Piazza del Campidoglio

Landmark · Capitoline Hill (Rione X Campitelli)Rome,Italy

Michelangelo's trapezoid square on Rome's Capitoline hill, deliberately turned away from the Forum to face the papal city.

Piazza del Campidoglio was designed as a single composition by Michelangelo, and he deliberately turned it away from ancient Rome. He splayed three palaces into a trapezoid, which makes the space look wider than it really is. The entrance ramp climbs from the north-west, so the square faces the papal city and St Peter's rather than the Forum. The oval pavement underfoot carries a twelve-pointed star. The bronze horseman at its centre is a copy; the original stands indoors, in the museum on the right of the square. When Michelangelo was handed the job the hill held a shabby medieval assembly building and a goat pasture on its slope. He kept the two palaces already standing, added a third to match them, and died without seeing the square finished. The oval pavement you cross was laid four centuries after he drew it, copied from an old print. This is still where Rome is governed: Palazzo Senatorio behind the fountain is the city hall, and Romans say the Campidoglio when they mean the council. There is no gate here, and the square is at its best after dark.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The two giants at the top of the ramp are Castor and Pollux — Roman marbles dug up in pieces in the Ghetto in the 1560s and set on the balustrade in 1583.
Shoot it after dark — the palace fronts and the portico were relit with LED lamps in 2018, and the square has no closing time, so the light is there all night.
Use the wide ramp, not the staircase — the cordonata rises in long shallow steps you can walk without effort, while the staircase next to it has 124 steep steps, built after the plague of 1348.

Things to do

1
Walk up the ramp with your eyes on the tower
Start at the bottom of the wide stepped ramp, the cordonata, in Piazza d'Aracoeli and climb slowly without looking down. The bell tower of the city hall rises steadily above the balustrade, the two giant statues at the top come into view last, and the square opens all at once as you reach the top.
2
Stand at the centre of the star-patterned pavement
Find the middle of the oval pavement, at the foot of the bronze horseman, and turn a full circle. Three façades close around you at unequal angles, the drop toward the ramp opens on the fourth side, and you can feel the ground fall away very slightly under your feet in every direction.
3
Come out at the back for the Forum
Take the passage to the left of the city hall and follow Via del Campidoglio to the railing; the terrace is public and needs no museum ticket. The whole Forum valley lies below: columns, brick, the arch at the far end and the Colosseum closing the view. Late afternoon light runs the length of the valley toward you.