The name of the neighborhood comes from the Column of Marcus Aurelius (180 AD), located in the square also called Piazza Colonna.
The medieval name Regio Columne et Sancte Marie in Aquiro included both the aforementioned column and the church of Santa Maria in Aquiro, founded around 400. The name of the church has an uncertain etymology (its earliest form was in Cyro). The church still exists, though heavily modified in the 16th century.
The coat of arms of the district has versions in which it contains three stripes, variously oriented on a white background. More often, however, instead of stripes, it features a spiral column, clearly referring to the monument to Marcus Aurelius.
The area is bounded by the streets and squares of Piazza Mignanelli, Via Frattina, Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina, Via di Campo Marzio, Via della Maddalena, Via del Pantheon, Piazza della Rotonda, Via del Seminario, Piazza Sant’Ignazio, Via del Caravita, Via del Corso, Via delle Muratte, Via di Santa Maria in Via, Piazza San Claudio, Via del Pozzetto, Via del Bufalo, Via del Nazareno, Via del Tritone, Piazza Barberini, Via Veneto, Via Sant Isidoro, Via degli Artisti, Via Francesco Crispi, Via Capo le Caze, Via dei Due Macelli.
The Colonna covers part of the ancient Champ de Mars on its western side, while the other side fits between the modern Campo Marzio and Trevi districts, reaching its eastern end to the Pincio hillside with its steep streets. The neighborhood was not densely populated until the very end of the 16th century, when wealthy and aristocratic families began to build for themselves a large variety of palazzos, especially along Via Lata (now Via del Corso).
The two halves of the neighborhood meet near Piazza Colonna (1), which houses the famous monument to Emperor Marcus Aurelius. This column is very similar to the Emperor Trajan’s column built 70 years earlier. Its top-to-top reliefs, deeper than those of the prototype, also depict the Emperor’s military exploits in two campaigns against the Quadi, Marcomanni and Sarmatians between 171 and 175.
The column is made up of 28 hollow marble cylinders just under 4 meters in diameter with a central shaft equipped with a staircase and illuminated by narrow windows. At the top there was once a bronze statue of the emperor. The statue “disappeared” at an unknown time and at the end of the 16th century its place was taken by the image of St. Paul. The column itself was moved to a higher base with an inscription erroneously attributing it to Antoninus Pius, the father of Marcus Aurelius. Hence the very common but erroneous name Antoninus Column.
If you look closely at the central part of the column, you can see that some of its elements are slightly displaced relative to the axis. The fact is that a series of earthquakes in the Middle Ages shook the monument, shifting its constituent cylinders. Nevertheless, the column remains absolutely stable.
In front of the column is a beautiful fountain from the late 16th century by architect Giacomo della Porta.
After his death, Marcus Aurelius was worshipped as a god, like almost every deceased emperor, and a temple dedicated to him was built on the west side of the square. It is now replaced by a large building with a porch, built in the first half of the 19th century and named after the banker Vedekind. It is also known as the Il Tempo building, as it has been the seat of the Roman daily newspaper Il Tempo since 1945.
Another large building facing the square is Palazzo Chigi. Its construction for the Aldobrandini family began around 1570. In 1596 the Aldobrandini added to their mansion a small church dedicated to St. Paul, which, however, was demolished in 1620 for the expansion of the palazzo. The mansion acquired its present appearance in 1916, when it became the residence of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 1959 it has been the seat of the Cabinet of Ministers, but the palazzo still bears the name of the Chigi family of bankers who bought it in 1659.
On the opposite side of Via del Corso from Piazza Colonna is the facade of the Galleria Alberto Sordi (formerly Galleria Colonna), one of Rome’s most elegant arcades.
In the square adjacent to Piazza Colonna (behind Il Tempo) is the massive Palazzo di Montecitorio (2), the seat of the lower house of the Italian Parliament. The name probably derives from the Latin Mons Acceptorius or Mons Citatorius, a small artificial embankment created by the pre-Roman inhabitants of this marshy area to build their huts on drier ground. Over the centuries, the height of the embankment has been considerably reduced, but the sidewalk leading to the Parliament building still has a clear slope.
The palazzo was designed by Gianlorenzo Bernini around 1650, but it was not completed until half a century later. The building was intended for the Pamphili family, relatives of Pope Innocent X, who commissioned it, but it eventually became the seat of Rome’s main city court.
Palazzo Montechitorio became the residence of the lower house of the Italian Parliament after the fall of the Papal State in 1870. Very quickly its halls could no longer accommodate the growing number of deputies, and the depth of the mansion had to be doubled. Now its back, built of travertine and red brick, with towers at the corners, contrasts sharply with the late Baroque facade.
In front of the building is an Egyptian obelisk of Psamtik II.
The nearby Piazza di Pietra (3) is overlooked by one side of a 17th-century building that used to house the customs offices. It has 11 columns built into it, preserved from the Temple of Hadrian (circa 145 AD). This solution makes them look much better than if they had remained freestanding ruins.
To the left of the church, a narrow winding street leads to the charming Piazza di Sant’Ignazio, famous for its elliptical shape. Here, just across the border from the Pigna neighborhood, stands the Church of Sant’Ignazio.
The Rococo buildings opposite the church (4) were called burros. This is a local corruption of the word bureau. During the French occupation of Rome, they housed a number of government offices (bureau in French). In addition, the shape of these buildings resembles a chest (also called bureau). The name burro was later transferred to the alley that winds around the buildings.
