La Mostra    1625

The Pantheon before the 17th century alterations

The Pantheon, built in 27 b.C. and rebuilt by emperor Hadrian in I century a.D., is the only building of ancient Rome to have been continously used for religious reasons. At the beginning of VII century the great temple dedicated by the Romans to all gods was given by byzantin emperor Phocas to pope Boniface IV, who consecrated it to Sancta Maria ad Martyres. The engraving by Aegidius Sadeler still shows the medieval bell tower, destroyed on the occasion of seventeenth century works wanted by Urban VIII and realized by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Aegidius Sadeler, Vestigij del Pantheon..., in: Id., Vestigi delle antichità di Roma, Tivoli, Pozzuolo et altri luoghi, Praha 1601

Piazza della Rotonda before the 17th-century alterations

For the Jubilee of 1575 pope Gregory XIII commissioned to Giacomo della Porta a fountain to place in the middle of the square. The look of the fountain remained the same until 1711 when pope Clement XI established that the Egyptian obelisk then placed in San Macuto were repositioned in front of the Pantheon. In so doing it was been realized a radical restoration of the fountain, whose basin was replaced by a group of rocks and dolphins to support the obelisk. In the view by Cruyl you can also see the two side bell-towers built in the first half of the Seventeenth century by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for pope Urban VIII, then removed in 1883.

Levin Cruyl, stampa del 1667, in: Cento vedute di Roma antica raccolte e illustrate da Alfonso Bartoli, Firenze 1911

Notice of the ceremonies of reading of the Bull of indiction of the Jubilee of 1825 (Leo XII, Quod hoc ineunte saeculo, 24 May 1824), in the four patriarchal basilicas among which the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, substituted for St. Paul's

Even before this turns of events, the Basilica in Trastevere had served as a back-up to St Paul’s which, more distant from Rome’s built-up area given its location outside the walls and right by the Tiber, had been taken off the roster of compulsory pilgrim visits during the Jubilee of 1625 owing to an outbreak of plague in southern Italy; the Basilica in Trastevere also filled this function for eight days in 1700 after the Tiber burst its banks.

Diario di Roma, n. 102, 22 December 1824

Santa Maria in Trastevere

Giovanni Battista Falda (draw.), Piazza di S. M. in Trastevere ampliata da n.s. papa Alesandro [sic] VII, in: Il nuovo splendore delle fabbriche in prospettiva di Roma moderna, vol. I, Roma 1773

Urban VIII (1623-1644), bronze medal of the Holy Year 1625 (reverse)

Mazio 186 (fig. Medaglie Mazio 20-186A)