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Ettore Roesler Franz
and Bygone Rome
Borgo Angelico


· 1 ·
via dell'Arco di San Marco
and
via Giulio Romano


via dell'Arco di San Marco

via Giulio Romano




the parts in green no longer exist and form one large square;
other buildings now stand in place of the purple area
The first two photographs are so different from the painted views that one could barely tell that the featured subjects are the same, despite the standpoint they were taken from is the same.

Via dell'Arco di San Marco and via Giulio Romano (respectively, a and b in the old map on the left) were two parallel streets that ran between Capitolium Hill (red dot in the map), the see of Rome's administrators, and piazza San Marco. The latter was named after the nearby ancient basilica of St.Mark. Since the early 1900s, the square was renamed piazza Venezia. Here the Venetian pope Paul II had his family palace built. It consisted of two separate buildings: Palazzo Venezia and the smaller Palazzetto Venezia, which stood on the western side and at the bottom of piazza San Marco respectively.

From 1885 to 1911, a huge memorial of king Victor Emanuel II, the monarch who unified Italy, was built by the Capitolium. Piazza San Marco was considerably enlarged by taking down a whole district (i.e. the parts shown in colour in the map above), not to obstruct the view over the new monument. The same Palazzetto Venezia, dating to the mid 1400s, was disassembled and faithfully rebuilt 50 m (or yards) off the original spot (red arrow). The square, which the works almost turned into an esplanade, over three times its original size, was renamed piazza Venezia.

Both via dell'Arco di San Marco [1] and via Giulio Romano [6] ended with an arch [2] that was part of an aerial passageway providing a connection to the Capitolium for Palazzetto Venezia, the building whose back [3] ran along one side of via dell'Arco di San Marco.

Near the building, a number of old houses formed a small district [4], overlooked by the dome of the church called Santissimo Nome di Maria [5]. The other twin church visible in the pictures was completely covered by the houses, as well as the tall Trajan's Column.

Via Giulio Romano pointed towards the same direction, parallel to the previous street, but ran by the base of the Capitolium Hill; it started by the church of St.Rita, running up to the arch, where it changed name into Macel de' Corvi [7] ("Crow slaughterhouse", likely after the sign of a butcher's workshop), where in the 16th century the famous Michelangelo Buonarroti dwelt. Prior to 1870, via Giulio Romano was called via della Pedacchia, after the name of a rich family who owned a building in the same street, now no longer standing, as the rest of the district.

Today the area where the old district stood is but one vast square, overlooked by the gigantic memorial, and no trace is left of the two streets where Roesler Franz sat with his brushes.




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