1585, when Rome became a metropolis. An exhibition in the Marche recalls the renovatio of Sixtus V

When Rome became a metropolis during the papacy of Sixtus V in the late 16th century. This is the theme of the exhibition that, from December 15, 2023 to March 31, 2024, is hosted at Palazzo Paradisi in Montalto delle Marche (Ascoli Piceno). Entitled The Birth of a Metropolis: Rome at the Time of Sixtus V, the exhibition is the brainchild of Stefano Papetti with Tommaso Strinati and aims to retrace the complex operation of renovatio urbis developed by the Marche pope Sixtus V in just five years of his pontificate, an operation that elected the Eternal City as a model of reference for the urban renewal implemented in the following centuries in various European capitals.

From 1585 to 1590, in fact, intense construction activity was undertaken that indelibly changed the face of Rome. The project, made possible thanks to the expertise of the architect Domenico Fontana and a large group of painters, sculptors, and plasterers, drawn to Rome from all the cities of Italy, involved the construction of several cornerstones of the central directive (Villa Montalto, the Lateran Palace, the Palazzo del Quirinale, the New Vatican Palace, the Vatican Library) and of the pontiff’s religious idea (Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Dome, San Girolamo degli Schiavoni), as well as thoroughfares, such as the Via Felice and the street of San Giovanni, and urban spaces articulated around obelisks, columns, and fountains. Finally, the pictorial decorations of the tens of thousands of square meters of new walls and vaults in which to transcribe the wondrous pages of the “Sistine Bible.”

The exhibition thus aims to trace this history, through four different thematic sections. The first, dedicated more generally to the celebration of the Sistine enterprises, takes its starting point from the rare printed text of 1591 in which Baldo Catani described the funeral pomp and ephemeral apparatuses prepared on the occasion of the translation of the body of Sixtus V, offering a synthesis of the urbanistic operations carried out in Rome during the years of the Sistine pontificate represented in the funeral catafalque made ready on that occasion by Cardinal Alessandro di Montalto. The second section focuses instead on the pontiff’s Roman residence, Villa Montalto. Destroyed at the end of the 19th century to make way for the construction of Termini Station, the Villa that Sixtus V, even before ascending to the throne of Peter, had had built for himself and his family represented a summa of the pontiff’s ambitions. Through descriptions and period photographs taken before the demolition, the buildings, fountains, and gardens that surrounded the residence will be shown, forming a building complex of extraordinary grandeur. In addition, in memory of the sumptuous pictorial cycles of the interior rooms that celebrated the figure of the pontiff and his exploits, two frescoes that were part of the decoration of the central hall of the Villa Montalto, torn during the demolition of the building and recently recovered from a private Roman collection, are presented in the exhibition for the first time.

The third section analyzes the Basilicas of St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major, which were the subject of a significant restyling operation. As evidence, the model made by the painter Ferraù Fenzoni for one of the scenes frescoed on the walls of the Holy Staircase, a major pictorial undertaking directed by Cesare Nebbia and Giovanni Guerra, is exhibited for the first time. On the other hand, the two reliquary busts of Saints Peter and Paul that Sixtus V had displayed in the Sancta Santorum, which were dispersed in the Napoleonic era, are documented through two unpublished paintings preserved at the Pinacoteca Civica of Treia that testify to the predilection expressed by Sixtus V for the opulence of liturgical furnishings enhanced by enamels and precious stones, also confirmed by the choice to donate to the city of Montalto the reliquary formerly belonging to Cardinal Barbo, which is also on display at Palazzo Paradisi along with a fine vestment donated by the pontiff to his city. From the Municipal Library R. Spezioli of Fermo come instead a series of precious engravings illustrating the sacellum of Sixtus V in Santa Maria Maggiore made in 1621 and taken from Paolo De Angelis’ text “Basilicae S.Mariae Maioris” given to the presses in Rome by Bartolomeo Zanetti.

Finally, the last section delves into the urbanistic renovations implemented by Sixtus V, including the construction of wide rectilinear streets, obelisks intended to mark the most significant places in the Urbe and the restoration of the century-old columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius to convert them back into symbols of Christianity’s victory over Paganism. On display, a large plan of Rome highlights the many places where the Sistine intervention had a decisive impact in defining a new city destined to become the very symbol of Christianity. In addition, a series of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century prints illustrate the places in the Eternal City most strongly characterized by Sixtus V’s desire to affirm the Urbe’s new role.

The sections devoted to the Montalto reliquary and the Sistine medals already set up inside Palazzo Paradisi will also form an integral part of the exhibition’s itinerary. Added in support is a film made through the use of drones and other technical devices that aids in the difficult restitution of the complexity of the many urban and building interventions.

A Lectio Magistralis by Vittorio Sgarbi, and a number of in-depth meetings on the Sistine Age curated by Tommaso Strinati are planned during the exhibition. All of the scheduled events will take place in Montalto delle Marche, a pilot village for the Marche Region under Action Line A of the PNRR “Attractiveness of Villages” of the Ministry of Culture.

Image: Gottfredus de Scaichi, Garden of Cardinal Montalto ubs

1585, when Rome became a metropolis. An exhibition in the Marche recalls the renovatio of Sixtus V

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