Italy is the heir to the great Roman Empire, in modern times the most striking eras for her were the Renaissance and the Baroque. Already the masters of the Renaissance, with their dream of harmony, sought not only to design the building, but also to equip the space around it. And the Baroque style embodied truly large-scale urban planning projects. The squares of Rome are excellent examples of the ensemble solution of urban development.
The first Renaissance ensemble in Rome, executed according to a single plan, was the decoration of the Capitoline Hill. By the middle of the 16th century, the historical center of the city was in complete desolation. The hill on which the temple of Jupiter was located in ancient times was devastated by barbarians. Pope Paul III - Alexander Farnese, entrusted the design of the Capitol Square to Michelangelo. The complex was supposed to be located on a hill. The architect used this feature to give the ensemble a solemn monumentality. To get to the square, you need to climb the majestic staircase-ramp - the Cordonate, which has very long and slightly inclined steps. The Dioscuri brothers, Castor and Polux, who are entering the square, are greeted by statues from an ancient Roman temple.
In the back of the square there is a three-storey Palazzo dei Senatori crowned with a tower - the Palace of the Senators, rebuilt by Michelangelo from the medieval town hall. Its façade is decorated with front staircases, turned to the sides. In the central niche, Michelangelo planned to place a colossal statue of Capitoline Jupiter. Instead, there is now a small statue of the goddess Roma, patroness of Rome. On either side of it are the lying figures of the Nile and the Tiber, the work of Michelangelo himself. To the right of the entrance of the Palazzo dei Conservatori is the Conservatory Palace. The building opposite is Palazzo Nuovo - New Palace, which houses the Capitoline Museum. Palazzo Nuovo is a mirror image of the Palace of the Conservatives.
In the center of the square, Michelangelo installed an antique equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius. This was the first example of placing a sculptural monument in the center of the square. Michelangelo placed the statue strictly on the main axis, thereby directing the movement of the person around the center of the square. The square is trapezoidal, wider at the Palazzo dei Senatori than at the entrance. This achieves a sense of scope, and the building in the depths seems more solemn. For the blind area of the square, Michelangelo used two colors. The dynamic spiral pattern seems to fly away from the center, and is contrasted with a calm planning solution. The area is unusual not only in shape, it is convex, in the middle it is higher than at the edges. And the monument in the center, and the drawing of the blind area, and the uneven surface, all impede rectilinear movement. A person must walk around the square, and during this movement it appears before him in all the diversity of its aspects. Architecture guides both the movement and the development of the senses.
One of the most significant and interesting urban development projects in Rome is associated with Piazza del Popolo - People's Square. The beginning of its arrangement dates back to the 16th century, and the final completion to the 19th. Now, the elliptical square is decorated with two fountains and an Egyptian obelisk from the 12th century BC. In the 17th century, three streets were built from the People's Square, straight as an arrow and converging at one point - the Flaminiev Obelisk. That is, the obelisk, as a kind of landmark, is visible from the opposite end of each of these streets. The beginning of the trilocation was marked by the construction in the 17th century by the architect Rainaldi of two churches - Santa Maria Miracoli and Santa Maria Montesanto. Built almost simultaneously, slightly different in plan and interiors, these churches have exactly the same facades. There are three churches dedicated to Our Lady on the People's Square, the third is Santa Maria del Popolo with two magnificent masterpieces by Caravaggio.
In Rome, a city with such an ancient architectural history, the shape of the square is often determined by the previous buildings. This is the area of Navona. This is a baroque square, located on the site of the ancient Stadium of Domitian. Some houses in the square were built from the ruins of the stadium, and from this the square got its oblong shape. Piazza Navona is decorated with three fountains, and its architectural center is the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone - St. Agnes in the Arena.
One of the most impressive squares in Rome is the square in front of St. Pera's Cathedral. This is the creation of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, he, like no one else, understood that the baroque is the art of the ensemble. In fact, this is an ensemble of two squares. The first one is adjacent to the cathedral, it is framed by galleries and has the shape of a trapezoid, expanding in depth. The second has the shape of an oval, it faces the city. The ellipse is encircled by colonnades, which consist of 284 Doric columns arranged in four rows. There are 140 statues of saints above them. At the symmetrical points of the oval there are fountains and an obelisk between them. The colonnades have an ideal semicircular shape, and this is easy to verify - if you approach one of the fountains, it will seem that the nearest colonnade consists of one row of columns. The general outline of the ensemble of the square resembles a key, recalling the words of Christ addressed to the Apostle Peter: "And I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven." Here you can feel the characteristic of the Baroque effect of being drawn into the depths of the architectural space.
