Piazza del Campidoglio on the top of Capitoline Hill, took on its current layout in the 16th century, when
Pope Paul III commissioned
Michelangelo to complete a renovation for the visit of emperor
Charles V of Habsburg to Rome. The project involved the makeover of the façades of the
Palazzo Senatorio, built a few years earlier on the Roman ruins of the
Tabularium (old records office of ancient Rome), and of the 15th-century Palazzo dei Conservatori. It included the construction of the Palazzo Nuovo and the addition of various sculptures and statues, including the
Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, placed in the center of the square. Since the Middle Ages, the Piazza del Campidoglio has been the seat of the civil administration of the city. On the remains of the Tabularium stood a fortress of the
Corsini family, which the Roman people took possession of in 1114. It was destined as the seat of the city senate and was enlarged in the
14th century. The dirt clearing in front, which accommodated the gatherings of the people, was flanked by buildings intended as the headquarters of the Banderesi (the captains of the city militia).
Michelangelo included a complex spiralling pavement with a star at its centre. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti (1475–1564), known as Michelangelo, was a
Renaissance artist and architect. He was commissioned by
Pope Paul III to rebuild the Piazza del Campidoglio because the pope wanted a symbol of the new Rome to impress
Charles V, who was expected to visit Rome in 1538. Since the
Middle Ages the piazza was in such a state of abandonment to be also called "colle caprino" (goat hill), as it was used for grazing goats after the triumphal journey organized in
Rome in honor of
Charles V in 1536. The existing design of the Piazza del Campidoglio and the surrounding palaces was created by Michelangelo. At the height of his fame, Michelangelo was offered the opportunity to build a monumental civic plaza for a major city as well as to reestablish the grandeur of Rome. Michelangelo's first designs for remodeling the square date to 1534. From 1534 to 1538 Michelangelo completely redesigned the square, drawing every detail and making the Capitoline no longer turn towards the
Roman Forum but towards the
St. Peter's Basilica, which represented the new political center of the city. In 1546, Michelangelo produced the oval design for the piazza that included complex spiraling pavement with a twelve-pointed star at its centre. Michelangelo provided fronts to the official buildings of Rome's civic government, the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Palazzo Senatorio, and Palazzo Nuovo. Michelangelo designed a new façade for the dilapidated Palazzo dei Conservatori and he designed the Palazzo Nuovo to be a mirror complement, thereby providing balance and coherence to the ensemble of existing structures.
Pope Paul III commissioned Michelangelo to provide a setting for the statue and to bring order to an irregular hilltop already encumbered by two crumbling medieval buildings set at an acute angle to one another.
Capitoline Museums The Capitoline Museums (
Italian:
Musei Capitolini) are a group of art and
archaeological museums in the Piazza del Campidoglio. They include the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Palazzo Senatorio, and Palazzo Nuovo. The three palazzi are now home to the
Capitoline Museums. A part of the eastern corner is also visible in the via del Tempio di Giove. The front porch of the Palazzo dei Conservatori sheltered offices of various guilds. Here disputes arising in the transaction of business were adjudicated, unless they were of sufficient importance to go before a communal tribunal, such as that of the conservatori. It was a natural place for such activity. Until the 1470s the main market of the city was held on and around the Campidoglio, while cattle continued to be taxed and sold in the ancient forum located just to the south. Rossellino built a building with a round arched
portico on the ground floor and a façade with cross windows and paired
loggias. The orientation of the pre-existing structures was preserved according to a design principle identical to the one that Rossellino implemented subsequently in the town of
Pienza, creating a
trapezoidal square. The renovation also involved the Palazzo Senatorio, but were interrupted by the death of the pope. The 15th-century Palazzo dei Conservatori, at the Capitoline Museums, was almost demolished in 1540 by Michelangelo, but the fifteenth-century design was documented in the drawings by the Dutch painter
Maarten van Heemskerck made between 1536 and 1538. He redesigned the Palazzo dei Conservatori, removing all the previous structures and matching it with the Palazzo Senatorio. He added a double stairway which was used to access the new entrance, no longer facing the forums but towards the square. He also modified the façade, in order to bring it into line with that of the Palazzo dei Conservatori and that of the Palazzo Nuovo facing the church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli inserting
