The Borgia Steps & Michelangelo's Moses

Why is it significant?

Climb the steep stairway that passes under the dark arch of an old tower house. It is called the Salita dei Borgia, the Borgia climb, and tradition says the house above belonged to Vannozza Cattanei, the mistress of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander the Sixth.

Key Facts

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Climb the steep stairway that passes under the dark arch of an old tower house. It is called the Salita dei Borgia, the Borgia climb, and tradition says the house above belonged to Vannozza Cattanei, the mistress of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander the Sixth.

Vannozza was the mother of his most famous children, Cesare and Lucrezia, and of another son, Juan. On a June evening in 1497, Juan and Cesare dined with their mother at her vineyard here on the Esquiline. Juan rode off into the night. Days later, fishermen pulled his body out of the Tiber, stabbed many times. The murder was never solved, but Rome had its suspicions... and many of them pointed at his own brother.

At the top of the stairs is the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, Saint Peter in Chains. Under the main altar, in a reliquary, lie the chains said to have bound Peter in prison in Jerusalem and in Rome. According to legend, when the two sets were brought together, they fused miraculously into one.

But most people come for something else. On the right, at the end of the nave, sits Moses, carved by Michelangelo for the tomb of Pope Julius the Second. The tomb was supposed to have dozens of statues and stand in Saint Peter's. Michelangelo called it the tragedy of his life; after forty years of quarrels, only this reduced version was built, and Julius himself is buried elsewhere. Look at the veins in Moses' arms, the twisting beard, the furious gaze... and the two horns on his head.

Why horns? Because the Latin Bible, translating the Hebrew word for the rays of light shining from Moses' face, used a word that also means horned. Artists took it literally for centuries. And the legend says that when Michelangelo finished, he struck the statue's knee with his hammer and shouted: why don't you speak? Now cross the street and walk up into the park on the hill. Under the grass lies the most extravagant palace ever built in Rome.