Trastevere
Via della Lungara
Started by Pope Alexander VI Borgia (1492-1503) as a straight route to St. Peter's. Finished by Pope Julius II della Rovere (1503-13), who enjoyed town planning so much that he opened Via Giulia, named after him and paralleling this one on the other side of the Tiber.
The riverside of this street used to have buildings and gardens down to the water's edge.
When the embankments were built at the end of the last century, the river-edge buildings were torn down.
Since the Tiber overflowed its banks frequently, boats were used along this street up to the beginning of this century.
Plaque to the Deported Jewish
The "Dark Ages" did not end in 1300. A sad reminder that in 1944 under German occupation 1000 Jews were sent from here to the concentration camps: only 16 returned.
On the side of Palazzo Salviati, now a military compound, is Church of St. Giuseppe alla Lungara (started 947 AD, completely remodeled in the 19 C). A Monastery used to be next door.
Borgia House
Now the shop of a kind carpenter. In 1492-1503 Pope Alexander VI Borgia reigned. His bullying bastard son Caesar killed and pillaged in an attempt to extend the Borgia influence into the future by conquering vast lands.
Beneath this modest private house are supposedly two secret tunnels, one to the river, the other to the Vatican. Caesar would lure his victims (including his own brother), kill them and dispose of their bodies in the river. If things went badly he could escape through the other tunnel into the safe haven of the Vatican.
Carcere di Regina Coeli
(Queen of Heaven Jail). This undistinguished structure houses swindlers and "fraudsters" while they await trial (recently it has seen some of Italy's top dogs). On the back streets messages are shouted out to the lawyer; or laments waft out on the night air: "Voglio una donna!' (I want a woman!), or the more heart rending "Voglio la mamma!" (I want my mamma!).
Convento del Buon Pastore
Founded in 1615 by the Order of the Barefoot Dominicans. It was to house "Repentant Women, Sinners and the Condemned" and later unwed mothers and their babies. The last nuns were ousted in 1980 by the City of Rome, but the Church is trying to get the building back.
Today part of it has been taken over by the feminists who have interesting cultural activities. The restaurant for women only is open for dinner, just around the corner on Via San Francesco di Sales.
St. Giacomo in Settimiano
Although founded in the mists of time (1198 AD), its continual restorations have effaced most traces of any venerability. Inside Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) sculpted a macabre little Memorial of a skeleton holding a parchment. The Monastery next to it and the Lunatic Asylum were torn down in the 1880s to make way for the highway along the Tiber.
Around the corner on Via San Francesco di Sales and Via della Lungara 21, at the Southeast corner of Salita del Boun Pastore are vestiges of an ancient tufa construction, probably the stables that Raphael built for Agostino Chigi but also said to contain vestiges of a Roman aqueduct.
