Piazza di Spagna
Rome Italy
2016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_di_Spagna

Piazza di Spagna, at the bottom of the Spanish Steps, is one of the most famous squares in Rome, Italy. It owes its name to the Palazzo di Spagna, the seat of the Embassy of Spain to the Holy See. There is also the famed Column of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In the middle of the square is the famous Fontana della Barcaccia, dating to the beginning of the baroque period, sculpted by Pietro Bernini and his son, the more famous Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

At the right corner of the Spanish Steps rises the house of the English poet John Keats, who lived there until his death in 1821: nowadays it has been changed into a museum dedicated to him and his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley, displaying books and memorabilia of English romanticism. At the left corner, there is the Babington's tea room, founded in 1893.

The side near Via Frattina is overlooked by the two façades (the main one, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and the side one created by Francesco Borromini) of the Palazzo di Propaganda Fide, a property of the Holy See. In front of it, actually in a part of Piazza di Spagna named Piazza Mignanelli, rises the Column of the Immaculate Conception, erected in 1856, two years after the proclamation of the dogma.

The tour of the historic center by horse carriage is one of the most traditional tour of Rome, who can relive the atmosphere of past eras, when the city was traveled exclusively by horse-drawn carriages, which in Rome are called “botticelle”.

You will admire the beauties of Rome comfortably seated, led by one of the expert and friendly “botticellari” who will be your “Cicero” and with the characteristic sound of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones.

The horse-drawn carriages you encounter while visiting Rome are picturesque and one of the old city’s most photographed scenes, as they take tourists from sight to sight. These particular vehicles are called “botticelle” in Italian, and they’re an attraction in their own right.

Indeed, the botticelle have been a staple of Rome for much longer than it looks. What you may see now standing by monuments is but the “modern-looking” version of the ancient Roman carriages. The name itself refers to the fact that they were not used for human transportation, at all: “botticelle” literally means “little barrels”, because these trolleys used to bring goods of various types to shops as well as houses.

This all changed, obviously, as cars and trucks became popular in Rome, and while it was common to see both peacefully coexisting until the mid-twentieth century, when the whole of Italy became a tourist destination… the botticelle turned to the growing number of visitors. For many travellers coming from completely different backgrounds, having such a picturesque experience helped them make a connection with the glorious past of a city of many contrasts – one that was modern or trying to be so while at the same time remaining strongly tied to its historic roots.