Piazza Navona - Meraviglie

What we are about to show you is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, one of the most famous squares, not only in the world, but especially in the Baroque. Here, emperors, popes, princes, but also ordinary people, and above all, have left their mark on the almost immortal artists. Here we are, at Piazza Navona. Here it is, in its majesty, in its solemnity, but also in its liveliness. Because, you see, here the clock of history has never stopped going on, since antiquity. And also, every day, you can see many people. A crowded square, of tourists, of travellers, of lovers of beauty. In fact, this is one of those places that welcomes you. And we, to be able to grasp the essence of this square, which perhaps represents the essence of Rome better than any other place, well, we came here at night, to find it surrounded by silence, and above all, surrounded by this sweet music of the water, which is not random. It also has a reason for being. But why is it called Piazza Navona? Well, to find out the origin, the reason for this name, you have to go back in time almost two thousand years, up to the Roman era, up to 86 AD, with an emperor, Domitian, who had an idea, that of creating a place where one could compete. One could compete, of course, with athletic competitions, but also with cultural competitions, poetry, singing, music. It was clearly an idea of ​​Greek style and inspiration, because this is the beauty of an individual, a beauty that is based not only on its physical appearance, but also on its intellect. And to create, let's say, a suitable place for these competitions, I decided to build what you see behind me, that is, even a stadium. The pre-chosen place as a seat is the Campo Marzio, that is, an area of ​​Rome that has always been reserved for military training, car races, gymnastic exercises, a kind of open-air gym. In fact, it is likely that even Caesar and Nero himself used this place to build wooden stadiums. But what Domitian raises has something more. It is the first and only example of a stadium in the wall of ancient Rome. We have now descended more than four meters deep, we are next to Piazza Navona, just beyond. Everything around us, the city continues to live, with its noise, its traffic. And you see, these are the imposing structures of the Domitian stadium, with these transverse pillars, and you can still see the steps used by the public to go up and see the shows. The thing that impresses the most is to see the bricks in their place, ordered, after so many centuries. And the thing that certainly strikes the most is to imagine that this structure is only a part, because all the rest of the stadium still exists, it is under the buildings, in the cellars of the houses that face Piazza Navona. And then, in a sense, we are walking on two eras, the Roman era and then the modern one. This place, which is visitable, can offer you an extraordinary vision, that of the stadium as it appeared at that time. 265 meters long, it could contain 20,000, 30,000 people, half of the Colosseum. And it appeared like this, like a kind of long iron horse, with parallel sides, a rounded part, half-circle, and another more straight, flat, even a little oblique. And you can see it very well, it is made up of two rows of arches. Here people crowded to go up to see the show, and four openings entered through it, visible in this beautiful model, which was made in the 1940s by Italo Gismondi, the same who then made that famous plastic of Rome, precisely in the Constantinian era. And then, what is surprising is that at the top, right here, there were so many statues, and these statues have been found. Some, the rest, many others have been destroyed, transformed into kicks in the Middle Ages, etc. But some have continued, so to speak, to live, in quotation marks. One in particular is that of Pasquino, it is located a short distance from Piazza Navona, and it was a tradition in the 15th century, that is, the tradition of hanging up posters with inscriptions, let's say, writings, certainly of criticism, a little chaotic, compared to the powerful of the time, and they were always inverted in Roman dialect. And this is an ancient tradition, that of making sonnets or, in any case, inverted compositions in Roman dialect, and the most famous heir, perhaps, is Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, an extraordinary Roman poet, who, right on Piazza Navona, dedicated a sonnet. What the emperor Domitian wanted, in short, was a stadium, a stadium for the races. In fact, the shape was very similar to that of the Circo Massimo, only that in the Circo Massimo there were races of chariots, of horses, there were gateways, then there was that central wall around which the chariots raced. Here, on the other hand, the space was open, because the races were athletic. Practically, there were races of running, of jumping, of throwing the javelin or the disc, shooting, fighting, and also races of poetic compositions. In short, it was a very Greek concept. In fact, race in Greek is called agon, and the Romans had just taken this term, and for the races they spoke of agones, and from here the name of the square derives, because in agones it became in Navona, and then Navona. The name of the square, therefore, still remembers today what was happening right beyond these walls. It is a past that continues to throb in a certain sense. Think that only in the 200 AD there began