Piazza del Popolo & Caravaggio's Shadows

Why is it significant?

Step into the enormous oval expanse of Piazza del Popolo, the historic northern gateway to Rome where travelers arriving along the Via Flaminia first entered the Eternal City.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Step into the enormous oval expanse of Piazza del Popolo, the historic northern gateway to Rome where travelers arriving along the Via Flaminia first entered the Eternal City. In the center rises the towering red granite Flaminio Obelisk, brought from Heliopolis in Egypt by Emperor Augustus in ten BC and re-erected here in fifteen eighty-nine by Pope Sixtus the Fifth.

Look south at the striking pair of twin Baroque churches: Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto. Architect Carlo Rainaldi designed them to frame the three radiating streets of the Il Tridente avenue network, using clever optical illusions to make their different-sized plots look perfectly identical from the piazza.

Walk into the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo beside the northern gate and step into the Cerasi Chapel: in the dim chapel light hang two raw, revolutionary masterpieces by Caravaggio, painted in sixteen zero one: The Crucifixion of Saint Peter and The Conversion of Saint Paul. Notice the dirt on the executioners' feet and the dramatic chiaroscuro that shocked seventeenth-century churchmen.

Now climb the winding stone ramp behind the eastern fountains toward the Pincio Terrace.