Soon afterward Honorius III donated Santa Sabina a permanent wall called a tramezzo was erected, splitting the basilica in half perpendicular to the nave. The priests and congregation used the half towards the apse while the friars used the half nearer the narthex for additional study and worship space. This physical seperation demonstrates that, though parish preaching would later become a part of their work, the friars were originally there only to study and prepare for itinerant preaching. Santa Sabina’s is the earliest known Dominican tramezzo and the practice soon spread throughout Dominican spaces in Europe.

By the late 13th century the Dominicans’ complex at Santa Sabina had grown into a full cloister which can still be seen in a remodeled form at the western end of the park to the southwest of the basilica. The clergy’s side of the complex also expanded when, in 1285, the Savelli Pope Honorius IV built a family palace adjoining Santa Sabina. He lived there throughout his papacy and the public park to the northeast of the basilica still contains the original walls of his estate. Though the palace was eventually given to the friars and fell into disrepair, the Dominicans’ complex continued to grow into the active center you see today.

After Dominic’s death, the convent survived its fairly constant financial problems by playing a part in Rome’s politics of family patronage. Many noble families would send gifts of either art or nuns. In 1331, the abbey included nuns from the Colonna, Pierleoni, De Giudice, and Anibaldi families. The Boccamazzo family, a line stemming from the Saveli, also played a major role in financing and growing the convent and supplying nuns.

Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is a rare example of Gothic architecture from medieval Rome, replicating Santa Maria Novella in Florence. It’s pointed arches, quatrefoil compound piers, small stained-glass windows, and vaulted aisles/nave are all elements of Gothic design, which was typically very unpopular in medieval Rome due to its more traditional aesthetic leanings. The original Dominican Gothic structure had a nave six bays long, a transept, a polygonal apse, two side chapels, and two aisles. In the 14th century, six other side chapels were added to the building.

Like most Dominican churches, it was split into an Eastern friar’s church and a Western laymen church, but Santa Maria had no clear dividing line and allowed visitations to the Eastern side chapels, displaying a less rigid spatial structure than Santa Sabina and perhaps a more ministerial purpose. Large parts of the original church were transformed in the Renaissance, Baroque, and premodern periods, including the facade, which was a 16th century Renaissance construction. Much of the churches design received modifications in the 19th century when Girolamo Bianchedi redesigned the church into a Neo-Gothic look, pointing more arches and windows, adding ribbed vaultings, and replacing the 16th century windows with rose designs.

Near the main altar is a 19th century marble effigy of St. Catherine, a Dominican Saint who died in Rome in 1380, marking her current burial place. She was originally housed in the chapel of Saint Dominic, to the left of the transept. After her canonization in 1461 by Pope Pius II, she was moved in 1466 by Cardinal Angelo Capranica to the Capranica chapel, elevating the importance of the family space. In 1449 the chapel was originally given to Cardinal Domenico Capranica, who had a relationship with Pius, to house the family tombs and was later inherited by his family. The wall frescoes were commissioned by the Capranica family in the 16th century as part of an agreement with the Dominican Pope Pius V for allowing the chapel’s name to change to Rosary. They depict scenes from the life of Saint Catherine. Other decorations show the Rosary, the Capranica family, and the Madonna. These range from the 16th to 18th century.

Founded in 1215 by Dominic de Guzman and granted approval by Pope Honorius III in 1216, the Dominican Order rapidly grew in importance. By 1222 the papacy had given them control of Santa Sabina and San Sisto Vecchio, and by the late 13th century they would gain control of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva giving them great influence on Rome’s religious landscape. It is important to understand how significant orders like the Dominicans interacted with the people of Rome; they went directly into piazzas, streets, and poor neighborhoods to spread their message and provide aid, marking a large shift of attention from the countryside to the city. The Dominicans presented themselves as an immediate resource for religion that spoke straight to the people, and this, coupled with their tradition of theological education that allowed them to be well equipped to preach, strengthened the presence of Christianity in the urban population. This makes their appearance in thirteenth century Rome undeniably significant and an integral component of understanding medieval Rome.

