put in spaces not proportionate to

them. He broadened it [the facade] to an excessive degree

beyond the edges of the building in order to support the

two bell towers which, despite numerous attempts, had to

be renounced. He kept the stripped quality of Michelan

gelo's main cornice line, which has its logic on the flanks

and apses under the command of the Cupola, but across

the principal facade is pulled taut and flat and seems

insufficient. He deprived it of a strong central accent to

the point that, apart from the suggestion you get from the

symbols and the statuary, it would not occur to you to

think it the facade of a Church, but rather a pompous and

monumental public building.70

Piacentini's comments on the facade were common for the era.

What was uncommon was his attempt to do something about it.

The propylaea so carefully placed to designate a threshold

along the thoroughfare also served to mask at left and right the excessive breadth of Maderno's facade viewed between

them (Fig. 1). The edges of the vista have been adjusted to

provide "an entirely different framing to the composition"

(Fig. 2).71 The cropping focuses the view on the central parts of the facade: the four columns and pediment at its heart,

referring to Michelangelo's intention as recorded in the

Vatican Library fresco (Fig. 5). The propylaea, however, are

not too high to obscure the inscription that runs across the

facade nor intrude on the skyline against the dome. The new

framing also retrieves from the facade its central vertical

accent, which Piacentini thought characteristic of church

facades as opposed to palaces. Piacentini and Spaccarelli have provided a way of looking at the complex, specifically the problematic facade, that helps us see beyond its faults and

find what logic lay at the origin of Maderno's ideas. In short, to use Piacentini's term, they made the facade legible.

All contemporary critics picked up on the aspect of cor

recting Maderno's facade. Ceccarius noted that the view up

the Via della Conciliazione had the "advantage of framing the

Temple and presenting its essential parts, eliminating from

the vista the parts corresponding to the bases of the bell

towers that, added to the facade, give an

excessively elon

gated appearance."72 The architectural historian Armando

Schiavo, one of the very few Italians to continue to say any

thing positive about the Via della Conciliazione, was entirely satisfied when Piacentini explained the framing device to

him.73

Reshaping a place so that its history might immediately make sense to the viewer was a

goal of many Fascist-era

interventions in the historic center of Rome: from the resto

ration of the Castel Sant'Angelo, the clearance of the Mau

soleum of Augustus, to the vastly more complicated site of the

770 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4

18 Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "propylaea" in adjustable full

scale mock-up models, May 1938 (from Llllustrazione Vaticana

9 [1938]: 357)

Via dell'Impero through Rome's ancient imperial remains.

Among all the projects of urban planning in Fascist Rome,

only the Via della Conciliazione controls the vista to the

extent of informing the viewer with an articulated under

standing of the subtle internal dynamics of the layered site.

Political symbolism was the driving factor of the Via della

Conciliazione. It was, however, one of the simultaneous ur

ban projects under way at the time, and even after Mussolini's

famous fall of the pickax and the swift demolition of the

spina, the realization of the Via della Conciliazione was never

guaranteed. Bottai faced competition among the other

projects for Mussolini's attention. The fact that the new street

had no major anchoring institution to be housed in its new

buildings also jeopardized its progress. The Via dell'Impero, for example, although vastly

more difficult an urban task, was

intended to house the Fascist party headquarters, and the site

could be seen from Mussolini's office. The Piazza Augusto

Imperatore around the Mausoleum of Augustus had the

social security administration pushing for its completion.

And E42, the world's fair planned for Rome, was an urban

project of high priority for the state's international represen

tation.74 Therefore, many highly realistic presentation mod

els were made to fire Mussolini's interest in the project.

These were displayed in the upper rooms of the Castel

Sant'Angelo, where the architects had been given a studio,

and from where the authorities could look out over the site to

envisage the suggested changes directly.75 Indeed, some of

the models were made as viewing boxes, their backs left open

to the actual view to the cupola, the foreground masked with

painted cutouts of the changes to be made.76 This type of

literal visual presentation was, Piacentini realized, the most

effective means of communicating the project to the dictator,

who, unlike Adolf Hitler, had no preconceived notions of

architecture or urbanism. Therefore, Mussolini made several

on-site inspections of the work in progress, where the archi

tects obliged with able explanations of the effects (Fig. 2). Bottai and Virgilio Testa, his secretary, and Dino Alfieri, the

Fascist Party's minister of propaganda, active in many aspects

of the regime's presentation, were always in attendance for

19 Piacentini and Spaccarelli, full-scale mock-up of the

interrompimento under construction, December 1938

(photograph ? Istituto Luce, Rome)

these visits. The pope was never invited, although the first

definitive model was brought to him in June 1936 "for his

approval," and he made an unofficial visit to the cleared site

in October 1937, met only by the architects.78 Full-scale on

site models were also made to gauge the framing effect. The

propylaea were mocked up in wood and canvas to check their

proportions from all points of view (Fig. 18). But the most

famous of the models for the Via della Conciliazione was

made to test the effect of a nobile interrompimento, still a

lingering possibility (Fig. 19). A full-scale mock-up on wheels was

planned to gauge the effect of a horizontal separation

and an enclosed piazza, then it would be wheeled away to see

the space along an open street. Piacentini said his model

would be like a theater stage's changing set.79 Ceccarius

wittily called it a "mobile interruption."80

Excitement over the

event mounted in anticipation of an engineering feat remi

niscent of the raising of the Vatican obelisk, but the test did not take place, perhaps because of some technical glitch,

record of which the Fascist ideal of efficiency has struck from

the record.81 Full-scale architectural mock-ups were not at all

uncommon either during this period or in the history of the

planning of St. Peter's piazza. At this time, it was also pro

posed to build an exact mock-up of Bernini's missing terzo

braccio to test its effect, too.82 The architects remarked that an

interrompimento could at any time be built between the open

ends of their propylaea if future conditions, like security concerns, required

an enclosure.

