Historically, San Angelo in Pescheria played an important role in Cola di Rienzo’s rise to power during the mid-fourteenth century. This was likely due to the fact that not only was the church near Cola’s home in Anagni, but it was also near the Capitoline Hill, which was a political center at the time. According to The Life of Cola di Rienzo, Cola once painted a scathing work of political commentary directed towards the barons on the wall of San Angelo in Pescheria. Later in May of 1347 he and a crowd of other conspirators began an armed march to the Palace of the Campidoglio from the church in order to rally in support for Cola’s rise to power.

It was not uncommon for the piazza to host races and tournaments during the late medieval era. Beginning in the thirteenth century, Rome put on games in a celebration of the community which featured three games in particular: the hasti ludium in which horsemen would demonstrate their proficiency with a lance by threading them through suspended rings, the horse races, and the bull-and-pig-chasing. The first two games mentioned were featured in the Piazza Navona. Presently the impressive Baroque façade of the Church of Saint Agnes in Agony looms over the Piazza Navona. The church was originally built as a humble oratory to the Christian martyr Saint Agnes sometime before 800. Similar to the other buildings of the piazza, the oratory was embedded in the original structure of the Stadium of Diocletian. In the early twelfth century, Pope Callistus II had the oratory greatly enlarged. Though the structure of the church certainly changed, the original plan of the basilica was retained to an extent. By the end of this project, the church of Saint Agnes in Agony towered over all other buildings in the square, which remains to be the case today.

Prior to the construction of Arnolfo’s ciborium there was a canopy standing in its place. According to the Liber Pontificalis, this canopy was a gift from Paschal in his reconstruction of the church in 821 and was made from 600 pounds and 8 ounces of silver.

Completed in 1293, the present-day ciborium is modeled after the French gothic style, as seen in the many spires and the rose window-like structure. This early style was at its peak popularity in France about three decades before Arnolfo’s ciborium and it was out of date by the end of the 14th century in France.

Visitors before the late 13th century would have seen a shorter canopy compared to the present-day ciborium. From the left corner nearest to the nave and counter-clockwise, each corner has a statue that represents Santa Cecilia, San Valerian, San Tibertius, and Pope Urban (Bo 2008, 4-7). According to legend, San Valerian and San Tibertius are her husband and brother-in-law, respectively. The spandrels, areas between the arch and the horizontal enclosure, have reliefs of the Four Evangelists, two unknown prophets, and visual depictions of the Parable of the Wide and Foolish Virgins.

In 1290, Giacamo Cardinal Colonna, of the powerful Roman family, renovated the monastery and ceded it to the Poor Clares, female Franciscan nuns. It became a comfortable “society convent,” a home for unmarried, well-to-do Roman women. Saint Bridget of Sweden, who is strongly associated with the church, in many ways exemplifies its residents. Born to a wealthy noble family, she joined the Third Order of the Franciscans and made a pilgrimage to Rome in 1250 to combat what she viewed as the Church’s moral decay. She was motivated to do so by what she believed to be divine revelations. She lived at San Lorenzo for the remaining 23 years of her life. Her efforts to end corruption won her the admiration of Romans.

The medieval church was largely erased in a Baroque restoration in 1589, and the sprawling Ministero del Interno complex was built on the monastery grounds following Italian unification. The dwelling along Via Cesare Balbo, however, dates to the medieval period.

Set among the ruins of ancient Rome, this landscape evolved throughout the Middle Ages. Before the 12th century, parts of the disabitato had a bad reputation. Home to swamps and breeding grounds for mosquitos, the lower-lying areas of the disabitato were known to be sources of disease. This, combined with tales of robbers and other perils, led to a reputation that the disabitato was a dangerous area.

