Hidden Rome

The Aventine is one of Rome’s original seven hills, and one of the most rewarding for the visitor who is willing to leave the tourist trail behind. The steep climb from the Circus Maximus leads past the exquisite early-Christian church of Santa Sabina — one of the oldest in Rome, its fifth-century carved wooden doors containing what is believed to be the earliest known depiction of the Crucifixion anywhere in the world — and the Garden of Oranges, beloved by Romans for its unbeatable views over the city at sunset. Continue along the narrow road as it makes its way toward the top of the hill, and you arrive at the elegant Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta.

It is a peculiarly quiet and self-contained corner of the city, enclosed by walls decorated with classical motifs, heraldic shields, weapons, and ceremonial obelisks. This unusual piazza — considered the only major urban design work executed by the great Venetian architect and engraver Giovanni Battista Piranesi — was laid out in 1765 and is rich in esoteric symbolism. Piranesi built it around an ancient legend that compared the Aventine Hill to a sacred ship poised to sail toward the heavens: the obelisks on the walls represent masts, the manicured hedgerows beyond the door are the ship’s rigging, and the church within serves as the vessel’s deck.

Before the Knights of Malta set up their Roman headquarters here, the scenic hilltop had a long and eventful history. The first fortified structure on the site belonged to Alberic II, who ruled Rome as prince from 932 to 954 and was one of the most powerful political figures of his day.

After his death, the property passed to the great Benedictine reformer Odo of Cluny, and later — given the strategic hilltop location — to the Knights Templar, who held it until their brutal suppression by Pope Clement V in 1312.

As heirs to much of the Templar legacy and spiritual rivals of the now-defunct order, it was natural that the Knights Hospitaller — the crusading order founded in Jerusalem in the eleventh century, and known today as the Knights of Malta — would eventually find their way to the Aventine.

They have had a priory here since the fourteenth century, and the Villa Magistrale remains their headquarters in Rome to this day, with full diplomatic status as a sovereign entity under international law.

For a brief and tumultuous moment in 1608, the roster of knights included one Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio — admitted in July of that year, expelled in disgrace by December, after being imprisoned for violently wounding a senior knight in a brawl. The Order of Malta’s roll-call contains many distinguished names; few tenures were more colourful, or more briefly held, than his.

The Villa’s present appearance is owed primarily to Piranesi, who undertook a comprehensive redesign of the entire complex in the second half of the eighteenth century, commissioned by Cardinal Giambattista Rezzonico, nephew of Pope Clement XIII.
Piranesi was by this point internationally famous as the engraver of Rome’s monuments and ruins, his atmospheric prints circulating across Europe in the portfolios of every Grand Tour traveller.

Yet despite his extraordinary reputation, he completed very few actual buildings as an architect; the neo-classical church of Santa Maria del Priorato, contained within the Villa complex, is his only large-scale architectural work. He died in Rome in 1778 and was buried within the church he built — one of the more fitting epitaphs in architectural history.

Flanking the entrance to the Villa from the adjacent piazza is an elaborate gateway decorated with classical and heraldic motifs. Set into this screen is the famous green door, its brass keyhole seemingly unremarkable until you put your eye to it.

The alignment you discover — St. Peter’s dome floating in perfect symmetry at the end of the garden’s central avenue, framed by two rows of precisely clipped laurel — is generally attributed to Piranesi’s deliberate design, though some have argued the effect is a happy accident, discovered rather than planned.

Either way, whether the result of genius or good fortune, the view through the keyhole is extraordinary: the distant cupola appears to float impossibly close, a monument at once familiar and transformed. No photograph does it justice. The visit is free, and the queue on any given morning moves quickly. Make the journey.

The Villa Magistrale is generally open to the public on Friday mornings, by appointment through the Sovereign Order of Malta.