The name of the Ponte district (Latin Pons – bridge) comes from the bridge of Sant’Angelo, the ancient Pons Elius, built by Emperor Hadrian (full name Publius Aelius Hadrian Trajan) in 134 AD to access his own monumental tomb, which was still under construction at the time. Centuries later, the tomb was turned into Castel Sant’Angelo, standing today just outside the Ponte border, in the Borgo neighborhood.
The Pons Aelius is the only Roman bridge that has never collapsed in almost 2000 years under the pressure of frequent floods, despite its location right in front of the steep bend of the Tiber.
Just 50 meters to the south was another ancient bridge, the Pons Triumphalis (Triumphal Bridge), also known as the Bridge of Nero, which overlooked the Gardens of Agrippina, a public area with the Circus of Gaius and Nero, located in what is now the Vatican. This bridge collapsed (it is not known when exactly) and the remains of its piers can still be seen when the river level drops.
The medieval name of the district, Regio Pontis et Scortichiariorum, in addition to the bridge, included the presence of workshops in the vicinity where animal skins were processed and tanned (scortichiarii).
The coat of arms of the Ponte district, of course, includes the bridge and has two versions: late medieval (with three arches and a tower at the end) and Renaissance (with statues of St. Peter and St. Paul).
The area is bounded by the streets and squares Lungotevere Tor di Nona, Piazza Ponte Sant’Angelo, Lungotevere degli Altoviti, Piazza Paoli, Lungotevere dei Fiorentini, Lungotevere di Sangallo, Vicolo della Shimia, Via dei Banchi Vecchi, Via delle Carceri, Vicolo Cellini, Via dei Filippini, Piazza dell’Orologio, via del Governo Vecchio, via del Corallo, piazza del Fico, via della Pace, via di Tor Millina, via di Santa Maria dell’Anima, via di Tor Sanguinha, piazza di Tor Sanguinha, piazza di Sant’Apollinare, via di Sant’Agostino, piazza di Sant’Agostino, via dei Pianellari, via dei Portoghesi and via del Cancello.
Of course, the history of the area is closely linked to the history of the Sant’Angelo Bridge (1). In ancient times, this area belonged to the Champ de Mars, in the western part of which was the approach to Ponce Elius.
The bridge gained its strategic importance in 400, when Emperor Honorius turned Hadrian’s Mausoleum into a fortress protecting the Aurelian Wall along the eastern bank of the Tiber. After the collapse of the neighboring Triumphal Bridge, the role of the Elia Bridge increased even more, as it remained the only link between the west bank of the Tiber and the northern half of the city.
It was also the only way for pilgrims coming from the city to cross the river to visit the tomb of St. Peter, which at that time was still outside Rome. For this reason, pilgrimage-related businesses flourished in the streets near the bridge – inns, taverns, stores and, of course, sellers of religious objects and fake relics.
Until the middle of the 15th century, the Sant’Angelo Bridge maintained its original Roman structure with three central arches and ramps with smaller arches at the ends. Around 1450, Pope Nicholas V built two small chapels at its eastern end to commemorate an incident that had occurred in the same year. At the height of the Jubilee Year celebrations, the crowds on the bridge caused its railing to collapse and 147 pilgrims fell into the Tiber and drowned.
In 1527, during the sacking of Rome, these chapels served as a shelter for the Landsknechts who besieged the Castel Sant’Angelo, where Pope Clement VII found refuge. After the siege was lifted, the pontiff ordered the chapels to be demolished and replaced with two statues of the Apostles Peter and Paul.
In fact, only one statue was required, as a statue of St. Paul had existed since 1465. According to Vasari’s recollections, it was carved by Paolo Taccone at the request of Pius II, who wanted to install statues of the Apostles in front of the Vatican Basilica. The second was to be made by Mino da Fiesole, but due to a technical error of the artist, this work remained unfinished (it was finished only a hundred years later, and now it is kept in St. Peter’s Basilica, in the hall of the Chapter of canons). Eventually, in 1534, Clement VII commissioned the missing statue from Lorenzetto.
According to some sources, the next pope, Paul III, commissioned Rafaello da Montelupo to make eight more statues for the bridge, representing the evangelists and patriarchs. However, on all Renaissance maps of Rome, the sides of the bridge remain blank, as seen in the drawings above, and it is likely that this project was never realized.
