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Piazza and Porta Del Popolo |
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written
by joeplumb / 10.12.2005 |
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Conclusion |
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The Porta del Popolo is rarely used anymore. It is cut off from traffic and the only group that goes near it is the Angels and Demons tour group. The same exists in the piazza. Cars circle it, making it a giant roundabout, but it not the entrance it was.
Modern visitors rarely see the piazza as a destination. More frequently it is a place to enjoy the view while going from place to place. This can be seen by the lack of information of the piazza in guides to Rome after 1850. It is a space that’s over that hill; it had its time, but that time has long passed.
So why do we look at it? Well, as tourists we really don’t, but as students of Baroque architecture we must. The Piazza and Porta del Popolo are excellent examples of how the piazzas of Rome were set up in the first place. It was a place of importance because of the entrance, and it was defined because of it. Because of this importance the piazza and porta were developed as an examples of the ideal. This is exactly what Leo X felt in 1518 when he built Via Ripetta, he was building on this concept of an important entrance in the porta. This idea continued as long as the Porta del Popolo existed as a porta, but that time has long since passed, leaving it, and the piazza, undefined.
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