It is odd to think that one of the best known places in Rome owes its name neither to its appearance nor to Italy. Piazza di Spagna is named for the presence of the Embassy of Spain to the Holy See in Palazzo Monaldeschi, while the monumental stairway of 136 steps was built in 1725 on the occasion of the Jubilee, at the behest of Pope Benedict XIII, to connect two “foreign” places, the Bourbon Embassy and the Church of Trinità dei Monti, where French priests officiated.
Elegance is undoubtedly the main feature of the piazza: the setting provided by the ocher building, the fountain by Bernini and the stairway on which the Church of Trinità dei Monti stands help create a refined 18th-century atmosphere.
At the centre of the piazza is the famous Fountain of the Barcaccia, which dates back to the early Baroque period, sculpted by Pietro Bernini and his son, the more famous Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The unusual design of the fountain, fed by water from the ancient Vergine aqueduct, must have been reminiscent of a boat sinking right in that very place when the Tiber flooded. This is why it seems partially submerged.
On the right corner of the steps we find the house of the English poet John Keats, who lived and died there in 1821, today transformed into a museum dedicated to his memory, and that of his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley, full of books and memorabilia of English Romanticism. On the left hand corner is Babington’s tearoom, founded in 1893.