In the corner of the area (5), opposite the Pantheon, where the Colonna borders Sant’Eustachio and Pigna, there is a plaque from 1906 that reminds us that in those years the Piazza della Rotonda was covered with a real parquet made of wood donated to Rome by the municipality of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, where many Italians had emigrated since the end of the 19th century, and now the noise of passing carriages would not disturb the tombs of the two first kings of Italy. However, the pavement soon proved unsuitable and was removed.
The narrow yellowish facade of the church of Santa Maria Maddalena (6), better known as La Maddalena, overlooks the tiny square nearby. Founded in the late 16th century on the site of a 14th-century chapel, the church took more than a century and a half to build (1735), as evidenced by its striking rococo facade.
The history of the church is linked to the life of Camillo de Lellis (1550-1614), a mercenary captain who, after recovering from his wounds, gave up his arms and devoted his life to the sick. He became a believer and spent the rest of his life working in the hospital that once stood next to the aforementioned church, in which he was buried.
Soon after the church was completed, Camillo was declared a saint, and until the end of the 19th century, on the day of his death (July 14), the faithful were given a special “healing” potion, which was water with dust from the saint’s tombstone.
At the northernmost border of the Colonna district is one of the oldest churches in Rome, San Lorenzo in Lucina (7). It is built on the spot where Lucina, a Roman patrician, created in her own home one of the first places of worship for the Christian faithful. Recall that at the time, the Christian religion was under a ban. The church was completely rebuilt in the early 12th century and redecorated inside in the 17th century. Its porch and bell tower remained medieval.
Admirers of Gianlorenzo Bernini can visit in this church the chapel decorated by the master in his last years of life for the Fonseca family. On the left wall of the chapel is a very lifelike bust of Gabriele Fonseca (1670), physician to Pope Innocent X. Gabriele looking out of the window is a theatrical device used by Bernini in a number of other family chapels he designed.
The other, elongated part of the Colonna neighborhood is represented by a smaller number of interesting places to visit. For the most part, it was inhabited by foreign communities that did not have large budgets. Nevertheless, even here you can find elegant buildings decorated with statues and paintings.
Around 1590, Sixtus V opened Via Felice (9), now called Via Sistina in his honor. The street connected the Pincio hill with the densely populated neighborhood of Monti. From the end of the 18th century, many artists and writers lived in the houses on it. The most famous among them are the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, the writers Hans Christian Andersen and Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, the engravers Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Luigi Rossini and Bartolomeo Pinelli, the archaeologist and architect Luigi Canina, who built the Old Appian Way and enlarged the Villa Borghese.
Another attraction of the district is the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte (10), which dates back to antiquity. Until the first half of the 16th century, it belonged to the Scottish community of Colonna and bore its original name, Sant’Andrea de Ortiz or inter Hortos, which literally means “among the gardens” on this side of the Pincio hill.
Delle Fratte got its name from the Roman dialect, in which the word fratte means “bushes”. The church was rebuilt in the Baroque style around 1650, designed by Francesco Borromini, and boasts the fanciest bell tower in Rome, overlooking Via Capo le Caze (the end of the houses), whose name implied the end of the residential part of the city.
The bell tower has several tiers with amazing architectural details worthy of closer examination through binoculars. These include the capitals of the small columns of the first tier with double heads carved on the sides, the caryatid angels of the second tier, and the very top, representing the coat of arms of the Del Bufalo family, surmounted by a crown in honor of the Marquis Ottavio Del Bufalo, the sponsor of the construction, whose family palace is located nearby in Piazza del Nazzareno.
Borromini also designed the large Palazzo di Propaganda Fide (11), now an extraterritorial possession of the Vatican, standing on the opposite side of the street from the church. On the side of Via di Propaganda Fide, the palazzo features the heraldic bees of the Barberini family, as a reminder of Pope Urban VIII Barberini’s funding of its construction.
In a curious coincidence, the building on the opposite corner of Via di Propaganda Fide was the home of Borromini’s great rival, Gianlorenzo Bernini (marked by a memorial plaque). The church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte contains two statues of angels carved by him, which originally adorned the Sant’Angelo Bridge, and eight others by sculptors from his workshop.
Cardinal Jacopo Rospigliosi, nephew of Pope Clement IX, who commissioned them, fell in love with the two works. Fearing that the statues might be damaged by the weather, he ordered them to be left in the artist’s studio, where he could admire the masterpieces in peace. After that, exact copies were made and installed on the bridge, where they remain to this day. In 1731 Prospero Bernini, one of Gianlorenzo’s grandsons, gave the statues to a nearby church, which turned out to be Sant’Andrea delle Fratte.
Another important landmark in the neighborhood, located on the border with Trevi, is Piazza San Silvestro (12), turned into a pedestrian zone in 2012. It appears wider than it really is because one side of it is contiguous with the neighboring square. Until the 1930s, the two squares were separated by several buildings, which were later demolished.
In antiquity there was a Temple of the Sun (273), of which only meager remains now remain. Several of its columns, together with other fragments, can be seen in the courtyard of the church of San Silvestro in Capite (13). The latter was built over the house of two popes, Stephen II and his brother and successor Paul I (mid 8th century). In the Middle Ages, the neighborhood was called Catapauli, i.e. “by Paul”.
The present appearance of the church dates from the late 16th century, when it was completely rebuilt. The facade facing the square dates from 1700. The church is dedicated not only to St. Sylvester, but also to St. Stephen (the aforementioned pope). The saints are represented by statues above the facade, and the title in Capite (at the Head) means that the head of St. John the Baptist is kept here.
The ancient monastery, which adjoined the church on the right, was renovated in 1878 and converted into the General Post Office, which occupies almost the entire north side of the square. Its windows are decorated with bas-reliefs with portraits of members of the Savoy royal family.
