The Corso emerges onto the splendid oval Piazza del Popolo (“People’s Square”), which is monumental without being intimidating. Over a period of 300 years, it was constructed as the ceremonial entryway to Rome, and, although its elements are diverse in style and in age (13th century bce–19th century ce), a remarkable harmony prevails. In 1561 the Porta del Popolo, the medieval gate in the city wall, was rebuilt. Ninety-four years later its inner face was redone by Bernini for the grand entrance of Queen Christina, who had abandoned the Protestant throne of Sweden for the hospitality of Catholic Rome. In 1589 Pope Sixtus V punctuated the piazza’s centre with an obelisk (13th century bce) brought by the emperor Augustus from Heliopolis in Egypt to the Circus Maximus.

The church next to the gate, Santa Maria del Popolo, which stood for centuries before the piazza existed and gives its name to the area, was founded in 1227 to replace a 1099 chapel built over what was presumed to be the emperor Nero’s tomb. It was replaced in 1472–77 by the present-day church, further disguised on the piazza frontage by a Neoclassical facade. The interior is fraught with the works of great Renaissance and Baroque artists. The main chapel has tombs by Andrea Sansovino and frescoes by Pinturicchio. In the Cerasi Chapel are Caravaggio’s The Conversion of St. Paul and The Crucifixion of St. Peter. The Chigi Chapel, unique for the early 16th century in being a miniature church, was designed by Raphael. Bernini sculpted two of the four prophets in the corners.

At the opposite end of the piazza stand “twin” churches (1662) framing the entrance to three streets. The streets were there first, so the churches were ingeniously squeezed into awkward, different-sized plots between them. Santa Maria in Montesanto, on the east, has an oval plan and dome, while Santa Maria dei Miracoli, on the narrower plot toward the Tiber on the west, has a round dome. Carlo Rainaldi, the architect, turned both facades slightly inward to frame the welcoming parades that would proceed up the Corso between the two churches. One of the streets, the Via del Babuino, was one of many built by Sixtus V.

Piazza di Spagna

Running roughly southeast from the Piazza del Popolo, the Via del Babuino leads to the Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Square). An obelisk there was erected in 1857 to commemorate the 1854 promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The fountain there, the Barcaccia (“Scow”), is fed by the Acqua Vergine, an aqueduct of 19 bce, which escaped Gothic destruction because it was mainly underground and which was repaired in 1447. When the fountain was planned in the early 1600s by Bernini (believed to be Pietro, though some have attributed the work to his son, Gian Lorenzo), there was insufficient water pressure for spouting jets, so the shape of the Barcaccia was conceived: an ancient marble boat foundering endearingly in its marble bath.

The most striking architectural element in the piazza—indeed, one of the most striking in all of Rome—is the renowned Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti, known as the Spanish Steps (or Stairs). The staircase is a rare case of the failure of French cultural propaganda: although they are called the Spanish Steps—the Spanish Embassy moved onto the square in the 17th century—they are unequivocally French. First suggested by the French about the time the Spanish Embassy was being installed, the idea was approved by papal authorities 100 years later and paid for with a legacy from a French diplomat. The stairs ascend to the French-built church and convent of Trinità dei Monti, begun in 1495 with a gift from the visiting French king Charles VIII and restored by Louis XVIII.

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The English novelist Charles Dickens described the steps as thronged with unengaged “artist’s models” in regional costume; they are still crowded with loiterers in distinctive dress from all over the world. Indeed, since the end of the 16th century the Piazza di Spagna has been a stopping place for tourists as well as a destination for artists and writers. Young lords on the Grand Tour of Europe left their heavy touring coaches for refitting in a side street still called Via delle Carozze (“Carriage Street”). The English poet John Keats died in a house on the piazza that is now a museum. A number of artists—those who have not been shouldered out by galleries and ultra-modish shops—still retain studios among the walled gardens of the nearby Via Margutta.

Via Vittorio Veneto

A bit farther east, both Romans and visitors alike continue to congregate at the café tables ranged on the plane-tree-shaded sidewalks of the Via Vittorio Veneto (Via Veneto), a street of grand hotels, offices, and government buildings. Laid out in 1887 between the Villa Borghese gardens (to the north) and the Piazza Barberini (to the south), it runs downhill in a dogleg shape. During the 15 or so years of peak prosperity in Italian filmmaking, about 1950–65, international film celebrities abounded. Although it has lost much of the glitter of its heyday—evocatively portrayed by Federico Fellini in his film La dolce vita (1960; “The Sweet Life”)—the street remains a fashionable thoroughfare, animated until long after midnight.