Ten famous angels appeared on the bridge only a century and a half later, when in 1668 Clement IX gave Gianlorenzo Bernini and his workshop an order to make statues with symbols of the Passion of Christ. Two of them, completed personally by the genius sculptor and much loved by the Pope’s nephew, Cardinal Rospigliosi, were soon replaced by exact copies. Their originals are now preserved in the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte, located in the Colonna district.
In 1892 the Tiber received embankments with high walls and its channel became wider. The ramps at both ends of the bridge were removed and replaced by arches similar to the central ones. The bridge now has five of them.
Sant’Angelo Bridge is also known as one of the workplaces of the papal executioner. In particular, during the 16th century it was customary to hang the severed heads of executed criminals on both sides of the bridge as a warning to the townspeople. Even after the abolition of this custom, the square on the south side of the bridge remained a place of public executions until 1870. On its right side stood the Chapel of Consolation, where the last sacraments were administered to those sentenced to death. It was demolished only at the end of the 19th century in connection with the above-mentioned works on the Tiber embankment. At the same time the large Palazzo Altoviti and the Theater of Apollo were demolished.
Now, in addition to the Sant’Angelo Bridge, there are three more leading from the Ponte district – the Umberto I Bridge, the Vittorio Emanuele II Bridge (almost repeating the layout of the ancient Triumphal Bridge) and the Principe Amedeo Bridge.
In general, the Ponte neighborhood has no world-famous landmarks, although it borders some of them. Nevertheless, it is pleasant to wander around, lost in the labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys with old houses that are several centuries old. The names of the local streets often contain the word arco (arch): Arco dei Banchi, Arco della Fontanella, Arco della Pace, Arco di Parma, etc. There is even a Via dei Tre Arca (street of three arches). These names testify to the medieval origins of the area, when arches served as supports for the walls of neighboring houses, and sometimes additional rooms were built over them.
The neighborhood is crossed by two long, straight Renaissance streets, Via dei Coronari (2) and Via Giulia (3). Via dei Coronari follows the direction of the ancient street that led to the Ponce Triumphalis Bridge and was on the same axis as it. It was reopened in 1475 as Via Recta (straight street) for the convenience of pilgrims going to St. Peter’s Basilica. Previously, they had to wander through the winding labyrinth of the medieval city.
Over time, the street got its present name in honor of the coronari traders who filled it until the 19th century. It is now known for its antique dealers. Several buildings from the 16th and 17th centuries still stand on both sides of the street. One of them is house number 148, built in 1516 for Prospero Mochi, the commissary general of the city fortifications.
But the oldest building on Via dei Coronatti is number 157. It is the so-called House of Fiammetta, dating from the second half of the 15th century. Here lived the young courtesan Fiammetta De Michaelis, who became the mistress of the old Cardinal, who soon died bequeathing her four houses, and then of Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI.
Another of her houses is located at the end of the Vicolo di San Trifone alley (4), the third no longer exists, and the fourth is in the Borgo neighborhood, near St. Peter’s Basilica.
The large building behind Fiammetta’s second house, with its long side facing Via della Maschera d’Oro, is the Palazzo Gaddi Cesi (5), built in the early 16th century for the Tuscan Gaddi family who moved to Rome. In 1567 they gave the building to the Cesi family. One of its members, Federico Cesi, was a naturalist and botanist and in 1603, together with three other scientists, founded in the palace one of the first scientific circles, the Accademia dei Lincei (Academy of lynxes, whose keen eyesight epitomized scientific observation). The garden of the academy became Rome’s first botanical garden.
A few years later, Galileo Galilei joined the Academy and visited Cesi in the building several times. However, the Counter-Reformation was underway in Italy, and the Church was strongly opposed to scientific research. “The Bobcats” were forced to operate as a semi-underground organization, and its few members communicated with each other only through letters. In 1651, after the death of Federico Cesi, the Academy was closed.
In 1801 the Academy was revived and changed several names, becoming in 1939 the National Academy and in 1986 the National Academy of Lynxes. Now it is the most important scientific institution in Italy, and its residence is located in Villa Farnesina in the Trastevere district. The palace building belonged to the Cesi family until the end of the 18th century, after which it changed several owners until it became the main residence of the military courts in the 1940s.
