Spanish Steps in Rome

The Spanish Steps, or Scalinata of Rome Italy, is perhaps the most famous staircase in the world. The Spanish Steps completed in 1725 to connect the Bourbon Spanish Embassy to the Holy See. The wide, 138-step staircase traverses a steep hill in between the Piazza di Spagna and the Piazza Trinità dei Monti.

The staircase was first intended by Pope Gregory XIII in the 1580s. In the 1600s, French diplomat Étienne Gueffier left 20,000 scudi, Italian silver coins, to be used to build the Spanish Steps. He wanted a large statue of French King Louis XIV to be included, but the papacy and residents of Rome balked at that possibility. Pope Clement XI eventually held a design competition, won by architect Francesco de Sanctis, and the project was completed in the 1720s.

The Piazza di Spagna at the bottom of the Spanish Steps is known also for the Fontana della Barcaccia, in the shape of a boat, that commemorated the frequent floods in that section of Rome. In 1856, a large column was constructed in the piazza to commemorate the entry of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that Mary was born without original sin, into Catholic dogma.

English poet John Keats' house was located in the Piazza di Spanga, and it has been turned into a museum. According to the museum's Web site, keats-shelley-house.org, there are a great many manuscripts and paintings related to the lives of Keats, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron, as well as other British Romantic poets.