In many cases, however, street design and maintenance were the province of private and semi-private parties, namely wealthy families, leaseholders, and the church. These parties considered it their responsibility to ensure the public function of private property, effectively self-regulating and thus influencing the physical city in a way that aligned with the principles contained in the statutes of the Magistri.

Deborah Robbins points to a 1455 document that addresses a property on the Tiber next to the Ponte Rotto leased by the canons of Santa Maria in Trastevere to Cipriano Magnonibus of Florence who was living in Trastevere. A Trasteverine (possibly an earlier lessee) had begun building on the property on either side of a road, which Cipriano could continue under certain conditions enumerated in the lease agreement: he had to maintain public right of way through the property and keep the road clear or straight (Robbins notes that the Latin is unclear as to the specific nature of the requirement).

The road on the property Cipriano was leasing led to both the Ponte Santa Maria (Ponte Rotto) and a public street that led to houses owned by the hospital of SS. Quaranta Martiri, two sites that pilgrims could have wanted to access. The road also ran all the way to the Tiber and was thus a potential aqueduct site if Cipriano kept it clear. The inclusion of these public space-conscious regulations in a private lease agreement demonstrates the attitude Robbins describes, whereby private parties saw their properties in a larger context and acted accordingly to preserve the public function of their private property in keeping with the values passed from the 15th-century popes to their urban professionals.

After this collapse, the bridge—now called Ponte Santa Maria after its proximity to Santa Maria in Cosmedin—joined its brethren along the Tiber in an ongoing cycle of repair. By nature, bridges impede water flow, and the current of the river wears away at piers, so taxes were constantly being levied to repair one bridge or another. In 1557, the bridge fell to a flood again, and this time the flood also took out the Ponte Sisto, built in 1475, and the Ponte Fabricius up the river.

As the climate changed, floods grew more common in the 16th century, stalling repairs—it took at least a decade to repair the Ponte Sisto after the flood in 1557 and 16 years to repair this bridge, putting serious stress on the bridges to Tiber Island which bore the brunt of the mercantile traffic during that time. The delays in repair stemmed partly from arguments about how to rebuild the two fallen arches, and the end result of the repair was insufficiently stable to save it from the flood in 1598 that swept away half the bridge.

The broken bridge, now called the Ponte Rotto, remained a fixture of the Roman city, its three remaining arches used as a fishing pier. A painting by de Heusch from the 17th century shows the lingering bridge and the river life around it. In the 19th century, two arches were demolished during the building of the embankments and the enlargement of the river bed, and the one arch in the modern photo is all that remains today.

Various religious organizations and the Camera Apostolica owned most of the mills, but noble families such as the Cenci and Frangipane also owned mills. The monastery of SS. Cosma e Damiano sold and leased the anchoring sites for floating mills on Tiber Island and the Trastevere bank. Owners commonly rented out their mills to individual millers who were responsible for the work. Interestingly, the church also leased to nobles. The 1455 leasing of a site near Ponte Rotto by the canons S. Maria in Trastevere to Cipriano de Magnonibus included the right to build up to three mills on the property. The document included a royalties provision on these mills. It stipulated seven “rubla” of flour annually after the construction of the first mill, and more for each additional mill constructed. This inclusion shows that the canons had correctly identified this site as a prime area for milling. It additionally suggests that the construction of mills in the area was expected and even anticipated for in the contract.

Actually seeing these mills is probably the most difficult endeavor that a visitor might undertake while visiting the Tiber. While much of the urban landscape has changed, the natural one less so. One can still see the quickening of the river’s current near Tiber Island, and hopefully imagine a wheel puttering through its silty waves. A 1495 drawing from the Codex Escurialensis gives a downstream view of the mills near the Ponte Quattro Capi or the Ponte Fabricio, a bridge still standing today.