It’s history began in 1580 with the planting of a modest vineyard. In the early 1600s Cardinal Scipione Caffarelli Borghese, favoured nephew of Pope Paul V, decided to acquire the surrounding land to create a “pleasure palace”. Villa Borghese has now regained its ancient splendour. Recent work – some 20 building projects – have highlighted both its artistic and environmental value, restoring it to how it originally looked in the 16th century.

Villa Borghese garden – RomeThe Piazzale Flaminio entrance, the Pinciana Gate, Lions Gate, the Piazzale delle Canestre and the temple of Antonio and Faustina have all been restored. Rome authorities have called it the “Park of Museums” and dubbed it the city’s cultural cornerstone. It’s wide variety of plants have also been taken into account. The Valley of Plantains, also known as the Valley of Dogs, still contains some 400 different species.

The “Casina delle Rose” (House of Roses) has been earmarked to become the museum of the Villa Borghese park. Restoration plans intend it to be used to house 150 marble statues taken from the park and replaced with plaster copies. A park information and document centre will be installed in the ‘Giardino della Meridiana’ building and leaflets on the park will be distributed throughout the city’s tourist information points (PIT).

Secret Gardens: Bulbs were removed to make way for pineapples
Old Dutch tulips, citrus fruits, carnations, lichens, roses, sunflowers and peppers, ancient and exotic plants introduced in the 1500s and used to adorn crowns and floral displays. Anemones, narcissi and hyacinths followed. The three secret gardens have been brought back to life and can once again be visited.

Villa Borghese Park
The gardens were laid out according to prevailing fashion. Historically, this part of the villa functioned as an archive of plants used and introduced over the centuries. For example, the “bulb garden” that took pride of place in the villa during the 1600s, was replaced with a garden of pineapples when this thoroughly American plant became all the rage.

Originally there were three gardens: the “Old Garden”, the “Bird Cage Garden” and the “Meridiana”. The first two were planted in during the early decades of the 1600s, along with the main house, the “Casino nobile”‘. the third dates to 1680. All were destroyed during the second world war when they were turned into “war gardens” for the production of cabbages and potatoes.

Free guided tours, available to the public hourly between 10 am and 1 pm and 3 pm and 6 pm, have been organised by the city council’s environment and farm department,
tel. +39 06770042 or 067004573.

The Lake and Deer Park: for romance or hunting?
There can hardly be a more romantic spot for taking a stroll. The “Lake Garden” was used to site the Borghese family’s historic collection of ancient art. Followng restoration, the historic tree-lined walkways are open once more, complete with new lawns and flowerbeds, a landscape of trees, shrubs and herbaceous borders. The lake is framed by an English-style cast-iron pergola, just as it was at the beginning of the 1900s. Delightful rockeries of tufa rock line the banks of the old stream that feeds the lake.

The “Deer Park” has also been given new life, with restorers removing the asphalt from its paths and avenues. The area where deer and other animals were once fenced in for hunting has also been reconstructed.

The Zoology Museum

Inside the Villa Borghese zoo the “Civic Zoology Museum” houses more than four million examples, including a collection from the Roman countryside of fauna, molluscs, birds and insects as well as recently acquired palaeontological material. It also contains a 15-metre whale and an African elephant. “Animal Love” and “Living to the Limit” are the titles of its two permanent exhibitions.
Information: Via Aldovrandi 18 – tel. 063216586.
Open: 9am-5pm, Sundays and holidays 9am-2pm. Closed Mondays

Pietro Canonica: the rooms in his life
The ‘Museo Canonica’ (Canonica Museum), open to the public since 1960, contains a large number of works by sculptor Pietro Canonica. One can visit the apartment that the artist lived in, with its wealth of fine furniture, 18th century Piedmont paintings and Flemish tapestries, as well as his studio, complete with all his work tools, unchanged since his death.
Information: Viale Pietro Canonica 2 (Piazza di Siena) – tel. 068842279.
Open: Tuesday to Sunday 9am-7pm. Holidays 9am-1pm. Closed Mondays.

