page_title: Borgo Vecchio (Rome)
section_title: Renaissance
hierarchical_section_title: Borgo Vecchio (Rome) / History / Renaissance
caption_attribution_description: English: The Palazzo Cesi in Borgo before 1939
context_page_description: Borgo Vecchio, also named in the Middle Ages Via Sancta, Carriera Sancta or Carriera Martyrum was a road in the city of Rome, Italy, important for historical and architectural reasons. The road was destroyed together with the surrounding quartier in 1936-37 due to the construction of Via della Conciliazione.
context_section_description: In the late 15th century, after the beginning of the Renaissance, two other roads leading to Saint Peter from Ponte Sant'Angelo were built: Borgo Sant'Angelo, also known as via Sistina after Pope Sixtus IV (r. 1471-84), running just south of the Passetto (the covered passage linking Vatican with the Castle), and Borgo Nuovo, also known as Via Alessandrina, after Pope Alexander VI Borgia (r. 1492-1503), who erected it. The construction of these two roads solved the traffic problems between the city and Saint Peter, causing in turn the neglection of Borgo Vecchio, which was relegated to the role of a local road. The street, however, was bricked up in 1474 by Sixtus IV.
  Due to its diminished importance, the road was less touched than the nearby Borgo Nuovo by the building flurry during the high renaissance: however, some new buildings were erected in that period also there.
  In front of the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, Antonio da Sangallo the younger erected between Borgo Vecchio and Borgo Nuovo the Palazzo delle Prigioni di Borgo, originally designed as home of Protonotary apostolic Giovanni dal Pozzo, and later converted into jail. The palace was demolished in 1937, but its portal was reused in a new building erected by Marcello Piacentini at Via della Conciliazione n 15. 
  Another important building was a palazzetto at n. 121-22 erected by Pope Gregory XIII (r. 1572-85) as a residence for the staff of the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia; it had a rusticated ground floor, windows on the piano nobile with alternate triangular and curved tympanums and an arched attic. It was restored and doubled in 1789 by Giuseppe Valadier on the initiative of Monsignor Francesco Albizzi, precettore of the hospital. The building until its demolition showed above the two doors the coats of arms of Albizzi and the Pope. Its lines (but not the coats of arms) were reproduced in the 4-storey building located at Via della Conciliazione n. 7 at the corner with Via dell'Ospedale.
  Not far from piazza Scossacavalli, on the right side of the road, lay the oratory of San Sebastiano a Scossacavalli, a dependency of the nearby church of San Giacomo, whose construction began in 1600 and whose façade remained unfinished. 
  Behind San Sebastiano the road led to Piazza Scossacavalli, whose southern side hosted the palazzo erected by Baccio Pontelli on behalf of Cardinal Domenico della Rovere, nephew of Sixtus IV, now part of the south side of Via della Conciliazione. The house between Borgo Vecchio and the southwest corner of the piazza hosted in the 15th century two deposed queens: Catherine of Bosnia, which lived there in 1477-78, and Charlotte of Cyprus. 
  Proceeding further towards Saint Peter, it lay the house of Gaspare Torello, archiater of Pope Alexander VI. At this point, on the south side of the road, in 1565 was built the Palazzo Serristori. 
  Further west, on the north side, the Cybo, a noble family which reached the papal seat with Pope Innocent VIII (r. 1484-92), erected their houses at the end of the 15th century. In front of them Francesco Armellini Medici, cardinal of San Callisto, let build its palace, which was later bought by the Cesi family. This palace, rebuilt in 1575 by Martino Longhi the Elder, still exists, although mutilated, along via della Conciliazione. 
  The last buildings on the south side of the road before its end on piazza Rusticucci were the church of San Lorenzo in Piscibus ("St. Lawrence in the fish market", still existing, although stripped of its baroque superstructures and decorations and hidden in the yard of the southern propylaea of Saint Peter's Square) and the Palazzo Alicorni, a severe Renaissance palace demolished in 1931 to delimit the border of Vatican City after the signing of the Lateran treaties. Named at the beginning of 19th century Palazzo della Gran Guardia (or della Guardia Reale) after the Guard which mounted daily to protect the pope when he was in the Vatican Palace, the edifice has been rebuilt along Borgo Santo Spirito 10 years after his demolition.
caption: Palazzo Cesi in its original form with 12 windows and the angular tower facing Borgo Vecchio, around 1900
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "117", "Image YResolution": "117", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Centimeter", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2003:12:01 15:24:31", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6632", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "342", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "366"}