monumental stairs

The monumental. Rome, the grandest of Italian hill towns, has an abundance of stairs unequaled anywhere in the world. A complicated topography, and a populace with an insatiable appetite for pomp, spurred architects to devise panoramic staircases for social and mercantile activities.

---Giovanni Battista Piranesi Italian (Mogliano, nr. Mestre, Italy 1720 - 1778 Rome, Italy) The Smaller Harbor, called the Porto di Ripetta Original Language Title: Veduta del Porto di Ripetta---click image for source...

—Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Italian (Mogliano, nr. Mestre, Italy 1720 – 1778 Rome, Italy)
The Smaller Harbor, called the Porto di Ripetta
Original Language Title: Veduta del Porto di Ripetta—click image for source…

The Piranese engraving above portrays the busy Ripetta, the old harbor on the Tiber., built at the beginning of the eighteenth century to the plans of Alessandro Specci. Unfortunately the stagelike setting has long since been sacrificed to regulation of the river.

The Scala di Spagna, below, is far more than a stairway in the accepted sense of the word. It is a civic forum, a salone, a promenade., and only incidentally a passage from the Piazza di Spagna to the church of SS. Trinita dei Monti. It is so ingeniously designed that few people remark on its asymetry. The runs and landings, two rather inappropriate terms for these cascades of steps, are world apart from our moving carpets and escalators intended to transport inert humans like so many parcels on a conveyer belt.

---View of Piazza di Spagna: in the foreground there is the Fontana della Barcaccia, beyond the staircase an obelisk and the Church of Trinità dei Monti, Rome, 1900 ca., glass plate, silver salt gelatin---click image for source...

—View of Piazza di Spagna: in the foreground there is the Fontana della Barcaccia, beyond the staircase an obelisk and the Church of Trinità dei Monti, Rome, 1900 ca., glass plate, silver salt gelatin—click image for source…

Like many another Roman landmark, the Piazza del Campidoglio is a walk-up. Access to this fine Renaissance square and its buildings is provided by five staircases some climbing from the street level and some descending from neighboring heights.

---A View of The Piazza Del Campidoglio, Rome Art Print by Roman School---click image for source...

—A View of The Piazza Del Campidoglio, Rome
Art Print by Roman School—click image for source…

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