to be, let's say, different battles, in the Roman tradition, the battles of the gladiators, and just a little over a hundred years before the end of the empire, Constantine II, the emperor, said that this building was one of the most beautiful you could see in Rome. And then the end of the Roman Empire came, an end that also led to the ruin of this extraordinary building, depredated, considered a kind of cave of Travertine and Marmi, and then definitely ruined. But in 1477 everything changes. The Pope of the Sistine Chapel, Sixtus IV, decides to move the weekly market right here, to Piazza Navona. Usually it was held right at the foot of the Araceli, and therefore, in a certain sense, he operated what we could say is a re-qualification of the area. But right from 1477 to the middle of the 1800s, every week the market was held right here, the most important market in Rome. But to make this square famous and certainly illustrious, there were two very famous artists who set fire to the Baroque in Rome, Gian Lorenzo Bermini and Francesco Borromini. Two completely different people. Solare, Iracondo, arduous, but also very cordial, Bermini. Instead, gloomy, nasty, almost shy, Francesco Borromini, who, among other things, often wore dark clothing, a la Spagnola, as they were called then. And their interactions lit up the Baroque of Rome. The misfortune of one meant the misfortune of the other, and the setting of this marvellous square was a focal point of their clash, of their rivalry. And here is the Fountain of the Rivers, a masterpiece by Bermini, a symbol of the Baroque, but above all of his genius. Starting from this basin, so low that it looks like a drinking well, from the waters this monument seems to emerge, with these rocks and the famous four rivers, with these colossi, and at the top, almost in perfect balance, here is an obelisk, an obelisk that comes from antiquity, of Roman age, found on the Apia, and at the top, a dove with an olive branch, which is found, among other things, in the stem of the pamphlets, so at the same time, a symbol of power here in Rome, but also a symbol of peace. And taking a tour of this fountain is really equivalent to taking a tour of the world. Look, it starts with that lion, which from the 600s stands there, it seems almost ready to bounce, to hit, and then above there is a palm tree that is moved by the wind, a lion, a palm tree, we are in Africa, and in fact here is one of these colossi, four colossi that represent four rivers. This is the Nile, with the veiled head, this kind of veil is moving a little, because the sources of the Nile were not known, it continues, it enters another part of the world, consider that in the 600s not all the continents were known, only a part of these large extensions of land was known, Australia was unknown, but not only the lands were unknown, but also the animals. In fact, we are right next to a kind of dragon, a kind of sea snake, and down there, at the bottom, it has a fantastic creature, it was called in the 600s Taitu, but in reality we know it very well, it is a trap, a very docile animal, simple, even small, but at the time it looked like a monster. Consider that it is the time when you see those cards with monsters coming out of the sea, everything still has to be known. So let's continue our journey around the world through sculptures. It must be said that these four colossi were conceived, designed with drawings by Bernini, but then he had them made by his students, by his collaborators, because he said it was easy to make them on the basis of drawings. Instead, he took care of the rocks that came out of the artistic canons and he wanted to give the imprint to these rocks. Let's continue our journey. We saw Africa with the Nile, here we are in America, because if we talk about Armadillo, clearly we are on the American continent, and here is this famous statue that represents the Rio de la Plata and it looks like an indigenous person, an Indian, if you will, of an inhabitant of the American continent. And the legend says that he raised his hand, almost in a sign of horror, because a work made by Bernini criticized in this way this facade of the church designed by Borromini. But this is a legend, because when La Fontana was made, and therefore also this statue, the church had not yet been made. In reality, this man raises his arm in a sign of terror, because right on the side where I am now, the sun is setting. We are in the West, and for an indigenous person, to see the sun setting over the horizon, well, it's the equivalent of amazement, fear, horror. And next to it, you see figs of India. So we continue to be on the American continent. Next to it, however, there is a horse. This is the only sculpture made by Bernini. You find yourself in front of his genius. And then we continue. This is the Danube, so we are in Europe. We continue our tour and find another colossus. This colossus, on the other hand, is the Gange. And it has a paddle, because the Gange was navigable, so we arrived in India, in Asia, if you will. And this movement of water is essential. It's like a rock that moves. The rock already has movement, but water is essential in the Baroque, in the fountains, and also in this fountain, with its noise, with its movement, it gives life, in this kind of sculpture upwards. But this is not the only wonder of this square. There is another one, another that is right behind me. And that's where we're going now.