Walking along Via della Lungara
April 1996
Sergio Caggia/Paul Gwynne
© NERONE the insider's guide

Although it is not one of the most pictoresque streets in Rome, the Via della Lungara has a number of points of interest apart from the well known landmarks of the Villa Farnesina and the Galleria Corsini. Let us have a look at just two. The itinerary starts at number 19a-20 Via di Santa Dorotea where a 15th-century house (probably built over a pre-existing medieval house) known as the Casa della Fornarina (house of the baker-girl) is located. This is the house where, it is said, the Baker's daughter painted by Raphael lived. The painting can be seen in the Barbarini Gallery here in Rome. We don't know whether this is true or not, but I don't see any reason for not to believing this Roman myth. From here lets walk to the gate, the Porta Settimiana, which was built by Pope Alexander VI in 1498 and later restored by Pius VI in 1798, walk under the arch and enter the Via della Lungara. Via della Lungara Pope Julius II (1503-1512) had the Via della Lungara constructed to run parallel with the Via Giulia (also built by the same pope and named after him) located on the opposite side of the river. The project, by Bramante, was to include the two roads and two bridges one of which, the Ponte Sixtus the southern extremity of Via Giulia, had been built by Julius' uncle Pope Sixtus IV for the jubilee of 1475. The other at the northern end was not built because of the death of Pope Julius II. The busy Via della Lungara today looks dark and is not pleasent to walk but it hides some real treasures that make the walk worth-while. Lets walk past the Palazzo Torlonia that once housed a magnificent collection of art treasures until they were secretly sold off and the palace divided into private apartments and go straight to the Via Corsini and the entrance to the Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Garden The story of the garden started in the 13th century when (between 1277 and 1280) Pope Nicolas III decided to cultivate herbs in an area opposite the Vatican Gardens called the viridarium. The botanical gardens, in fact, originate from the use made by the monks of medicinal herbs. Cultivating beautiful gardens with a large variety of common and rare plants became a competative fashion among the Italian noblity at that time. Around 1500 the educational importance of these gardens was realised and gardens were planted for use by the Universities. The University of Rome La Sapienza (which was then situated along Corso Rinascimento) had its own botanical garden in 1660 when Pope Alexander VII gave the university some of the gardens of the Convent of San Pietro in Montorio. This botanical garden became one of the most important in Europe with over 8000 species of plants. Within a short time it was moved twice before finally reaching the location it has today. On a typical Roman spring day it is a great pleasure a walk among the plants that grow in the 11 hectares of the Garden...unless, of course, you suffer from hay fever! In the past 300 years the Garden has undergone many changes and seen many different arrangments (only the highest part of the gardens that climbs the Gianiculo hill always remain covered with bushes). More than any other part of Rome this area witnessed the long exile (over 30 years, 1659-1689) of Queen Christina of Sweden as she lived in the Palazzo Corsini. She was not only an illustrous guest of the Eternal City, but also an active and beloved figure protagonist of the cultural and artistic events of her time. For her arrival in Rome Pope Alexander VII commissioned Bernini to redecorate Porta del Popolo, the gate that opens on the Via Flaminia and which still bears the inscription to welcome the exiled Queen to Rome Felici Fausto Ingressui (For a Happy and Blessed Entrance) and the date 1655. The work of the architect Ferdinando Fuga (commissioned by the Corsini in 1700) can be found in the garden. He designed the Triton Fountain and the Monumental Stairway. Of particular interest are the Serra Corsini (beginning of 19th century) and the Serra delle Succulente (over 700 species of succulents from all over the world) but probably the most interesting part of the whole complex is the Giardino dei Semplici, (the garden of simple herbs from the Latin medicamentum simplex). These are the herbs and plants that have been used since time immemorial as cures and remedies and are responsible for the entire story. Hostaria It is certainly good idea to stop for a lunch of pure Roman cusine at a characteristic Hostaria along Via della Lungara, no. 41a. There is not a large choice of courses, but the food is good and inexpensive. This is called da Giovanni. Saint Onofrio Our itinerary concludes at the end of the Salita di Sant'Onofrio where a flight of stairs leads to the church of Sant'Onofrio (open only on Sunday mornings 10am-1pm). It was built in the first half of the 15th century, by blessed Nicola da Forca Palena, one of the hermits of Saint Jerome, as a small chapel in honour of the hermit saint Onofrio, in a quiet place on the slope of the Janiculum. This lonely hermitage was gradually enlarged and later became a titular church of the college of cardinals in 1516 by order of Pope Leo X. A short flight of stairs leads to the small square in front of the church where, on both sides, rise a nine-arched arcade and, in the middle there is a small fountain, the younger sister of that opposite Villa Medici, the French Academy, on the Pincio. Masterpieces by Antoniazzo, Peruzzi, and the Carracci, are to found inside the Church, while in the hall of the first chapel on the right, we find a monument to Torquato Tasso by De Fabrio. Nowadays, among the ruins of a small amphiteatre on the Janiculum we can still see the famous oak tree under the shade of which the poet, who died in the adjoining convent, would sit. Visitors can enter the rooms where Tasso lived and see the tomb where monks first laid to rest the poet of the Gerusalemme Liberata, who died the day before he was to have been crowned poet laureate in the Palazzo Senatorio on the Campidoglio. An atrium on the right of the renaissance portico leads onto the pretty rectangular 15th-century cloister with an unususally well preserved frescoes depicting events from the life of Saint Onofrio, by Cavalier d'Arpino and Vespasiano Strada (1600).