The opposite side of Via della Mascera d’Oro is occupied by other remarkable buildings from the early 16th century. One of these is house number 7, Palazzo Milesi (6). It was once adorned with stunning monochrome frescoes by Polidoro da Caravaggio and Maturino da Firenze of Greek and Roman mythology, which have now almost completely disappeared (although they began to deteriorate in the mid-16th century). In 1576, a golden mask was added to the frescoes, from which the palace got its alternative name, Palazzo della Masca dell’Or, and after which the street itself is named.
The facade of the neighboring, corner building, of roughly the same age, is decorated with monochrome graffiti by Jacopo Ripanda done directly on fresh plaster, and an antique spiral column inset into the corner. Both buildings are now owned by the Lanchelotti family, whose family mansion is the neighboring Palazzo Lanchelotti, located on the corner of Via dei Coronari and Piazza San Simeone.
The area between Via dei Coronari and the river used to be called Tor di Nona, a corruption of Torre del Annona (food supply tower), in honor of the tower that formed part of the Aurelian Wall. In the Middle Ages, the tower turned out to be part of the fortified Orsini house, and from 1408 it was turned into a prison. The cells of the Tor di Nona prison were of varying sizes and degrees of “comfort”. The degree of this comfort depended on the prisoners’ ability to pay. The poorest of them were kept in an underground dungeon, actually a pit. Separate cells were reserved for women and children, as well as for the clergy. There were also cells for temporary prisoners sentenced to the galleys of the Papal State and awaiting delivery to the sea. The prison was overseen by a warden called soldano, assisted by a captain of justice.
In 1568, the pope transferred control of the prison to the Brotherhood of Mercy, a religious institution whose duty was to care for the condemned. Among the members of the brotherhood was St. Philip Neri. Soon an infirmary and pharmacy were opened in the tower, which also served the neighboring prison of Corte Savella.
In 1658, a new prison was opened on Via Giulia and the Tor di Nona was converted into a theater, which opened in 1670. Because of its great success, the theater had to be extended to the bank of the Tiber as early as the following year, but by the end of the century Pope Innocent XII ordered its demolition. In 1733, Pope Clement XII revived and completely rebuilt the theater. In 1795 there was a fire and the theater was rebuilt again. The name was changed to the Theater of Apollo, but the Romans continued to use the old name, Tor di Nona.
In 1829, the theater was again restored by the architect Giuseppe Valadier and was a great success until 1888, when it was finally destroyed when the Tiber embankment was built. It is now commemorated only by a plaque with a small fountain at its base (7).
The street named after the tower, Via Tor di Nona, still survives, but evokes more memories of the Borgia family than of the theater. In the late 15th century, the courtesan Vannozza dei Cattanei, mistress of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, the future Pope Alexander VI, owned three inns here. Vannozza rented these inns to the wardens of the Tor di Nona prison, where food was prepared for the convicts.
The difference in height between the modern Lungotevere Tor di Nona, which runs along the shore, and the old Via Tor di Nona, which runs parallel to it, but is four meters lower.
The houses numbered 28-29 on Via Tor di Nona are decorated with a curious drawing of a winged donkey. In the 1970s, many of the houses along the street fell into disrepair, and as a protest against the municipality’s lack of attention to the problem, local residents asked architecture students to decorate their facades with colorful graffiti. Since then, the drawings have disappeared, but the donkey decided to keep them even after the long-awaited renovation.
At the end of Via del Orso stands a rather interesting building known as the Albergo del Orso (Bear Tavern) or Hostaria del Orso (8). It is a rare example of a late medieval building dating back to the late 15th century. Such buildings were once common throughout the area, and pilgrims on their way to St. Peter’s Basilica could spend the night in them. Despite the tavern’s transformation into a posh restaurant and disco, its typical early Renaissance architecture has been carefully preserved.
The nearby building, Palazzo Primoli (9), is full of history. It was built in the 17th century, but was radically reconstructed and enlarged in the early 20th century when the waterfront was built. The last owner of the building, Giuseppe Primoli, who bequeathed it to the Italian government, was the son of Charlotte Bonaparte, grandniece of Napoleon I. Therefore, the Palazzo now houses the Napoleonic Museum, which displays several memorabilia related to the Bonaparte family. There is also the museum of Mario Praza, a prominent Anglicist and essayist, with his collection of European antiquities.
