Get Ready for Rome

The Street of Reconciliation, the Via della Conciliazione, honors an agreement that welcomed the Church back into Italian society and recognized it as a legitimate sovereign state. Along with the contrasting statue of Giovanni Bruno, it raises the questions of the relationship between Church and State, and Reason and Revelation.

My reading of the statue of Bruno is influenced by the speech which inaugurated it, which was given by Giovanni Bovio.

The Via della Conciliazione is also an example of a particular kind of street: streets that take aim at something to rivet our attention on them.

A dozen streets converge on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and put it in squarely in view. The Benjamin Franklin Parkway takes direct aim at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Mall in Washington DC also uses streets, paths, and bridges to call attention to its monumental architecture.

The channeling effect of the Street of the Reconciliation in Rome is more obvious than in most other cases. But there are also other cases in Rome. The Via Nazionale has large “targets” at both of its ends. There is a “trident” of streets that converge on the obelisk in Piazza del Popolo.

In facts, the obelisks in Rome are generally placed in relation to streets, or streets created to show off existing obelisks. Pope Sixtus V erected four obelisks in four years, from 1586-89. Three of them were aligned with streets from the get-go; the fourth was not. This is the one in front of St. Peter’s, and Mussolini added the street of reconciliation to show it off, too and, of course, the basilica that stood behind it.

As for Rome’s most central street, the Via del Corso, it had a focus but not much to focus on. The new Italy took advantage of this opportunity and built the huge and boastful Monument to Victor Emmanuel the Second.

The Bruno statue in effect declared ongoing war against the Roman Catholic Church and thus represented the anticlerical sentiment that helped to fuel the revolution that created modern Italy; but the next sixty years brought new circumstances, interests, and ideas, and both Italy and the Church grew ready to settle their differences. They did so especially in the Lateran Pacts, which normalized relations. To celebrate this new state of affairs, Rome built a new boulevard the Via della Conciliazione or “Street of Reconciliation,” and its meaning and its architecture are both important for Rome.  

To find, we must seek, but what should we be looking for in Rome? I here propose that you keep your eyes peeled for evidence of various kinds of strife as you walk the charming streets of the Eternal City. I offer a preliminary list to get you started. 

The Statue of Giordano Bruno was erected not to add to the considerable charm of its surroundings in the Campo de’ Fiori but to accuse the popes of cruelty and injustice. The statue thus marked a deep change in the attitudes of the ever-changing Eternal City.  But was this change permanent?

Why we need to get ready for Rome before we find ourselves in the midst of Rome’s chaos and how to organize this chaos on the basis of Rome’s two most important transformations, from Pagan to Christian and from Catholic to Modern.

Help stamp out uninformed travel and Get Ready for Rome! This trailer explains who we are and how we hope to do this, with the help of our website at getreadyforrome.com.