Via della Conciliazione

The Via della Conciliazione (Italian road of reconciliation ) in Rome is a 1936 planned under Benito Mussolini and finished to the papal jubilee year 1950, some 500 m long axis of the road leading from the Tiber River to St. Peter and the other, on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, the Vatican City Rome's historic center connects.

History

Since the Renaissance, there were plans for a representative redesign of the access through the Borgo St. Peter's Church. Pope Nicholas V commissioned a report by Leon Battista Alberti a plan in which the entire area between Castel Sant'Angelo and the Vatican should be re-arranged in a checkerboard pattern. After the Pope's death, this plan was not realized. For the Holy Year of 1500, Pope Alexander VI. only the Via Alessandrina ( Borgo Nuovo later), which was aligned to the input of the Papal Palace, realize. For their edification the meta Romuli was demolished.

From Donato Bramante, who planned the construction of St. Peter's for Pope Julius II, a sketch of a colonnaded street and obelisks is obtained, which should perform at St. Peter's Basilica, but was not realized. Nor like a visual axis of the Ponte Sant'Angelo, which was planning to Domenico Fontana on erected by him at St. Peter's Square Obelisk.

The planning of optical axes lapsed after Gian Lorenzo Bernini Saint Peter's Square with its colonnades, modeled after the ancient forums, surrounded them. Its principle was playing with the element of surprise when the pilgrims coming from the winding Borgo, stepped through the colonnades and saw the wide square with the cathedral. This worked well when the planned "third arm " of the colonnade was never realized.

Nevertheless, there was more, especially during the reign of Napoleon, plans by different architects as Giovanni Battista Nolli, Cosimo Morelli Giuseppe Valadier and to arrange the Borgo or partial tear, which were not realized. Luigi Poletti gave in 1852 the hamlet with two symmetrical buildings on Borgo Nuovo and the Borgo Vecchio, and a fountain facade on the spina, a representative entrance on the Tiber.

With the end of the Papal States (1871 ) ended the planning authority of the papacy. For the new capital of Italy the regulatory plan of 1873 saw a network of new thoroughfares in the medieval town before. Again including the demolition of the Spina dei Borghi, the row of houses between the afferent to St Peter's narrow streets Borgo Vecchio and Borgo Nuovo. However, after numerous protests from citizens, architects and historians, there was no execution. Instead, the Palazzo dei Penitenzieri, with its frescoes by Pinturicchio, declared a National Monument.

Only the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini was able to draw on the radical solutions again. After clarification of the position of the papacy by the Lateran Pacts began to reschedule. The influential Italian architect and urban planner Marcello Piacentini had in 1929 represented in two fundamental articles that compared to the " well-ordered ", its historical monuments " out alternate end " Paris Rome 's finest and largest architectural monuments hide outright. Rarely has a monument on the axis of a straight road is aligned towards. Piacentini, also the creator of the budget for the Universal Exhibition of 1942 EUR satellite city, called here in addition to the hard -to-find Piazza Navona as an example, the unsatisfactory situation at St. Peter. Piacentinis view was shared by Mussolini, " one of the largest church in Christendom worthy " wanted access.

So it was amending the regulatory plan of 1931 to the conclusion not only the houses of the spine, but also numerous adjacent historic buildings of Borgo demolish. Charged with the planning were the architects Piacentini and Spaccharelli. The " Duce " himself sat on October 28, 1936 publicity the first blow of the pickaxe, and until October 1937 600,000 m³ buildings were swept away, including four churches and historic palaces. Were obtained after vehement protests at least the Palazzo Torlonia (1496-1504), the Palazzo dei Penitenzieri, and the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina (1566-1637), which could be integrated into the new axis. The owned by the Vatican Palazzo dei Convertendi (16th century) was torn down and rebuilt on the new road again. However, one of Rome's most vibrant historical district was gone.

The newly created boulevard with its unified facades was named after the proposal of the journalist Franco Franchi Via della Conciliazione - in memory of the Lateran Treaty of 1929, which had brought about a reconciliation between the Italian government and the papacy and the establishment of the modern Vatican State.

The Via della Conciliazione presents as the Via dei Fori Imperiali an example of the influence acting on the urban conceptions of Napoleon III. and his colleague Georges- Eugène Haussmann in Rome in the 20th century dar.

Pictures

Via della Conciliazione

Palazzo Della Rovere ( headquarters of the Equestrian Order of the Holy grave in Jerusalem )

Via della Conciliazione with Castel Sant'Angelo in the background

People on the way to the funeral of Pope John Paul II on 4 April 2005

At dawn