At the opposite end of the street (at its beginning) is a typical crossroads of three roads, the border of the Ponte, Campo Marzio and Parione districts. Here stands a 16th century house, Palazzo Scappucci (10), dominated by a tower built by the Frangipane family at the end of the 11th century. This tower is also known as the Monkey Tower because, according to popular legend, a monkey once kidnapped a baby and carried it to the top of the structure.
Nearby is one of the four branches of the National Roman Museum, housed in Palazzo Altemps (11), a late 15th-century mansion. Its first owner was Girolamo Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV. At the beginning of the 16th century, the building was taken over by Cardinal Soderini, who enlarged it with the help of the architects Antonio da Sangallo the Elder and Baldassare Peruzzi. Finally, in 1568 the palace was acquired by the Austrian Cardinal Altemps, nephew of Pope Pius IV, under whom the mansion was restored to its present form by Martino Longhi the Elder.
In addition to a rich collection of exhibits, including several antique Roman marble statues formerly belonging to the Ludovisi family, the palace has a number of interesting rooms and a large private chapel, painted in 1620 by Pomarancio, which houses the relics of Pope Anicetus, presented in 1604 to the Altemps family by Pope Clement VIII as a token of friendship.
However, not all pontiffs were on good terms with this family. Roberto Altemps, the Cardinal’s own son, married a member of the Orsini family, sworn enemies of Pope Sixtus V, and in 1586 was accused of rape, and therefore adultery, and sentenced to death. In the aforementioned chapel his beheading is depicted in a large fresco.
Near the eastern end of the Via dei Coronari, on the border with the Parione neighborhood, is the small church of Santa Maria della Pace (12). Its history dates back to the second half of the 15th century. It was once the site of another church dedicated to St. Andrew, and legend has it that a big loser in anger threw a stone at the image of the Virgin Mary hanging above the entrance to the church, causing it to bleed profusely.
In those days, Pope Sixtus IV was in conflict with the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici the Magnificent. The fact was that the Pazzis, wealthy Florentine bankers backed by the Pope, had made an assassination attempt on Lorenzo, but his brother had died instead. And now Sixtus feared that Lorenzo would start a war against him. Hearing of the miraculous incident, the pope was impressed and vowed to build a new church if peace was restored with Florence.
A clash was avoided and the old church was rebuilt and its name changed to Santa Maria della Pace (Santa Maria Mira). The image, which legend has it bled out, is now located above the main altar. Around 1500 Donato Bramante added a cloister to the church (this was his first work in Rome), and in 1660 Pietro da Cortona erected a new facade with an elegant semicircular porch.
Santa Maria della Pace boasts very high quality frescoes by Baldassare Peruzzi and Raphael, but unfortunately the church is often closed.
In the narrow alley next door, Vicolo degli Osti (13), you can see hinged “closets” on old houses facing the street. These are essentially toilets. Since ordinary houses did not have such “facilities”, people added them themselves.
Opposite Santa Maria della Pace is the church of the Teutonic Catholic community Santa Maria del Anima (14). It was built in the 1520s, when the Germanic Kingdom included present-day Austria, the Netherlands and Flanders. The church’s bell tower ends in a conical spire covered with yellow, green and white tiles, a typical element of German architecture but quite unusual in central Italy. The entrance to the church is on Via Santa Maria del Anima, which overlooks the facade by Andrea Sansovino.
The interior of Santa Maria del Anima is also much more in keeping with the churches of northern Europe than Rome. It houses the tomb of the only Dutch pope in history, Adrian VI, by Baldassare Peruzzi.
The hill south of the Via dei Coronari is completely occupied by the large Palazzo Taverna (15). It was formerly the site of a medieval fortress belonging to the Orsini, one of the most powerful families of the time. The hill itself was named after one of its members, Cardinal Giordano, who owned the fortress from the late 14th and early 15th centuries, and is briefly mentioned in Dante’s Divine Comedy, when describing the crowds of pilgrims in the Jubilee Year 1300 (Inferno, XVIII, 30-33).
A century later, the fortress was completely rebuilt and turned into a complex of separate buildings for several branches of the family. At the end of the 17th century, the complex was sold to the Gabrielli family, who connected the buildings, reuniting the splintered mansion. Two centuries later, when this family fell into oblivion, the Taverna family from Milan became the owners of the buildings. They remain the owners of the palace to this day. The main entrance to the palazzo is located on Via di Monte Giordano, and in the courtyard is a large 17th century fountain. Unfortunately, this is private property and is not accessible to the public.
