Via Giulia, the Renaissance highway

Via Giulia, the Renaissance highway of Rome

Via Giulia takes his name from the pope who designed it, Julius II and it's to me the most beautiful and pictoresque street of Rome. It consists i one km in a straight line, planned to be the urban planning masterpiece of the city as an exquisite example of the renewal of Rome by the Popes.

Vasari, describing the project wrote: "The pope was determined to place in Strada Giulia, which was under Bramante's direction, all the offices and administrative seats of power of Rome in one place, for the convenience of those who had business to do there, having been until then constantly much inconvenience". In one word: modernity.

Now days via Giulia it's still as the Pope wanted it but probably quieter, with few cars, some elegant antique shops, and has a lot to offer for a curious visitor. Friday 9th of march we will stroll through the "strada di Giulio" with our eyes wide open to observe its facades and portals, fountains and bridges.

Our plan:
We will meet on the Renaissance bridge Ponte Sisto, where our walk will start. Along the way we will be observing huge palazzi an admire pictresque fountains and elegant facades while some curious Marble stone masks, skulls and falcons will be accompanying us. Our first sop will be the only church built by Raphael, a hidden gem: sant’Eligio. Later we will enter the so-called Sistine chapel of the Counterreformation, the Oratorio del Gonfalone. Fully painted by Michelangelo’s pupils the Oratorio is one of the places where the Opera was born.

The walk will end on the piazza d’Oro, the square of Gold, where we will break into the the national church of the Florentines, San Giovanni dei Fiorentini to seek for baroque crypt hidden under the altar: the Faloconieri’s crypt, deigned by the chess master architect Francesco Borromini. To end joyfully acoffé in a bar located where once was Raphael's atelier!