The architecture along the new street combined preexist

ing structures in situ and an equal number of new structures

(Fig. 20). Six old buildings remained: the Palazzo Giraud

Torlonia, Palazzo Latmiral, the church of S. Maria in

Traspon tina with oratory to the north, and to the south, the

Palazzo dei Penitenzieri, Palazzo Serristori, and Palazzo Cesi

on the Borgo Vecchio (plus two structures off the thorough

fare: the small chapel of S. Lorenzo in Piscibus and the

Oratorio dell'Annunciatrice). Five other structures, Palazzo

dei Convertendi, the house of Giacomo and Bartolomeo da

Brescia, the palaces of the Governatore del Borgo, Rusticucci

FRAMING ST. PETERS: URBAN PLANNING IN FASCIST ROME 771

PrApylaeum] f

Piazza P?o XII

house of

AU* /.lltorlonial/cmo L\ current Palazzo

dei Convertendi

former Palazzo "*

Piazza tr

dei Convertendi '

Scossacavalli ,

f, o ,t m -e r s; , ?SanGiacomo *

?_-"-^--^-u'T'n 1-?"O R'-Q O VE C C H ' -

Oratorio dell'Annonciatrice

20 Via della Conciliazione, preexisting buildings, former Borgo blocks, and outlines of new structures (diagram by Linda Nolan)

Accoramboni, and degli Alicorni were dismantled, their dec

orative elements saved for reuse.83 Only the Palazzo dei Con

vertendi, with a living institution housed in it, was moved and

rebuilt at its new site, by Giuseppe Momo, with the intention

of preserving its original identity. It is the only building moved that retained its name and continues to serve its

previous function.

Piacentini and Spaccarelli could not maintain control over

the architectural design of all the new buildings that were to

line the street, as the plots' individual owners were free to

contract architects of their choice. Piacentini's opinion of

their work was rather low. Furthermore, the uneven mixture

of preexisting, recomposed, and brand-new buildings seemed less than ideal to hold the perspective setting. Pia

centini therefore added obelisks to the project (Fig. 21).

Twenty-eight obelisks, each thirty feet (nine meters) high, were devised to line the Via della Conciliazione. Composed of

assembled travertine blocks, they integrate benches at their

base and bronze lanterns on top. Piacentini explained them

as useful seats for tired pilgrims and lamps for evening pro cessions. They also constituted "clear, equal and rhythmic

elements of continuity and unity along the street" and, again,

functioned as quinte to make palpable the depth of space.84 Piacentini first planned seven obelisks on each side, but he

later doubled their number for greater emphasis and cover

age of the irregular facade wall, especially as it is seen at a

raking angle down the vista. Their white travertine picks up the tonalities of the church facade, while their smaller size

leaves the obelisk in the piazza as the dominant note. They also help to diminish the space's excessive width, making it

more of a longitudinal street and less of a wide piazza, a

feeling that Piacentini wanted to avoid. Yet the screen of

obelisks is transparent as one goes up the street, none falling

directly in front of any important facade. Piacentini initially set them in straight lines but changed their path to gentle arcs that better draw the perspective view along in a dynamic frame (Fig. 1).

The obelisks convey a variety of symbolic meanings. In a

city with obelisks marking all the important churches, the

line of obelisks leading to the one signaling St. Peter's am

plifies this pilgrimage destination like a climactic chorus.

21 Piacentini and Spaccarelli, view of Via della Conciliazione

with obelisks added, drawing, location unknown (from Piacentini and Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi; photograph ?

Biblioteca Apost?lica Vaticana)

During the Fascist period, obelisks acquired also a strong

political meaning. They figured prominently in other major urban projects with a clear imperialist subtext: at the Foro

Mussolini and E42. Piacentini introduced the idea of obelisks

along the street in 1936,85 coinciding with Mussolini's decla

ration of a Fascist empire in emulation of the ancient. From

his first colonial exploit in Ethiopia, Mussolini had the so

called Obelisk of Axum brought to Rome as a resonant

"symbol of the new Italic Empire."86 Along the Via della

Conciliazione, the obelisks took on a similar imperialist over

tone. They tie together religious and imperialist meanings, as

the Lateran Pact tied the church and the state together. The

state, like all political entities that sought papal support,

hoped to validate its imperialist aspirations through the asso

ciation with the Catholic Church's universal authority, limit

less in time and space, to recall Tardini's characterization of

the Vatican in the modern era.

The obelisks of the Via della Conciliazione also illuminate

the street at night (Fig. 22). Urban illumination was a dra

matic feature of the new Fascist city.87 In preparation for

Hitler's visit to Rome in May 1938, the newly opened Via

dellTmpero through the ancient city was lined with torches

22 Via d?lia Conciliazione with obelisks illuminated (photograph by the author)

23 Alfredo Furiga, ephemeral decoration of the Via dell'Impero, Rome, May 1938. Photograph, location

unknown (from Bozzetti di addobbo delVUrbe per la visita del F?hrer / Die

Ausschm?ckungsentw?rfe der Stadt Roms

fur den Besuch des F?hrers [Rome:

Tumminelli, 1938], unnumbered

plates "Via dell'Impero /

Imperiumstrasse" )

and gigantic imperial emblems (Fig. 23).88 In their sacraliza

tion of politics, the Fascists made heavy use of large-scale,

blazing emblems that combine multivalent historical mes

sages, especially prevalent in ephemeral decoration of the

city coordinated by Alfieri. The illuminating obelisks have a

similar aggressive quality of ideological celebration.89

This merging of the religious symbolism of an obelisk at St.

Peter's with the suggestion of imperialism triggers a

pertinent

political reading of the Via della Conciliazione: what was

once a path of the pope's possesso of Rome had been turned

around as Rome's possession of the Vatican. Piacentini and

Spaccarelli conceived the Via della Conciliazione solely in

terms of the view of and movement toward the Vatican. The

Via della Conciliazione offered not only a grand entrance to

the neighboring Vatican but also a means of controlling and

binding the Vatican to the state. Piacentini 's design makes

the Vatican one among a constellation of important govern

ing images of the national capital. In political terms, the Via

della Conciliazione articulated the union of the spiritual

authority of the church to the temporal authority of the state.

