At the right corner of the Spanish Steps rises the house of the English poet John Keats, who lived there until his death in 1821: nowadays it has been changed into a museum dedicated to him and his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley, displaying books and memorabilia of English romanticism. At the left corner, there is the Babington's tea room, founded in 1893.
The imposing 135-step staircase was inaugurated by Pope Benedict XIII during the 1725 Jubilee; it was released (thanks to French loans granted in 1721–1725) to connect the Bourbon Spanish embassy (from which the square takes its name) to the Church of Trinità dei Monti.
It was designed by Alessandro Specchi and Francesco De Sanctis after generations of long and glowing discussions about how to urbanize the steep slope on the side of the Pincian Hill to connect it to the church. The final key was the one proposed by Francesco De Sanctis: a great staircase decorated with many garden-terraces, splendidly adorned with flowers in spring and summer. The sumptuous, aristocratic staircase, at the summit of a straight sequence of streets leading down to the Tiber, was designed so that the scenic effects increase more and more while approaching it. In effect, the creation of long, deep perspectives culminating in monumental wings or backdrops was typical of the great baroque architecture. The Spanish Steps were restored in 1995.
Francesco Borromini, byname of Francesco Castelli, was an Italian architect born in the modern Swiss canton of Ticino who, with his contemporaries Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Pietro da Cortona, was a leading figure in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture.
The Spanish Steps in Rome, Italy, climb a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinità dei Monti church, at the top.
The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples was a congregation of the Roman Curia of the Catholic Church in Rome, responsible for missionary work and related activities. It is also known by its former title, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, or simply the Propaganda Fide. On 5 June 2022, it was merged with the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization into the Dicastery for Evangelization.
Piazza Navona is a public open space in Rome, Italy. It is built on the site of the 1st century AD Stadium of Domitian and follows the form of the open space of the stadium in an elongated oval. The ancient Romans went there to watch the agones ("games"), and hence it was known as "Circus Agonalis". It is believed that over time the name changed to in avone to navone and eventually to navona.
Pietro Bernini was an Italian sculptor. He was the father of one of the most famous artists of Baroque, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, as well as the sculptor-architect Luigi Bernini.
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi is a fountain in the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy. It was designed in 1651 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Innocent X whose family palace, the Palazzo Pamphili, faced onto the piazza as did the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone of which Innocent was the sponsor.
Carlo Fontana (1634/1638–1714) was an Italian architect originating from today's Canton Ticino, who was in part responsible for the classicizing direction taken by Late Baroque Roman architecture.
The Church of Santissima Trinità dei Monti, often called simply Trinità dei Monti, is a Roman Catholic late Renaissance titular church in Rome, central Italy. It is best known for its position above the Spanish Steps which lead down to the famous Piazza di Spagna. The church and its surrounding area are a French State property.
The Fontana della Barcaccia is a Baroque-style fountain found at the foot of the Spanish Steps in Rome's Piazza di Spagna. Pope Urban VIII commissioned Pietro Bernini in 1623 to build the fountain as part of a prior Papal project to erect a fountain in every major piazza in Rome. The fountain was completed between 1627 and 1629 by Pietro possibly along with the help of his son Gian Lorenzo Bernini, especially after his father's death on August 29, 1629.
Alessandro Specchi was an Italian architect and engraver.
Spagna is an underground station on Line A of the Rome Metro, in the rione Campo Marzio, which was inaugurated in 1980.
Babington's tea room, established in 1893, is a traditional English tea shop at the foot of the Spanish Steps in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome, Italy.
The Keats–Shelley Memorial House is a writer's house museum in Rome, Italy, commemorating the Romantic poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The museum houses one of the world's most extensive collections of memorabilia, letters, manuscripts, and paintings relating to Keats and Shelley, as well as Byron, Wordsworth, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Oscar Wilde, and others. It is located on the second floor of the building situated just to the south of the base of the Spanish Steps and east of the Piazza di Spagna.
The Palazzo di Propaganda Fide is a palace located in Rome, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, then Francesco Borromini. Since 1626, it has housed the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and since 1929 is an extraterritorial property of the Holy See. The complex includes a dormitory and chapel as well.
Italian Baroque architecture refers to Baroque architecture in Italy.
Francesco De Sanctis was a late Baroque Italian architect, most notable for his design of the Spanish Steps in Rome in collaboration with Alessandro Specchi. These were built between 1723 and 1726 to celebrate the peace treaty between France and Spain, linking the top of the hill to the Spanish embassy to the Holy See at the bottom of the hill. The design left out some of the richer elements of De Sanctis's original design, such as grand fountains at a break in the steps and two rows of trees down either side to give shade and refreshment to those climbing the steps.
The Pious Establishments of France in Rome and Loreto is a foundation run by France from its embassy to the Holy See.
The Column of the Immaculate Conception is a nineteenth-century monument in central Rome depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary, located in what is called Piazza Mignanelli, towards the south east part of Piazza di Spagna. It was placed aptly in front of the offices of the Palazzo di Propaganda Fide which houses the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, as well as in front of the Spanish embassy as recognition by the pontiff of the defense that this nation has always made of this dogma of faith.
The Palace of Spain or Monaldeschi Palace is a baroque palace that houses the Embassy of Spain to the Holy See since 1647. It does not lodge, on the other hand, the Embassy of Spain in Italy, since this one is in the first floor of the Borghese Palace of Rome.
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