However, starting in the 12th century, agriculture became more common in the disabitato. Vineyards and farm fields graced the slopes of the hills, as well as the valleys between. Farm animals grazed among the ruins of once-grand Roman buildings. Powerful families, such as the Frangipani, the Savelli, and the Pierloni controlled much of this agricultural land. Throughout the 12th-13th century and beyond, this family power was constantly shifting. Families built vast fortified complexes complete with towers and imposing walls in order to keep their holdings their own, and lands inevitably traded from hand to hand. While agriculture and family power flourished, however, the area remained, true to its name, largely uninhabited. While within the city walls, the disabitato had more in common with the countryside than with the city itself.

The Aventine, which overlooks the Tiber, Santa Maria in Cosmedin and the Ponte Rotto, was a preferred part of Rome to which families retreated. The Savelli family was very influential in the 12th and 13th centuries, they were considered as the rulers of Rome because of their charismatic characteristics, their proximity to the people in regards to where they were located, their financial status and their connection to the senate. The fortress is said to have been built as late as 1285-1287, however there is documentation as early as 1279 of Pope Honorius IV (a member of the Savelli family) listing the fortress in his will. Sources from the 15th century show that the neighboring church, Santa Sabina, was given part of a Savelli fortress, where Pope Honorius IV once held his papal residence. However, today only the walls of Rocca Savelli remain and enclose a public garden filled with orange trees and a great view of Rome. The Clivo di Rocca Savella show these walls clearly as you walk up the Aventine towards the Church of Santa Sabina.

Today, the gate houses a museum, the Museo della Mura. Visiting the museum, which has no entry fee, allows one also to walk a part of the Aurelian Walls, and to take in the view from atop the Porta. It sits squarely atop a picaresque Via di Porta San Sebastiano, which is well worth walking down in its own right. Surrounding the Porta San Sebastiano is heavily wooded and little developed land, giving a sense of the deshabitado, the uninhabited part of Rome in medieval times.

During that period of time, the male leaders governed the marginal groups of the society, including the prostitutes. The civic festival of races was a means to help build up the authority and honor of “civic father” through disreputable behaviors of the suppressed groups. Moreover, the event is celebrated countrywide, not only in Rome.

Ironically, prostitutes were the figures of war “heroines” in similar races, but in a different background—wars, where insult races were run in a similar format, however, to humiliate antagonists. Prostitutes, who were not citizens of the city, were considered the suitable agency to carry out this collective insult ritual towards the enemy. Armies would bring prostitutes along when attacking the enemy, not so much for sex as for performing the ritual. At this moment, the triumph of the commune ties to the dishonor of the rivals: the insult races were carried out in front of the city wall, witnessed by victims. After the war, the prostitutes’ insults to the enemy’ were celebrated as honorable and commemorated. The symmetry between the two races was interesting, but proved the marginality of prostitutes as the social group.

One of the most interesting features of the original church was an annular crypt that Gregory III had added sometime between 731 and 741 when the original church was partially remodeled. An annular crypt is a semi-circular passage that sits behind an altar and follows the curve of an apse, from the apex of the semi-circle a straight corridor branches off and goes straight to a relic chamber, the destination for many pilgrims, that would sit directly below the altar. Although this was added to the original San Crisogono in the early 8th century, annular crypts only became a commonplace feature of churches built in Rome in the ninth century. Because annular crypts helped control vast numbers of pilgrims—they helped channel crowds of the pious into orderly lines to see a relic—it is possible that one of the reasons it was installed so early on in S. Crisogono was that its relics were an especially popular destination for tourists, necessitating some form of crowd control.

One such example can be found on the facade of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Located next to the Pantheon, Santa Maria sopra Minerva is half a kilometer away from the Tiber, but only around fifteen feet above sea level. At this site, there are six flood markers: the bottom three are from 1422, 1495, and 1890, while the top three are from the 16th century (1530, 1557, 1598). High on the wall, the 16th century markers all contain an engraved hand marking the water level, the date of the flood, and the Pope who reigned during that period (picture 2). While the Tiber had flooded throughout Roman history, the 16th century was an exceptionally destructive period. It took until the 20th century before Romans could deploy both the resources and technology to finally tame the powerful Tiber.