The Via della Conciliazione was a costly investment that

reaped a profit for the Italian nation by broadcasting its role as the territorial guarantor of a world spiritual leader and

associating the pope's universal authority with Mussolini's

aspirations to imperial power.

Critical sources of the period confirm the imperialist inter

FRAMING ST. PETER'S: URBAN PLANNING IN FASCIST ROME 773

pretation of the obelisks. Ceccarius described the Via della

Conciliazione as having "given order to the access to the

greatest temple of Christianity that would be worthy of Rome

reawakened to its new imperial destiny."90 Giovannoni, who

had been shut out of the planning process by Piacentini

because of his growing intransigent nature, once unleashed

from Fascist censure in 1945 called the obelisks "an infatua

tion with affected imperialism."91 After the fall of the regime, indeed, Piacentini downplayed their political meaning by

never again referring

to them as obelisks but instead as stele,

or candelabra, or even stations of the cross.92 To all commen

tators the obelisks always remained symbols of Fascist impe

rialism.93 The surprising reality of the obelisks is that they were

ultimately approved and erected in 1950, years after

Fascism's fall.94 Their religious symbolism remains, and with

economic restraints on the architecture behind them, their

masking function became even more important. More signif

icantly, the Christian-Democrat ruling party taking power after Fascism did not alter the terms of the Lateran Pact nor

the basis of its political advantage, although not to the same

ends. The Lateran Pact is still in effect today.

With its carefully articulated relation to the preexisting

elements, its specificity of meaning to the society that created

it, and its continuing clarity to observers today, the Via della

Conciliazione, after all, has demonstrated its worth as an

exemplary modern space in the historical city. To Catholic

pilgrims, it presents a visually powerful climax on the ap

proach to the most important church for their religion. To

the historian coming to the site with'a critical eye, the framed

vista provides a

comprehensive vision of the Vatican long

sought by generations of planners. To the visitor attuned to

its political issues, the Via della Conciliazione expresses a

relationship of religion and government that is still relevant

in Italy. As the latest layer at St. Peter's, the Via della Con

ciliazione proves a remarkably effective device through which

we may experience this complex historical site and its cultural

context in a clear and informed way.

Terry Kirk teaches art and architectural history at the American

University of Rome. He has specialized in the late-nineteenth-century

urban transformation of Rome as the national capital. His recent

two-volume survey The Architecture of Modern Italy (Princeton

Architectural Press) invites students and colleagues to further re

search [Department of Arts and Humanities, the American Univer

sity of Rome, Via Pietro Roselli 4, Rome 00153 Italy, t.kirk@aur.edu]'.

Notes 1. For modern scholarship on the Via della Conciliazione, see Mario

Zocca, Topograf?a e urban?stica di Roma: Roma capitale d 'Italia (Bologna: Cappelli, 1958), vol. 2, 673-75, pl. clxv; ?talo Insolera, Roma moderna

(Turin: Einaudi, 1962), 132-33; Spiro Kostof, The Third Rome, 1870 1950: Traffic and Glory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 70-71; Walter Vannelli, Econom?a dell'architettura in Roma fascista: Il cen

tro urbano (Rome: Kappa, 1981), 329-59; Vincenzo Matera, "La rico

struzione del Palazzo del Governatore e del Palazzo degli Alicorni in

Borgo," in Anni del Governatorato, 1926-1944, intervenu urbanistici,

scoperte archeologiche, arredo urbano, restauri, ed. Luisa Cardilli (Rome:

Kappa, 1995), 139-45; Maria Luisa Neri, "Il collegamento tra le due citt?: L'apertura di Via della Conciliazione," in L'Architettura della ba silica di San Pietro: Storia e costruzione; Atti del Convegno Internazionale di

Studi, Roma, novembre 1995, ed. Gianfranco Spagensi, Quaderni

deiristituto di Storia dell'Architettura, n.s., 25-30 (1995-97) (Rome:

Bonsignori, 1997), 435-44; and Flavia Marcello, "Rationalism versus

Romanit?: The Changing Role of the Architect in the Creation of the

Ideal Fascist City" (PhD diss., University of Sydney, 2001), 116-20.

2. Rudolf Wittkower, "II terzo braccio del Bernini in piazza S. Pietro," Bollettino d'Arte 34 (1949): 129-34, translated as "The Third Arm of

Bernini's Piazza S. Pietro," in Studies in the Italian Baroque (London: Thames and Hudson, 1975), 60; and Hellmut Hager, "Progetti del

tardo barocco per il terzo braccio in Piazza San Pietro," Commentari 19

(1968): 311.

3. See Torgil Magnuson, "The Project of Nicholas V for Rebuilding the

Borgo Leonino in Rome," Art Bulletin 36 (1954): 89-115.

4. See Horst G?nther, "Die Strassenplannung unter dem Medici-P?psten in Rome (1513-1534)," Jahrbuch des Zentralinstituts f?r Kunstgeschichte 1

(1985): 287-93; Eunice Howe, "Alexander VI, Pinturicchio and the

Fabrication of the Via Alessandrina in the Vatican Borgo," in An Archi

tectural Progress in the Renaissance and Baroque: Sojourns In and Out of It

aly, ed. Henry Mill?n and Susan Munshower (University Park: Penn

State University Press, 1992), vol. 1, 64-93; Enrico Guidoni and Giulia

Petrucci, Roma, Via Alessandrina: Una strada "tra due Fondai" nell'Italia

delle Corti (1492-1499) (Rome: Kappa, 1997).

5. Galler?a degli Uffizi, Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, Uff. 23. See Heinrich von Geym?ller, Die urspr?nglichen Entw?rfe f?r Sankt Peter in Rom von Bramante (Vienna: Lehmann, 1875), pi. 25, fig. 1 ("Studie

f?r den Umbau des Borgo?").

