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28-491: The Medusa Rondanini was formerly exhibited in Palazzo Rondanini in the upper end of via del Corso , Rome , where it was overlooked by the great art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann , perhaps distracted by Michelangelo 's Rondanini Pietà in the same collection. It was much admired, nevertheless, by Goethe , who was struck by its "unspeakable anguished stare of death" and said of it, when first bringing it to

56-459: A Roman copy of a classical work of the fifth century BC, a model attributed to one or another Athenian sculptor of the age of Phidias . Alternatively, it may have been modeled after a classicising Hellenistic work of the late fourth century BC. If it is of the fifth century, Janer Danforth Belson has pointed out, it is the first of the "beautiful gorgoneion" type to appear in Greek art by more than

84-518: A century, and unparalleled in any contemporaneous representation of the Medusa head. Martin Robertson , following Furtwängler's attribution to Phidias, remarked that it would be unlikely for the beautiful face of the Medusa to be juxtaposed with the beautiful face of the goddess, whose gorgoneion retained its fearful archaic appearance. Janer Danforth Belson has made a case for its model to have been

112-555: A design for a ‘fountain palace’ in the piazza, a palace with a large fountain at the base of the façade, but this precursor of the Trevi Fountain was not built. The Corso was also tied to Alexander's intentions to impress significant dignitaries paying official visits to the city. The Porta del Popolo was reworked and the Piazza del Popolo cleared. The two Baroque churches facing onto the Piazza marked perpectivised vistas along

140-466: A ditch, in front of the wall, as a means to effectively heighten the wall. This second iteration of the wall containing Grotta Oscura tuff is dated by Livy to have been completed in 378 BC . Along part of the topographically weaker Northern perimeter was an agger , a defensive ramp of earth that was built up along the inside of the Servian Wall. This effectively thickened the wall and also gave

168-702: A generally north–south direction. To the north, it links the northern entrance gate to the city, the Porta del Popolo and its piazza, the Piazza del Popolo , to the heart of the city at the Piazza Venezia , at the base of the Capitoline Hill . At the Piazza del Popolo, Via del Corso is framed by two Baroque churches, Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto . Along the street are: From

196-491: A main street in the historical centre of Rome . It is straight in an area otherwise characterized by narrow meandering alleys and small piazzas . Considered a wide street in ancient times, the Corso is approximately 10 metres wide, and it only has room for two lanes of traffic and two narrow sidewalks. The northern portion of the street is a pedestrian area. The length of the street is roughly 1.5 kilometres. The Corso runs in

224-537: A welfare centre linked to feeding the populace at Santa Maria in Via Lata and granaries at its southern end. During the Middle Ages the Via Lata, the present day Corso, effectively denoted a boundary, to the city which mainly developed to the south and east of it. Also for this reason here was built in 1339 the hospital San Giacomo degli Incurabili , later rebuilt in the today form. From the fifteenth century,

252-418: Is an ancient Roman defensive barrier constructed around the city of Rome in the early 4th century BC. The wall was built of volcanic tuff and was up to 10 m (33 ft) in height in places, 3.6 m (12 ft) wide at its base, 11 km (6.8 mi) long, and is believed to have had 16 main gates, of which only one or two have survived, and enclosed a total area of 246 hectares (610 acres). In

280-608: Is a popular place for the passeggiata , the evening stroll for the populace to be seen and to see others. It is also an important shopping street for tourists and locals alike. The history of Via del Corso began in 220 BC when Gaius Flaminius censor built a new road to link Rome with the Adriatic Sea in the north. The starting point of the road was Porta Fontinalis , a gate in the Servian city walls near present-day Piazza Venezia. In its first miles Via Flaminia cut through

308-519: The Via del Babuino to the left, the Via di Ripetta to the right and at the centre, the straightened and regularized Via del Corso leading to the Piazza Venezia. This complex of three streets is known as Tridente . [REDACTED] Media related to Via del Corso (Rome) at Wikimedia Commons Servian Wall The Servian Wall ( Latin : Murus Servii Tullii ; Italian : Mura Serviane )

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336-423: The 3rd century AD it was superseded by the construction of the larger Aurelian Walls as the city of Rome grew beyond the boundary of the Servian Wall. The wall is named after the sixth Roman King , Servius Tullius . The literary tradition stating that there was some type of defensive wall or earthen works that encircled the city of Rome dating to the 6th century BC has been found to be false. The main extent of

364-522: The Hadrianic era was discovered on the right side of the road between Via delle Muratte and Via delle Convertite. With the building of the Aurelian Walls (AD 271–75) the whole area was incorporated into the city of Rome, and a new city gate (Porta Flaminia) was erected at present-day Piazza del Popolo where the road left the urban territory. From around the year 600 AD, the Corso accommodated

392-590: The Roman frontier in the 3rd century AD, Emperor Aurelian had the larger Aurelian Walls built to protect the city of Rome. Several sections of the Servian Wall are still visible in various locations around the city of Rome. The largest section is preserved outside the Termini Station , the main railway station in Rome – including a section in a McDonald's dining area at the station. Another notable section on