pilasters of
giant order, which appeared for the first time in the public buildings, a
cornice with a
baluster (another new element) and a tower. He added a portico façade to the Palazzo dei Conservatori and inserted giant order
pilasters and a balustraded cornice with statues. Michelangelo also designed the steep ramp staircase of the
Cordonata and the balustrade from which one overlooks the underlying
Piazza d'Aracoeli at the base of Capitoline Hill. Its double ramp of stairs was designed by Michelangelo. This double stairway to the palazzo replaced the old flight of steps and two-storied loggia, which had stood on the right side of the palazzo. The staircase cannot be seen solely in terms of the building to which it belongs but must be set in the context of the piazza as a whole. Porta did the completion of the façade of the Palazzo Senatorio, including the positioning, in the central niche, of a statue of
Athena taken from the Palazzo dei Conservatori, which in 1593. was replaced with another statue of
Athena much smaller, in red porphyry and white marble. In 1587, when the branch of the new aqueduct of the
Acqua Felice reached the Campidoglio,
Pope Sixtus V announced a public competition for the construction of a fountain on the square. Matteo Bartolani's project was the winner. Bartolani was the architect who was initially commissioned to build the
Acqua Felice aqueduct. It was a big project, which was only partially realized with the construction of two tanks leaning against the center of the façade of the Palazzo Senatorio, between the statues of the two rivers and under the niche containing
Athena.
Palazzo Nuovo The
Palazzo Nuovo (
English:
New Palace) was constructed in 1603 to close off the piazza's symmetry and hide the tower of the
Santa Maria in Ara Coeli. It was finished in 1654 and opened to the public in 1734. Its façade is an identical copy of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, made using Michelangelo's blueprint when he redesigned the Palazzo dei Conservatori a century earlier.
Cordonata The Cordonata (
Italian word, from
cordone, which in
architecture means "linear element which emphasizes a limit") is a wide-ramped road, gradually ascending from the city to the hilltop. It is decorated with various sculptural works. It was built to be wide enough for horse riders to ascend the hill without dismounting. In addition to the statues of the two Egyptian lions in black
basalt placed at the base, towards the middle of the climb on the grassy clearing on the left, there is the
Monument to Cola di Rienzo of the politician
Cola di Rienzo (1313-1354), installed in 1886. At the top of the cordonata are the statues of the Dioscuri, the marble renditions of
Castor and Pollux, from the
Temple of Castor and Pollux, and two statues of marble weapons from the
:it:Ninfeo di Alessandro (Mario's Trophies) of the
Piazza Vittorio. The two fountains that in 1588,
Della Porta managed to create for the Campidoglio are the two
basalt lions on the sides of the base of the cordonata. They were transferred in 1582 from the remains of the "Temple of Isis", which were completed with two marble vases specially built to collect water. The two original lions were transferred in 1885 to the
Vatican Museums, but then put back in their place in 1955. File:0 Cordonata - Dioscuri - Palazzo Senatorio (2).JPG|The "Cordonata" access to Piazza del Campidoglio, with the statues of the
Dioscuri File:Metropolitan Castor Pollux Roman 3C AD.jpg|The
Castor and Pollux Roman 3C AD File:Cola Di Rienzo.jpg|
Monument of the politician
Cola di Rienzo File:Palazzo senatorio Rome 2011 2.jpg|The Capitoline Hill
cordonata leading from Via del Teatro di Marcello to Piazza del Campidoglio
Final interventions The Campidoglio square was finished in the
17th century.
Benito Mussolini ordered that the paving for the square be completed to Michelangelo's design, done by
:it:Antonio Muñoz (1884-1960) in 1940, based from a print by
Étienne Dupérac. The geometric paving of the square and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius appear on the
reverse of the
50 euro cents minted in Italy, and on all the pages of the
Italian passport. A view of the square is on the front of the 10,000
lire banknotes, the so-called "Michelangelo", issued by the
Bank of Italy from 1962 to 1977. File:CampidoglioEng.jpg|Engraving by
Étienne Dupérac, which was used to reproduce Michelangelo's design of the pavement that
:it:Antonio Muñoz used to create the current pavement in 1940 File:Diecimila Lire verso (cropped).jpg|Ten thousand
lire banknote File:Capitoline she-wolf Musei Capitolini MC1181.jpg|The
Capitoline Wolf,
bronze sculpture ==See also==