6. See Christof Thoenes, "Studien zur Geschichte des Peterplatzes," Zeitschrift f?r Kunstgeschichte 26 (1963): 128-34; Cesare D'Onofrio, Gli

obelischi di Roma, 2nd ed. (Rome: Bulzoni, 1967), 77-80; and Richard

Krautheimer, The Rome of Alexander VII, 1655-1667 (Princeton: Prince ton University Press, 1985), 64. See also Allan Ceen, "The Grande Pi anta of G. B. Nolli as an Instrument of Urban Analysis," in Giambattista

Nolli, Imago Urbis, and Rome, conference proceedings, May 31-June 4, 2003 (forthcoming).

7. See Christof Thoenes, "Madernos St.-Peter-Entw?rfe," in Mill?n and

Munshower, An Architectural Progress in the Renaissance and Baroque, vol.

1, 169-93; and Augusto Roca de Amicis, "La facciata di S. Pietro: Ma

derno e la ricezione dei progetti Michelangioleschi nel primo se

icento," in Spagnesi, L'architettura della Basilica di San Pietro, 279-84.

8. Discussion before the Reverenda Fabbrica di San Pietro, February 6, 1651, Bibilioteca Apost?lica Vaticana (hereafter BAV), Vat. lat. 11257, fol. 7r: "pro maiori ac longiori prospectu templi Vaticani demolire omnes domos intermedias inter Burgos veteram et novum. . . ." See Franz Ehrle, "Dalle carte e dai disegni di Virgilio Spada," Atti della Pon

tificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, 3rd ser. Memorie, 2 (1928): 1-98.

9. See Carlo Fontana, 77 Tempio Vaticano e sua origine (Rome: Buagni, 1694), 208-9, reprinted as II Tempio Vaticano 1694, Carlo Fontana, ed.

Giorgio Curcio (Milan: Electa, 2003), 128-29; Timothy K. Kitao, Circle and Oval in the Square of Saint Peter's: Bernini's Art of Planning (New

York: New York University Press, 1974), 56-61; Krautheimer, The Rome

of Alexander VII, 68-69, 180-81; and see generally Heinrich Brauer

and Rudolf Wittkower, Die Zeichnungen des Gianlorenzo Bernini (Berlin: Keller, 1931), 69-90. See also Thoenes, "Studien zur Geschichte des

Peterplatzes," 97-145; and Hellmut Hager, "Bernini, Carlo Fontana e la

fortuna del 'terzo braccio' del colonnato di piazza San Pietro in Vati

cano," in Spagnesi, L'architettura della Basilica di San Pietro, 337-60.

10. BAV, Codice Chigi AI19, fol. 68r. See Andrea Busiri-Vici, La Piazza di San Pietro in Vaticano nei secoli XV, XVI, e XVII, suoi miglioramenti, usi e

dipendenze (Rome: Civelli, 1893); and Brauer and Wittkower, Die Zeich

nungen des Bernini, 86, fig. 63a.

11. Fontana, II Tempio Vaticano, 209: "per ben comprendere il contorno del

Tempio." See also ibid., 208-9, 227-29, pis. 211, 213, 221, 223, 225, 231; idem, II Tempio Vaticano 1694, 128-31, 146-53; Eduard Couden

hove-Erthal, Carlo Fontana und die Architektur des R?mischen Sp?tbarocks (Vienna: Schroll, 1930), 90-96; Bianca Tavassi La Greca, "Aleuni pro

blemi inerenti l'attivit? storica di Carlo Fontana," Storia de?'Arte 29

(1977): 43-46; and Hellmut Hager, "Modi proposti dall'autore per la

terminazione della piazza, e bracci, col novo campanile, et orologio," in Fontana, II Tempio Vaticano 1694, ccxxii-xxxi.

12. Terzo Antonio Polazzo, Da Gastet Sant'Angelo alla basilica di S. Pietro

(Rome: Pinci, 1948).

13. BAV, Gabinetto di Stampe, Cartella di S. Pietro?Morelli. See Anna Maria Matteucci and Deanna Lenzi, Cosimo Morelli e l'architettura delle

legazioni pontificie (Bologna: University Press Bologna, 1977), 239-41; and Jeffrey Collins, Eighteenth-Century Rome and the Cultural Politics of Pope Pius VI: Arsenals of Art (New York: Cambridge University Press,

2002), 94-95.

14. See ?talo Faldi, "La festa patri?tica della Federazione in due dipinti di Felice Giani," Bollettino dei Musei comunali di Roma 2, nos. 1-2 (1955):

774 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4

14-18; and Antonio Pinelli, "La rivoluzione imposta o della natura

dell'entusiasmo: Fenomenolog?a della festa nella Roma giacobina," Quaderni sul neoclassico, Miscellanea 4 (1978): 97-146.

15. See Attilio La Padula, Roma e la regione nell'epoca napole?nica: Contributo alla storia urban?stica della citt? e del territorio (Rome: IEPI, 1969). See

also Valadier's earlier proposal in Paolo Marconi, Giuseppe Valadier

(Rome: Officina, 1964), 182, fig. 97.

16. See Domenico Gnoli, Nuovo accesso alia piazza di San Pietro in Roma

(Rome: Laziale, 1889), 7.

17. See Arturo Bianchi, "Le vicende e le realizzazioni del Piano Regola tore," Capitolium 7 (1931): 417-28; Marcello Piacentini, Le vicende edili zia di Roma (Rome: Palombi, 1952); Insolera, Roma moderna, 16-53; Mi

chael Fried, Planning the Eternal City: Roman Politics and Planning since

WWII (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973); and Walter Vannelli, Econom?a dell'architettura in Roma liberale: Il centro urbano (Rome: Kappa, 1979).

18. Terry Kirk, "Roman Architecture before the Lateran Pact: Architectural

Symbols of Reconciliation in the Competitions for the Palazzo di Gius

tizia, 1883-87," in Guglielmo Calderini: La costruzione di un'architettura net

progetto di una capitale; Atti del convegno, ed. Fedora Boco, Kirk, Giorgio Muratore (Perugia: Guerra, 1996), 83-125; and idem, "Church, State

and Architecture: The Palazzo di Giustizia of Nineteenth-Century Rome" (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1997).