420-551: The Servian Wall was built in the early 4th century BC, during what is known as the Roman Republic . The Servian Wall was originally built from large blocks of Cappellaccio tuff (a volcanic rock made from ash and rock fragments that are ejected during a volcanic eruption) that was quarried from the Alban Hills volcanic complex. This initial wall of Cappellaccio tuff was partially damaged and in need of restoration by

448-499: The Via del Corso became a fashionable street for new or renovated churches and new palaces for the nobility. However, by the mid seventeenth century, the street remained a mixture of different scales and architectural styles, some unfashionable, a number of churches lacked facades and some buildings were a combination of structures from different periods or were simply incomplete. The lack of regularity and decorum of this principal street of

476-695: The attention of art historians in 1786, that "the mere knowledge that such a work could be created and still exists in the world makes me twice the person I was." When Antonio Canova made a marble Perseus with the Head of Medusa (1798-1801), to take the place of the Apollo Belvedere sent to Napoleonic Paris, it was the Medusa Rondanini that served as the model for the gorgon's head in Perseus' outstretched hand. The Medusa Rondanini may be

504-539: The central gateway of this arch effectively reduced the street width to almost half. Alexander took a particular interest in regularizing the Piazza Colonna , about halfway along the Corso. In 1659, his family, the Chigi , bought the incomplete Palazzo Aldobrandini, bordering the piazza and the Corso, and rebuilt as Palazzo Chigi . Around the same time, the leading painter of the time, Pietro da Cortona , developed

532-412: The city meant that it became a main urban priority of Pope Alexander VII . In pursuing the nobility to complete their properties, he met with limited success; some just did not have the funds, some were content to avoid the issue by continuing to reside on their country estates In the case of unfinished churches, he encouraged ecclesiastical colleagues to act as sponsors. Where he met with greater success

560-531: The defenders of Rome a base to stand while repelling an attack. The wall was also outfitted with defensive war engines, including catapults . The Servian Wall was maintained through the end of the Late Republic and into the Roman Empire . By this time, Rome had already begun to outgrow the original boundaries of the Servian Wall. The Servian Wall became unnecessary as Rome became well protected by

588-582: The ever-expanding strength of the field armies of the Republic and of the later Empire. As the city continued to grow and prosper, Rome was essentially unwalled for the first three centuries of the Empire. Expanding domestic structures simply incorporated existing wall sections into their foundations, an example of which survives in the Auditorium of Maecenas . When German tribes made further incursions along

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616-467: The fifteenth century, the road served as the racetrack during the Roman Carnival for an annual running of riderless horses called the "corsa dei barberi", which is the source for the name Via del Corso . Following the assassination of King Umberto I in 1900, the road was renamed Corso Umberto I . In 1944, it became Corso del Popolo and two years later reverted to Corso . Today, the Corso

644-456: The gorgoneion on a gilt-bronze aegis that was an ex-voto of Antiochus IV and was hung on the south retaining wall of the Acropolis of Athens about 170 BC, where it was noted by Pausanias in the late second century AD. Six other ancient replicas of the same prototype, apparently a bronze, have been recorded, none of them of this quality. Via del Corso The Via del Corso is

672-509: The late 390s (either because of rapid disintegration or damage sustained after the Sack of Rome in 390 BC ). These reparations were done using the superior Grotta Oscura tuff which had become available after the Romans had defeated Veii in the 390s. This tuff was quarried by the vanquished Veientines. In addition to the tuff blocks, some sections of the structure incorporated a deep fossa , or

700-563: The plain between the Tiber and the eastern hills in a straight line. The Field of Mars , as it was called, was at the time used as a training ground and pasture. Numerous tombs must have lined the road similarly to the Appian Way . The open area outside the city walls went through a process of urbanization during the late Republican and early imperial age. The city gradually spread towards north and monumental public buildings were built along

728-466: The road. A set of dynastic monuments around the Mausoleum of Augustus was the most important development in the formerly unpopulated northern section of the district. The ancient name of Via Lata (which means Broad Way ) denotes that the street was considered wide, especially in comparison to neighbouring lanes but at three places along its length, it became narrower due to triumphal arches. The first

756-489: Was over imposing order on the street by empowering the maestri di strade , the municipal body in charge of streets, to clear, align and regularize the street . This meant the properties could be acquired and demolished if necessary, projections from buildings could be removed and others added to so as to maintain a consistent line of street frontage. He even had the ancient triumphal arch, the Arco di Portogallo, demolished because

784-991: Was the Arcus Novus erected by Diocletian in 303–304, then the Arch of Claudius (AD 51–52) stood further ahead (the Aqua Virgo aqueduct crossed the road on top of it) and the third was later known as the Arco di Portogallo . The most important ancient monuments along Via Lata were Aurelian 's Temple of the Sun, the Ara Pacis , the Ustrinum Domus Augustae , the Ara Providentiae and the Column of Marcus Aurelius . A densely populated residential quarter from

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