Piazza del Popolo Rome, Carlo Rainaldi Buildings, Via Del Corso Public Space, Photos, Design, Picture

Piazza del Popolo Roma : Architecture

Historic Public Space & Buildings, Italy – design by Carlo Rainaldi, architect

page updated Sep 19, 2017

Piazza del Popolo

Architect: Carlo Rainaldi

This impressive civic space is dominated by the twin churches to the south.

Location: top end (north) of the Via Del Corso, north of city centre

This is a large urban square in Rome, just north of the city centre. It can be visited midway between St Peters/Vatican and the Roman Forum/centre of town. The Piazza del Popolo name in modern Italian literally means “People’s Square”, but historically it derives from the poplars (populus in Latin, pioppo in Italian) after which the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in the northeast corner of the piazza, takes its name.

The piazza lies inside the northern gate in the Aurelian Walls, once the Porta Flaminia of ancient Rome, and now called the Porta del Popolo. This was the starting point of the Via Flaminia, the road to Ariminum (modern-day Rimini) and the most important route to the north.

At the same time, before the age of railroads, it was the traveller’s first view of Rome upon arrival. For centuries, the piazza was a place for public executions, the last of which took place in 1826.