19. Andrea Busiri-Vici, L'Obeslico vaticano nel terzo centenario della sua erezione, memoria storica con studii e disegni comparativi sulla meccanica e architettura

dei secoli XVI e XIX e col progetto di una galler?a dalla piazza di San Pietro

alla Traspontina (Rome: Aureli, 1886).

20. See Eric Gugler, "Accesso alla piazza di San Pietro," ms, 1915, Ameri can Academy of Rome.

21. See Marcello Piacentini, Concorso per il progetto del Palazzo dell'Esposizione per le feste del 1911 in Roma, Relazione, architetto Marcello Piacentini (Rome:

n.p., 1908); Mich?le Capobianco, "Marcello Piacentini all'Esposizione di Roma del 1911," Architettura Quaderni 9 (1992): 93-96; and Terry Kirk, The Architecture of Modern Italy, vol. 1, The Challenge of Tradition, 1750-1900 (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), 255-59,

fig. 4.47.

22. Paolo Orano, L'Urbe Massima e Varchitettura di Armando Brasini (Rome:

Formaggini, 1917); and Luca Brasini, L'op?ra architettonica e urban?stica

di Armando Brasini: Dal'Urbe Massima al Ponte sullo Stretto di Messina

(Rome: Pagnotta, 1979).

23. See Antonio Cederna, Mussolini urbanista (Bari: Laterza, 1979), 234.

Only later in 1945 did Giovannoni recant. Gustavo Giovannoni, "'I

Borghi' e la 'Spina,'" in Architettura di pensiero e pensiero sull'architettura

(Rome: Apollon, 1945), 148-56.

24. See Tullio Aebischer, "La Commissione t?cnica ?talo-vaticana ed i con

fini del Territorio Vaticano, 1929-1933," Studi Romani 48, nos. 1-2

(2000): 104-17; and idem, I verbau della Commissione t?cnica mista ?talo

vaticana (1929-1933) (Frosinone: Casamari, 2000). Documents are

available in Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome (hereafter, ACS,

Rome), Carte private del Duce; and La Farnesina, Rome, Affari Esten

Archivio Diplom?tico. The Vatican documents of Pope Pius XI's reign are still unavailable.

25. See Virgilio Testa, "L'urban?stica e il piano regolatore di Roma," Capito lium 8 (1932): 173-85; Giuseppe Bottai, 77 rinnovamento di Roma (Rome:

Accademia dei Lincei, 1937), reprinted in Bottai, La pol?tica delle arti:

Scritti, ed. Alessandro Masi (Rome: Editalia, 1992), 130-31; Zocca, To

pograf?a e urban?stica di Roma, 664-86; and Insolera, Roma moderna, 117-26.

26. Benito Mussolini, mandate to the office of the governatore of Rome, De

cember 31, 1925, in Scritti e discorsi di Benito Mussolini, vol. 5, Dal 1925

al 1926 (Milan: Hoepli, 1934), 243-45: "Tra cinque anni Roma deve

apparire meravigliosa a tutte le genti del mondo; vasta, ordinate, po tente, come fu ai tempi del primo impero di Augusto. Voi continuerete a liberare il tronco della grande quercia da tutto ci? che ancora la in

tralcia. Farete dei varchi intorno al teatro Marcello, al Campidoglio, al

Pantheon; tutto ci? che vi crebbe attorno nei secoli della decadenza

deve scomparire. Entro cinque anni, da Piazza Colonna per un grande vareo deve essere visibile la mole del Pantheon. Voi lib?rete anche

dalle costruzioni parassitarie e profane i templi maestosi della Roma

cristiana. I monumenti millenar? della nostra storia debbono giganteg

giare nella necessaria solitudine. Quindi la terza Roma si dilatera sopra altri colli, lungo le rive del fiume sacro, sino alie spiagge del Tirreno."

27. Marcello Piacentini, "Foreword and Underlying Ideas," Architettura 15,

suppl. (1936): 15.

28. Marcello Piacentini, "Urbanistica nella Roma Mussoliniana: I tre pi?

important! progetti edilizi in corso di esecuzione," Architettura 15,

suppl. (1936): 17: "si ? voluto ... , secondo il chiaro concetto del

Duce, rispondere agli imperative della grandezza, creando un imparag

giabile ambiente monumentale pieno di ricordi ammonitori, in cui la

vita rappresentativa del Fascismo, espressione sincera della sua pro fonda vita attiva, trova la sua degna cornice."

29. Vannelli, Econom?a dell'architettura in Roma fascista, 150 n. 40.

30. Giuseppe Bottai, Primo Congresso Nazionale di Urban?stica: Discorso inaugu rale (Rome: Delle Terme, 1937), 5: "L'urbanistica ? la meno astratta ira le scienze pi? condizionate della vita politica del paese, . . . anzi

l'urbanistica ?, essa stessa, una politica. . . . L'urbs, la citt?, deve essere

considerata come elemento funzionale della Nazione."

31. Bottai, II rinnovamento di Roma, 3: "Lo sviluppo edilizio della citt?, l'isolamento delle zone monumentali, il risanamento dei quartieri

popolari, sono i segni materiali, che hanno salutato il risorgere dell 'Impero."

32. Marcello Piacentini and Attilio Spaccarelli, "La sistemazione dei Borghi per l'accesso a S. Pietro," Architettura 15, suppl. (1936): 21: "Il Duce, uscendo dal Parco Adrianeo, il giorno che ne fece dono al pop?lo di

Roma, si sofferm? guardando all'ingresso dei Borghi e a San Pietro.

Rimase immobile e pensoso. In quel momento, certamente, prese la

decisione di affrontare e risolvere il problema rimasto insoluto da

secoli."

33. See Attilio Spaccarelli, "Il piano e i lavori d'assestamento [della Mole

Adriana]," Capitolium 10 (1934): 223-46. Spaccarelli's report to Musso

lini of March 8, 1931, on the Castel Sant'Angelo included a proposai for the Borgo area. ACS, Rome, Segreteria Particolare del Duce, Car

teggio ordinario, fase. 7583, cited in Vannelli, Econom?a dell'architettura in Roma fascista, 339 n. 40.

