Framing St. Peter's: urban planning in Fascist Rome

With its carefully articulated relation to the preexisting elements, its specificity of meaning to the society that created it, and its continuing clarity to observers today, the Via della Conciliazione, after all, has demonstrated its worth as an exemplary modern space in the historical city. To Catholic pilgrims, it presents a visually powerful climax on the approach to the most important church for their religion. To the historian coming to the site with a critical eye, the framed vista provides a comprehensive vision of the Vatican long sought by generations of planners. To the visitor attuned to its political issues, the Via della Conciliazione expresses a relationship of religion and government that is still relevant in Italy. As the latest layer at St. Peter's, the Via della Conciliazione proves a remarkably effective device through which we may experience this complex historical site and its cultural context in a clear and informed way.

Terry Kirk teaches art and architectural history at the American University of Rome. He has specialized in the late-nineteenth-century urban transformation of Rome as the national capital. His recent two-volume survey The Architecture of Modern Italy (Princeton Architectural Press) invites students and colleagues to further research [Department of Arts and Humanities, the American University of Rome, Via Pietro Roselli 4, Rome 00153 Italy, t.kirk@aur.edu].

Notes

1. For modern scholarship on the Via della Conciliazione, see Mario Zocca, Topografia e urbanistica di Roma: Roma capitale d'Italia (Bologna: Cappelli, 1958), vol. 2, 673-75, pl. CLXV; Italo Insolera, Roma moderna (Turin: Einaudi, 1962), 132-33; Spiro Kostof, The Third Rome, 1870-1950: Traffic and Glory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 70-71; Walter Vannelli, Economia dell'architettura in Roma fascista: Il centro urbano (Rome: Kappa, 1981), 329-59; Vincenzo Matera, "La ricostruzione del Palazzo del Governatore e del Palazzo degli Alicorni in Borgo," in Anni del Governatorato, 1926-1944, interventi urbanistici, scoperte archeologiche, arredo urbano, restauri, ed. Luisa Cardilli (Rome: Kappa, 1995), 139-45; Maria Luisa Neri, "Il collegamento tra le due citta: L'apertura di Via della Conciliazione," in L'Architettura della basilica di San Pietro: Storia e costruzione; Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Roma, novembre 1995, ed. Gianfranco Spagensi, Quaderni dell'Istituto di Storia dell'Architettura, n.s., 25-30 (1995-97) (Rome: Bonsignori, 1997), 435-44; and Flavia Marcello, "Rationalism versus Romanita: The Changing Role of the Architect in the Creation of the Ideal Fascist City" (PhD diss., University of Sydney, 2001), 116-20.

2. Rudolf Wittkower, "Il terzo braccio del Bernini in piazza S. Pietro," Bollettino d'Arte 34 (1949): 129-34, translated as "The Third Arm of Bernini's Piazza S. Pietro," in Studies in the Italian Baroque (London: Thames and Hudson, 1975), 60; and Hellmut Hager, "Progetti del tardo barocco per il terzo braccio in Piazza San Pietro," Commentari 19 (1968): 311.