At the rear of the complex is a small theater (16), the entrance to which is at the end of an unnamed alleyway roughly in the middle of the Via dei Coronari. The ground level rises quite steeply here, and a staircase leads up to the theater.
The western end of Via dei Coronari, through the Vicolo del Curato alley, meets Via del Banco di Santo Spirito, facing the Bridge of the Holy Angel. The word banchi (stalls), also found in the names of other nearby streets, is a reminder of the earliest form of banks – in the 16th century it was the stalls of money changers. Many of the houses now standing on these streets were built in those days.
In front of the dark and narrow tunnel (18) connecting Via del Banco di Santo Spirito to Via del Arco dei Banchi hangs Rome’s earliest memorial plaque, reporting the flood of 1277.
On the corner formed by Via del Banchi di Santo Spirito and Via del Banchi Nouvi is a small building known as Palazzetto del Banco di Santo Spirito (19). Pope Julius II conceived it as a mint on the occasion of the monetary reform of the early 16th century. The work was finished with the construction of the facade by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger in 1524. However, 20 years later the mint was moved to another location and the building remained unused for a long time. In 1605, it was acquired by the Banco Santo Spirito and housed its headquarters. This bank had recently been founded by Pope Paul V, and its assets were provided by the many facilities located near the Hospital Santo Spirito in Sassia.
The section of the Ponte district between the late 19th-century Avenida Vittorio Emanuele II and the Tiber retains a Renaissance atmosphere. The Via Giulia (3), laid out in the early 16th century, has its origins here. Pope Julius II, after whom it was named, wanted this street to become the new administrative and economic center of Rome. It was given a long and straight shape by Donato Bramante, who drew the line sharply, regardless of any obstacles in the way.
The church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini (20) belonged to a Roman community of immigrants from Florence. The community was quite large and consisted mainly of merchants and artists who lived in the nearby streets. The church replaced the older San Pantaleone juxta Flumen. Michelangelo, Raphael and Baldassare Peruzzi proposed their own designs for the building, but they proved too expensive and the community chose Jacopo Sansovino’s design.
Work began in 1519 and continued for almost a century. During this time, architects such as Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Giacomo Della Porta and Carlo Maderno, who designed the elongated dome, nicknamed “lollipop” by the Romans because of its shape, managed to supervise the craftsmen.
The interior of the church is quite quiet. In its interior we can note the beautiful high altar by Pietro da Cortona and the two simple tombstones on the floor in the left aisle. The tombstones bear the names of the great architects Carlo Maderno and Francesco Borromini.
Among the many Florentine craftsmen who lived on the Via Giulia was Benvenuto Cellini, the famous jeweler of the mid-16th century, whose work was often commissioned by aristocrats and even ruling dynasties of other countries. The story of his adventurous life, including the murder of several people, imprisonment in the castle of Sant’Angelo, escape and new arrest, the master himself described in his autobiography. The street that bears his name marks a small section of the border of the Ponte district.
Another old project on Via Giulia remains unfinished. A huge courthouse, the Palazzo dei Tribunali (21) was begun under the direction of Donato Bramante, but due to lack of funds, the work was soon stopped. Few traces of this structure remain in the form of blocks of hewn stone in the walls of a number of later buildings.
Parallel to Via Giulia runs Via dei Banchi Vecchi, on which at number 23 is a curious house built in 1538-39 by the jeweler Pietro Crivelli of Milan. This house is known among the Romans as the Palace of the Marionettes (22) because its facade is covered with reliefs of armor, lion heads and cherubs. Cardinal Felice Peretti, the future Pope Sixtus V, was among the tenants of this house in the second half of the century.
On the opposite side of the street, almost opposite the building described above, in 1460 another cardinal, Rodrigo Borgia, built for himself a large mansion (23), enlarging the old papal mint. In those days the building was called the Chancery because Cardinal Borgia was appointed vice-chancellor by his uncle, Pope Callixtus III. When Rodrigo himself became pope, a cardinal from the Sforza family was appointed as the new vice-chancellor, and the mansion was taken over by him. It now bears the name Palazzo Sforza Cesarini.
At the end of the 16th century, the part of the mansion along the Via dei Banchi Vecchi collapsed. It was not rebuilt until the late 18th century. A century later, during the construction of the Vittorio Emanuele II Avenue, the opposite side of the building (where the entrance is now located) was completely rebuilt, preserving the original architectural style.
