The Knights of Malta Keyhole
Why is it significant?
Join the line in front of the big green door, wait your turn, and then bend down and put your eye to the keyhole. Through a tunnel of clipped hedges, perfectly centred, the dome of Saint Peter's floats in the distance, small and bright like a jewel in a box. Take your time.
Key Facts
| Place | The Knights of Malta Keyhole |
|---|---|
| Address | Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta 3, 00153 Roma RM, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.88280, 12.47860 |
| Part of Walk | The Keyhole and the Amphora Hill: Aventine Secrets & Testaccio's Roman Soul |
| Generated | Generated |
Join the line in front of the big green door, wait your turn, and then bend down and put your eye to the keyhole. Through a tunnel of clipped hedges, perfectly centred, the dome of Saint Peter's floats in the distance, small and bright like a jewel in a box. Take your time. Everyone gasps the first time.
Behind this door lies the Roman priory of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the knights founded in Jerusalem at the time of the Crusades to care for pilgrims, who later ruled Rhodes and then Malta. The order has no territory of its own today, yet it issues passports, has diplomatic relations with dozens of countries, and its property here enjoys extraterritorial status. Which is why Romans like to say that through this tiny hole you see three states at once: the knights' garden, Italy, and the Vatican.
Now turn around and look at the square itself. The walls are covered with obelisks, little shields, ships' prows, swords and trophies, like a stage set carved in stucco. It was designed in the 1760s by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, the engraver whose dark, imaginary prisons and vast Roman ruins influenced architects across Europe. This square and the little church behind the door are the only architecture he ever actually built.
And he never left. Piranesi was buried in that church, Santa Maria del Priorato, in 1778, and a statue of him stands over his tomb. He spent his life drawing an imaginary Rome even grander than the real one... and ended up resting a few metres from the one view that makes everyone fall silent.
Was the keyhole designed for that view? Nobody can prove it. The avenue of the garden may simply have been planted on the axis of the door. But in Rome, coincidences rarely look like coincidences. From here, the hill drops down toward the river and into a very different world. Follow the road downhill, past the Benedictine abbey of Sant'Anselmo, into Testaccio, the neighbourhood that fed Rome.