Piazza Navona is the kind of place Romans circle back to at every hour of the day. Coffee in the morning, passeggiata at sunset, a slice of pizza leaning against a fountain at midnight. It looks like a baroque set piece, and it is, but Piazza Navona history goes much further back than the 17th century. Under the pavement sits the outline of an ancient Roman stadium. Around the fountains plays out one of the great feuds in art history. Here's how it all fits together.
Domitian's stadium: where Piazza Navona started
That long oval shape isn't a design choice. It's the Stadium of Domitian, built by the emperor in 80 AD. This was Rome's first permanent Greek-style athletic venue: foot races, wrestling, javelin, discus. About 30,000 spectators on stone seating, an arena roughly 275 metres long by 106 wide. The name "Navona" itself is a worn-down version of "in agone," the Latin for competitive games. "In agone" became "n'agona" and eventually "Navona."
You can still see chunks of the original stadium. At the north end, below street level at Piazza di Tor Sanguigna, the old arches and columns poke out of the ground. There's a small underground museum you can access from Via di Tor Sanguigna that takes you down into the foundations. Most visitors walk past it. They shouldn't.
From ruins to Renaissance marketplace
After Rome fell, the stadium went to ruin. Medieval builders planted houses straight on top of the old walls, using the curved banks of seating as foundations. That's why the buildings around the piazza today still bend in that distinctive arc. By the 1400s the space was a busy market. Then in the 1640s, Pope Innocent X, whose family palazzo (Palazzo Pamphilj) happened to face the square, decided to turn it into a showpiece. You tend to do that when the front door of your family palace looks out on a market.
Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers
The showstopper in the middle of the piazza is Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, finished in 1651. Four giant river gods, one for each known continent: the Nile for Africa, the Ganges for Asia, the Danube for Europe, and the Río de la Plata for the Americas. Each god sits among the animals and plants from his region. Rising out of the middle is an Egyptian obelisk that Bernini lifted from the Circus of Maxentius. The trick of the thing is the base: it looks like the obelisk is balancing on a hollow, water-carved rock. It shouldn't work, and nearly four centuries later it still makes people stop.
The Bernini and Borromini feud
Directly in front of the fountain is the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, designed by Francesco Borromini. Bernini and Borromini hated each other. Romans have been embroidering their feud for nearly four hundred years. The favourite story goes like this: Bernini's Río de la Plata raises a hand as if to block its view of Sant'Agnese's facade, bracing for the church to collapse. Meanwhile the Nile covers its eyes so it doesn't have to look at Borromini's work. Great story. Also historically impossible. Bernini's fountain was already finished before Borromini started on the church. Doesn't matter. Every tour guide tells it, because it's the right kind of lie.
Go inside Borromini's church if you can. The concave facade is the kind of thing architects study for a living, and the interior, under that bright little dome, is proof he was one of the most inventive minds of the period. Look for the skull carved at the base of one of the pilasters. Classic Borromini: a memento mori tucked into a church, reminding you you're not going to be here forever.
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What else to look at in the piazza
Most people stop at the Four Rivers and forget there are two more fountains. At the south end, the Fontana del Moro has a muscular figure wrestling a dolphin. Giacomo della Porta designed the base; Bernini added the Moor later. At the north end, the Fontana del Nettuno shows Neptune fighting an octopus, a 19th-century addition bolted on so the square would have matching bookends.
Palazzo Pamphilj, where Pope Innocent X's family lived, is now the Brazilian Embassy. It opens for guided visits on certain days. Worth it: the gallery is covered in Pietro da Cortona frescoes and barely anyone knows about it. Along the west side of the piazza, the Church of Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuore (originally San Giacomo degli Spagnoli) is a calm Renaissance stop if you need a break from the crowd.
Piazza Navona through the year
The square changes with the seasons. Summer nights belong to street artists, musicians, and cafés that keep pushing their tables further out. December is the Christmas market: wooden stalls with nativity figures, roasted chestnuts, torrone, the whole Roman holiday routine. My favourite piece of trivia, though, is older. For centuries, up until the 1800s, the city plugged the drains on summer weekends and let the fountains flood the piazza. A shallow lake, Romans wading around it, horse carriages splashing through. Next time you're sitting there with an espresso, picture that.
This is why I love Piazza Navona. It's four places at once. A Roman stadium, a medieval market, a baroque set piece, and whatever you're standing in right now with a coffee in your hand. All sharing the same oval footprint for two thousand years. Look down and you're on top of a racetrack. Look up and you're inside a Bernini.