34. Spaccarelli, "II piano e i lavori d'assestamento," 226-27: "un'ottima po sizione dal punto di vista scenografica ma non rendeva possibile una

sensazione sint?tica cos? necessaria ovunque elementi architettonici non equivalenti, ma espressioni diversi di diverse epoche si giustappon gono o, addirittura, si sovrappongono, come ? il caso di Castel

Sant'Angelo."

35. Ceccarius [Giuseppe Cecarelli], "L'isolamento della Mole Adriana,"

Capitolium 10 (1934): 214: "incorniciare il suggestivo quadro."

36. Ibid., 209: "Il Duce li ha voluti vicino a Lui."

37. Giuseppe Bottai, "Consiglio Superiore delle Belle Arti," October 20, 1937, quoted in Ceccarius, La "Spina" dei Borghi (Rome: Danesi, 1938), 29: "le fabbr?che di insigne valore storico o monumentale verranno

rispettate o ricostruite sul nuovo allineamento." Walter Vannelli, "La

spina dei Borghi dopo l'Unit?: Dibattiti, progetti e questione romana," in Spagensi, L 'architettura della basilica di San Pietro, 425-34.

38. See Giuseppe Andriulli, "Il problema degli accessi a S. Pietro nelle vi

cende edilizie dei Borghi," II Messaggero 13, no. 270 (November 14,

1934): 5; idem, "La questione dei Borghi, Pianta del progetto Piacen tini per l'accesso a S. Pietro," II Messaggero 13, no. 278 (November 23,

1934): 7; F.Z., "La piazza di San Pietro e i Borghi, Sisto V, Bernini e

Napoleone I," L'Osservatore Romano, 74, no. 268 (November 18, 1934): 5; and Lazz., "La questione di Borgo sotto l'aspetto artistico," Osserva tore Romano 74, no. 279 (December 1, 1934): 5.

39. See Terry Kirk, The Architecture of Modern Italy, vol. 2, Visions of Utopia (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), 84-94.

40. See Marcello Piacentini to Armando Schiavo, October 29, 1937, cited in Schiavo, "Via della Conciliazione," Strenna dei Romanisti 15 (1990): 499-508. See also Mariano Borgatti, Borgo e S. Pietro nel 1300-1600

(Rome: Pustet, 1925), cited in Marcello Piacentini and Attilio Spac carelli, Memoria sugli studi e sui lavori per l'accesso a S. Pietro (Rome:

Velograf, 1944), 13.

41. Deliberazione del Governatorato di Roma, no. 4921 (1937), cited in

Ceccarius, La "Spina" dei Borghi, 28.

42. Marcello Piacentini, "Problemi urbanistici di Roma," in Piacentini, Amor di Roma, ed. Romolo Trinchieri (Rome: Arte della Stampa, 1956), 320: "Problemi cio? che si riferiscono al concetto della spaziosit?, alle

impostazioni prospettiche, alle ricerche delle migliori condizioni dei

punti di vista per godere un monumento o pi? monumenti, secondo le

loro caratteristiche architettoniche, secondo le condizioni?e aile volte

anche secondo gli errori?di visibilit?, di esaltazione, di sorpresa, ecc."

43. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "La sistemazione dei Borghi"; idem, "Dal

Ponte Elio a S. Pietro," Capitolium 12 (1937): 5-26; idem, Memoria sugli studi; and Piacentini, "Problemi urbanistici di Roma."

44. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "La sistemazione dei Borghi," 21; idem, "Dal

Ponte Elio a S. Pietro," 4; idem, Memoria sugli studi, frontispiece; and

Piacentini, "Problemi urbanistici di Roma," 320-22.

45. "Schizzo di Bramante per l'accesso a S. Pietro (dal Geym?ller)," cover

of Piacentini and Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi (Italian edition only).

46. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, Notes on the Studies and Clearance of the Access

to S. Peters (Rome: Velograf, 1944), 7.

47. For an opposite viewpoint, see Vannelli, Econom?a dell'architettura in

Roma fascista, 329; and idem, "La spina dei Borghi dopo l'Unit?," 431.

FRAMING ST. PETER'S: URBAN PLANNING IN FASCIST ROME 775

48. See Giulio Tardini, Basilica Vaticana e Borghi: Dati storici (Rome: Tiberino, 1936), 31; Ceccarius, "La sistemazione di Piazza San Pietro, Prossima 'messa in scena' di imponenti progetti," L'Illustrazione Italiana 64 (1937): 1267; and Api, "La sistemazione della zona dal Ponte S. An

gelo alla Piazza S. Pietro," L'Illustrazione Vaticana 8 (1937): 879.

49. Api, "La sistemazione della zona dal Ponte S. Angelo," 879-81.

50. Tardini, Basilica Vaticana e Borghi, 78: "nessuno ha potuto mai consta

tare de visu quale impressione faccia la vista simultanea e totale della fac ciata e della Cupola" (emphasis in the original).

51. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi, 11: "Oggi da Piazza Pia si vede la Mole in tutta la sua interezza, in tutta l'armonia divina che

lega?e spiega?la facciata, la cupola grande e le due minori."

52. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "La sistemazione dei Borghi," 21-22: "cosi da far risultare il tutto?sotto i vari aspetti della t?cnica urban?stica?

concepito con criterio org?nico ed unitario per metiere meglio in evi

denza il miracolo michelangiolesco."

53. See D. Medina Lasansky, The Renaissance Perfected: Architecture, Spectacle, and Tourism in Fascist Italy (University Park: Penn State University Press,

2004).

54. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "La sistemazione del Borghi," 21: "Le due

monumentalit?, quella dello spazio e quella del Monumento in parte si

elidono."

55. See Lazz., "Voci lontane nel dibattito presente," L'Osservatore Romano

74, no. 280 (December 2, 1934): 5, quoted in Neri, "II collegamento," 437.

56. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi, 13: "tale soluzione a im

buto?con la sua prospettiva a rovescio?avrebbe annulato ogni rap

porte tra la Via e la facciata di S. Pietro, abolendo otticamente ogni distanza, e awicinando incomprensibilmente il Tempio."

57. Ceccarius, "La sistemazione di Piazza San Pietro," 1267. See also Pia centini and Spaccarelli's report of October 8, 1937, to Mussolini, in

ACS, Rome, Segreteria Particolare del Duce, Carteggio ordinario, fase.

7583, cited in Vannelli, Econom?a dell'architettura in Roma fascista, 350 n.

48.

58. "Contratto tra il Governatorato di Roma e la Santa Sede relativo a per muta di immobili in Via della Conciliazione," in Archivio Storico Capi tolino, Rome, Governatorato di Roma, Servizio Contratti, June 15, 1938, allegato B. See Patti Lateranensi, Convenzioni e accordi successivi fra il Vaticano e Vitalia fino al 31 dicembre 1945, ed. Mario Belardo (Vatican

City: Poliglotta, 1972), 235-38. See also Vannelli, Econom?a dell'archi tettura in Roma fascista, 341.

59. Piacentini, "Problemi urbanistici di Roma," 322.

60. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi, 9: "II superbo porticato del Bernini, che si scopre soltanto arrivando alia Piazza, esalta e rin forza la visione della facciata, ma non entra mai in quadro con la cu

pola. Quale m?gico effetto si sarebbe potuto ottenere se il Bernini (fac ciamo un'ipotesi assurda) avesse potuto attaccare la sua meravigliosa cornice alla mole michelangiolesca, fondendo in un ?nico scenario e

portico e facciata e cupola!" (emphasis in the original).

61. Ibid., 7.

62. Tardini, Basilica Vaticana e Borghi, 70: "il completo e perfetto allaccia mento tra Roma e il Vaticano, tra la Capitale d'Italia e la Citt? [Vati cana] nuovissima donde si esercita un'autorit? spirituale senza limiti di

tempo e coartazioni di spazio."

63. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "La sistemazione dei Borghi," 26 n. 1: "sepa raziorie . . . non chiusura."

64. Ibid., 21: "propilei"; Piacentini and Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi, 14:

"quasi quinte, or prosceni, o preludi." See also Ceccarius, La "Spina" dei Borghi, 30; and Gian Luigi Lerza, "Edifici piacentiniani in piazza Pi?

XII," in Spagensi, L'architettura della basilica di San Pietro, 445-52.

65. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "Dal Ponte Elio a S. Pietro," 13.

66. Ibid., 10: "punto di vista perfetto per il godimento totale dei due bracci colonnati, della facciata e della cupola."

67. Bottai, Il rinnovamento di Roma, 15: "verra ad integrare il disegno di

Michelangelo e del Bernini; problema urban?stico fra i piu ardui, irri soluto da secoli."

68. Tardini, Basilica Vaticana e Borghi, 82: "E la facciata? Sembra meglio velarla, in modo che, tutelati in pieno i due capolavori, rimangono come neu'ombra i difetti dell'opera di un degno, ma non cos? grande architetto."

69. See n. 42 above.

70. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi, 9: "Creo [Maderno] in tal modo una facciata di linee austero e solennissime, indubbiamente

viva, ma disordinata e chiassosa, non leggibile (pochi architetti sapreb bero disegnarla a memoria), con una serie di profili ingiustificati e

quasi controsenso, zeppa di motivi diff?rend tra loro, ricca di alcuni

particolari gustosissimi, e di altri malamente costretti in spazi non pro

porzionati. La allarg? eccessivamente, al di l? della s?goma dell'edificio

per sostenere i due campanili, ai quali si dovette poi non ostante i ri

petuti tentativi rinunciare. Mantenne la povert? del cornicione mich

elangiolesco, l?gico nei fianchi e nelle curve, sotto il dominio della

Cupola, insufficiente qui nella stesa e piatta fronte principale. La privo di un forte accento centrale, si che non ti verrebbe fatto, se facessi as trazione dai simboli e dalle statue, di considerarla la facciata di una

Chiesa, ma piuttosto quella di un fastoso e monumentale palazzo pub blico."

71. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "Dal Ponte Elio a S. Pietro," 8: "avrebbe dovuto servir? a dare tutt'altro inquadramento alia composizione."

72. Ceccarius, "La sistemazione di Piazza San Pietro," 1267: "notevoli van

taggi perch? essa inquadrer? il Tempio e lo presentera nella sua parte essenziale, eliminando la vista delle parti corrispondenti alla base delle torri campanarie che, unite alla facciata, fanno apparire questa eccessi vamente allungata."

73. Schiavo, "Via della Conciliazione," 502-4. See also idem, "Piazza San Pietro nel pensiero e nell'opera del Bernini," Emporium 91, no. 546

(1940): 291-300. Evidently, the framing device was also well known to

Italian scholars of Baroque architecture at the time. See Roberto Pane, Bernini architetto (Venice: Neri Pozza, 1953), 34-35.

74. See principally Piacentini, "Urban?stica nella Roma Mussoliniana," 21

53; and Antonio Mu?oz, Roma di Mussolini (Milan: Tr?ves, 1935).

75. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "La sistemazione dei Borghi," 22. See also

Ceccarius, La "Spina" dei Borghi, 26. A preliminary model of the Via della Conciliazione was on display in Vienna, November 1937. See "Le

grandiose realizzazioni della Roma Mussoliniana alia Mostra dell'Urban?stica Italiana a Vienna," Capitolium 13 (1937): 615-17. More d?finitive models were sent to the Milan Esposizione di Architettura in 1940 and, in 1944, were deposited in municipal storage. Piacentini and

Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi, 16.

76. Luigi Respighi, "Studio di prospettiva nella demolizione dei Borghi," L'UrbeS (1938): 34-37.

77. Ceccarius, "La sistemazione di Piazza San Pietro," 1266; idem, La

"Spina" dei Borghi, 28-29; and ?talo Insolera and Alessandra Maria

Sette, Roma tra le due guerre: Cronache da una citt? che cambia (Rome: Pa

lombi, 2003), 123.

78. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "La sistemazione dei Borghi," 22. See also

Ceccarius, La "Spina" dei Borghi, 26-27.

79. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "Dal Ponte Elio a S. Pietro," 25-26.

80. Ceccarius, "La sistemazione di Piazza San Pietro," 1267: "in tal caso pi? 'mobile' che 'nobile.'"

81. Piacentini reported, after the fall of the regime, simply that the model was not considered by the authorities and was destroyed on their or

ders ("per ordine superiore") before the test was to take place. Piacen tini and Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi, 15. None of the available pe riod photographs shows a finished model.

82. Mariano Borgatti, cited in Tardini, Basilica Vaticana e Borghi, 68 n. 130; and

Luigi Berra and Giovanni Battista Rosso, "La sistemazione dei Borghi e il Cavali?re Gian Lorenzo Bernini," Arte Cristiana 26, no. 3 (1938): 78 n. 1. See also Wittkower, "II terzo braccio del Bernini," 129-34, translated in Studies in the Italian Baroque, 60; and Pane, Bernini architetto, 35.

83. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, "La sistemazione dei Borghi," 21; Ceccarius, La "Spina" dei Borghi, 30; Piacentini and Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi, 17-18, pi. xii; and Neri, "II collegamento," 441, fig. 8.

84. Piacentini and Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi, 23: "chiaro elemento di continuit? e di unit? lungo la via . . . elementi uguali e ritmati"; "la fun zione di quinte prospettiche. ..."

85. Piacentini stated that "aligned stelae [steli allineati]" were first con

ceived in his 1936 project, although they did not appear in the 1936 models. Marcello Piacentini, "Una sistemazione senza pace: Gli obe

lischi della Conciliazione fonte inesauribile di polemiche," II Tempo (Rome) 7, no. 115 (April 25, 1950): 3. Piacentini mentioned the obe lisks in a May 1937 interview; Antonio Mu?oz, "Marcello Piacentini

parla di Roma e di architettura," L'Urbe 2, no. 5 (1937): 19-28, cited in Antonio Cederna, Brandelli d'Italia: Come distruggere il belpaese (Rome: Newton Compton, 1991), 286, although the obelisks still did not ap pear in the published October 1937 plans. To the contrary, see Mario Praz's defense of the artist Andrea Beloborodoff s claim of having had the idea first in 1939. Praz, "Gli obelischi della Conciliazione," II Tempo (Rome) 7, no. 115 (April 25, 1950): 3; and Beloborodoff, "Ancora gli

obelischi," II Tempo (Rome) 7, no. 118 (April 28, 1950): 3.

86. "Stele di Axum," Capitolium 13 (1937): 604: "s?mbolo del nuovo Impero It?lico."

87. See Gustavo Brig?n ti Colonna, "Roma di notte," Capitolium 10 (1934): 583-92; and "Via della Conciliazione e S. Pietro illuminati dai fanali obelisco e da fari," II Messaggero 72, no. 103 (April 13, 1950): 3.

776 ART BULLETIN VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 4

88. See Carlo Cresti, Architetture e fascismo (Florence: Vallechi, 1986), 315; Marco Rinaldi, "II volto effimero della citt? nell'et? dell'Impero e

dell'autoarchia," in La capitale a Roma: Citt? e arredo urbano, 1870-1945, ed. Anna Cambedda and Luisa Cardilli (Rome: Carte Segrete, 1991), 118-29; Marcello, "Rationalism versus Romanit?," 250-53; and idem, "Fascism and the Ephemeral City: Hitler's Visit to Rome," in The

Planned City, ed. Attilio Petruccioli et al. (Bari: Corcelli, 2003), 1226-30.

89. See Di?o Alfieri and Luigi Freddi, eds., La mostra della Rivoluzione Fas cista (Rome: Partito Nazionale Fascista, 1932); and Diane Ghirardo, "Architects, Exhibitions and the Politics of Culture in Fascist Italy,"

Journal of Architectural Education 45 (1992): 67-75. Marcello, "Rational

ism versus Romanit?," 250-53, has demonstrated that propagandistic ephemera were carefully controlled by party officials who rarely (if

ever) turned to established or esteemed independent designers. For

example, I have yet to find any direct involvement of Piacentini in Fas

cist party ephemera design.

90. Ceccarius, La "Spina" dei Borghi, 25: "impartir? gli ordini perch? l'accesso al maggior tempio della Cristianit? fosse degno dell'Urbe rinata a nuovi destini imperiali."

91. Giovannoni, "T Borghi' e la 'Spina,'" 153-54.

92. Marcello Piacentini, "Vecchio e nuovo in via della Conciliazione," II

Tempo (Rome) 7, no. 85 (March 26, 1950): 3. See also Piacentini and

Spaccarelli, Memoria sugli studi, 23.

93. See Antonio Fornari, "II 'Ventennio' continua: La via della Conciliazi one ossia da Michelangelo a Piacentini," La Voce Repubblicana 30, no. 78

(April 1, 1950): 3; Tommaso Chiaretti, "Gli obelischi dei 'piacentini' sarebbero piaciuti a Starace," L'Unit? 27, no. 72 (March 25, 1950): 3; and "Dalla cupola di Michelangelo agli obelischi di Rebecchini," Avanti! (Rome) 54, no. 73 (March 26, 1950): 2. A variety of nicknames

appeared, among them "dentures in need of orthodontia," Antonio

Cederna, "Via degli obelischi," II Mondo 2, no. 14 (April 8, 1950): 9,

reprinted in Cederna, Brandelli d'ltalia: Come distruggere il belpaese (Rome: Newton Compton, 1991), 284-85; and "supposte" (supposito

ries), Ludovico Mozza, "Obelischi a Roma torri a Firenze," Omnibus

(Milan), no. 8 (May 21, 1951).

94. The obelisks were erected between March and April 1950 under the

city administration of Christian-Democrat Mayor Salvatore Rebecchini. See Cederna, "Via degli obelischi," 285-87.