Titian, Raphael, Bernini and Caravaggio: a gallery of masterpieces
This is one of the most splendid collections in the world. It includes the famous statue of Paolina Borghese by Canova, Titian’s “Sacred and Profane Love” and “Venus blindfolding Love”, Raphael’s “Deposition”, statues by Bernini and six of Caravaggio’s most significant paintings. And these are only some of the works on show at the Borghese Gallery, a villa acquired by the Italian state in 1902.
Information: Piazzale Scipione Borghese 5 – tel. +39 06328101.
Open: 9am-7pm. Sundays and holidays 9am-13pm. Closed Mondays.

With the fall of the Empire, the Colosseo was abandoned and gradually became overgrown. Exotic plants grew there for centuries; seeds bad in advertently been transported from Africa and Asia with the wild beasts that appeared in the arena (including crocodiles, bears, lions, tigers, elephants, rhinos, hippos, camels and giraffes).

Colosseum RomeIn the Middle Ages the Colosseum became a fortress, occupied by two of the city’s warrior families: the Frangipani and the Annibaldi. Its reputation as a symbol of Rome, the “Etemal City”, also dates to the Middle Ages, with Bede writing that “while the Colosseo stands, Rome shall stand, but when the Colosseo falls, Rome shall fall and when Rome falls, the world will end”.

Damaged several times by earthquake, it was later used as a quarry for travertine and marble for the Palazzo Venezia and other buildings. Pollution and the vibrations caused by traffic and the Metro have also taken their toll. Restoration works have periodically been carried out, the latest starting in 1992. Current estimates have a restored Colosseo being unveiled by 2004.

Opening hours in winter are daily from 9 am to 4 pm and until 6 pm in summer.

Gladiators
Gladiatorial combat originated as part of Etruscan funerary rites as a form of human sacrifice. By the 1st Century BC, gladiatorial games had far outstripped this ritual context; Caesar exhibited 320 pairs of gladiators in 65 BC, Augustus and Trajan each showed 5000 pairs of gladiators on different occasions. Gladiators were prisoners of war, slaves sold to gladiatorial schools, or volunteers. They were differently equipped, some with heavy swords and shields and others almost naked, armed with a net and a trident. Pairings were made to match a heavily armed gladiator against a lightly armed one. Bouts were not necessarily to the death. A defeated gladiator could appeal to the crowd and the presiding magistrate who could signal that he had fought well and deserved to be spared. Thumbs down, however, meant death, which the defeated man was expected to face with quiet courage. Although gambling was technically illegal in Rome, vast sums were wagered on gladiatorial combats. Successful gladiators were popular heroes and lived to enjoy a comfortabie retirement, with some running their own training schools.

Pincio and Spanish Steps Rome To the right as you face the steps is the house where John Keats died in 1821, now the Keats-Shelley Memorial House, a small museum crammed with memorabilia of Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and other Romantics. It is open from 9 am to 1 pm and 2.30 to 5.30 pm, Monday to Friday.

Piazza di Spagna Rome.
In the piazza is the boat-shaped fountain called the Barcaccia, believed to be by Pietro Bernini, father of the famous Gian Lorenzo. The Viale della Trinità  dei Monti at the top of the steps leads to the Pincio. Half way along the road on the right is the Villa Medici, perhaps Rome’s best piece of real estate with undoubtedly one of the city’s best views. The palazzo was built for Cardinal Ricci da Montepulciano in 1540. Ferdinando dei Medici bought it in 1576 and it remained his family’s property until Napoleon acquired it in 1801, when the French Academy was transferred here. The academy was founded in 1666 to provide talented French artists, writers and musicians – Prix de Rome winners – an opportunity to study and absorb the enormous classical heritage that Rome offered. A good way to get inside the building is by seeing one of the regular art exhibitions that are held there. Guided tours of the villa’s spectacular gardens take place at 10.30 and 11.30 am on Saturday and Sunday from March to late May and from September to late October.

Pictures of the Spanish Steps

Rome hotels at the Spanish Steps

Rome guide: Navona Square (Piazza Navona) Rome
Piazza Navona is a popular gathering place for Romans and tourists alike. Take time to relax on one of the stone benches and watch the artists who gather in the piazza to do their work, have your “tarocchi” (tarot cards) read, or pay top prices to enjoy a drink at one of the outdoor cafes, such as Tre Scalini. The piazza is best avoided from early December until 6 January when a gaudy market and mini funfair take over.

There are three fountains, the central one being Bernini’s masterpiece, the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers) depicting the Nile, Ganges, Danube and the Rio Plata. The fountain took four years to build and was completed in 1651; funds to build the fountain were raised by an unpopular tax on bread. Bernini designed the figures, but the actual carving was done by assistants. The obelisk once stood in the Circo di Massenzio on the Via Appia Antica.

Navona square in RomeThe Fontana del Moro at the southern end of piazza was designed by Giacomo della Porta in 1576. Bernini altered the fountain in the mid-17th century when he designed the central figure of the Moor bolding a dolphin.The surrounding tritons are 19th century copies. The fountain at the northern end of the piazza dates from the 19th century and has a central figure of Neptune fighting with a sea monster, surrounded by sea nymphs.

In the centre of the piazza Navona facing the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi is the Chiesa di Sant’Agnese in Agone, its façade designed by Bernini’s bitter rival, Borromini. The tradition is that the statues of Bernini’s Fontana dei Fiumi are shielding their eyes in disgust from the sight of Borromini’s church, but the truth is that Bernini completed the fountain two years before his contemporary started work on the facade and in fact the figure is shielding its face to indicate that the source of the river at that time had been undiscovered.

The northern corner of Campo de’ Fiori leads to Piazza della Cancelleria which is dominated by the Palazzo della Cancelleria, a Renaissance palace built in the late 15th century for Cardinal Raffaello Riario. At one time it housed the Papal Chancellery and it is still used by il Vaticano. It is thought that Bramante designed the double loggia in the magnificent interior courtyard. Recent excavations beneath the palazzo have revealed ruins of one of the most important early Christian churches in Rome, the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Damaso, which was finally demolished in the 15th century to make way for a new church (of the same name) and the palazzo into which it is incorporated.

Heading towards Piazza Navona, on the corner of Via dei Baullari and Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, is a small palazzo known as the Piccolo Farnesina, built for a French clergyman, Thomas Le Roy, in 1523. It is now home to the Museo Barracco, one of the city’s most charming museums. Senator Giovanni Barracco presented his exquisite collection of Greek, Roman, Assyrian and Egyptian sculpture and artefacts to the city in 1902. Underneath the museum are remains of what is said to be a Roman fish shop, complete with counter and a water trough (ask for access). Fresco fragments found there are displayed on the ground floor. The museum is open from 9 am to 7 pm, Tuesday to Saturday, and from 9 am to 1 pm on Sunday.

Opposite the Museo Barracco is the Palazzo Braschi which houses the Museo di Roma (ph 06 687 58 80), founded in 1930 to illustrate the history and life of Rome from the Middle Ages to the present. Many of the exhibits, which include paintings, statues and architectural decorations, came from buildings that have since been demolished.

Heading in an easterly direction along Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, you come to the late 16th century Chiesa di Sant’Andrea della Valle. The elaborate facade was completed in the 17th century and is in high baroque style. The church’s dome is the highest in Rome after that of the Basilica di San Pietro and was designed by Carlo Maderno. Frescoes by Giovanni Lanfranco and Domenichino decorate the inside of the dome. Domenichino also did the frescoes around the apse and altar. The competition between the artists was fierce, especially when they were working at the same time, and legend has it that Domenichino once even took a saw to Lanfranco’s scaffold. The church is open from 7.30 to noon and from 4.30 to 7.30 pm.