Borgo Nuovo, originally known as via Alessandrina, also named via Recta or via Pontificum, was a road in the city of Rome, Italy, important for historical and architectural reasons.

This path ran just south of the Passetto (the covered passage linking the Vatican with the Castle); anyway, also this road was not sufficient to solve the traffic problem.

At the end of the 15th century, Alexander VI, whose power was at the time contested by several of the noble Roman families and by French king Charles VIII (r. 1483–98) (who in 1494 had occupied the city, while the pope remained barricaded in the Castel Sant'Angelo), decided to restructure the citadel of Borgo and the castle.

[5] In this context, Castel Sant'Angelo assumed the role of hinge between the city and the citadel, and the need arose to build a straight road between the castle and the Apostolic Palace on the Vatican hill.

[5] On 20 February 1499 the pope asked Riario:[6] ...ut a magistris viarum et architectis quantum foret impense ad dirigendam viam a Porta Castri ad Palatium usque intelligent ac sibi postea referret.... that they should take note of, and afterwards report to him, the cost incurred by roadbuilders and architects in making a road from the Castle Gate to the Palace.North of Borgo Vecchio a winding lane run between houses, gardens and ancient walls; At about one third of its length (coming from the Tiber), the path was blocked by a large Roman funerary monument, the Meta Romuli, considered as the resting place of the mythical first king of the city.

[9] Giovanni Burcardo (Johannes Burckardt from Strassburg, Master of Ceremonies of the pope), records in this way in the Liber Notarum (his diary) on 24 December 1499 the opening of the new road:[1] Hodie peracto prandio completa est ruptura vie nove recta a parte Castri Santi Angeli ad portam Palatii Apostolici et per eas venerunt omnes cardinales"Today after lunch was completed the opening of the new straight road between Castel Sant'Angelo and the gate of the Apostolic Palace, and through it all the cardinals came"On that day the pope ordered the Carriera Sancta (the future Borgo Vecchio) to be closed off, so as to force the traffic along the newly inaugurated route.

[10] The road connected the Castle's gate with the gate of the Apostolic palace; unlike the near Borgo Vecchio, it was not a processional path, but a direct link between Castrum and Palatium, parallel to the Passetto, the covered passage which allowed the pope to escape to the castle in case of danger,[6] and that would have been used few years later by pope Clement VII (r. 1523–34) escaping in night robe after Frundsberg's Landsknechts.

[13] It was also used for popular happenings as horses, buffaloes, donkeys or men races, all favorite entertainments of the Borgia pope; because of that, Borgo Nuovo remained unpaved until before 1509, during the papacy of Julius II.

At the beginning of the 19th century, when Rome was part of the First French Empire, the prefect of the city, de Tournon, included in his program of urban renewal the demolition of the spina, and thus of Borgo Nuovo.

[23] They have the same late neoclassical style as the Manifattura dei Tabacchi ("Tobaccos factory") in piazza Mastai in Trastevere,[23] erected by Antonio Sarti a few years later.

[23] Coming from the east end of the road, on the south side, at n. 29–30, there was a little chapel erected by Pius VI (r. 1775–99) in 1796, closed by a gate and surmounted by the Pope's coat of arms and an epigraph.

[31] Against the figure of the virgin a drunkard a few years earlier had thrown a slice of melon, whose seeds had remained attached to the rays drawn above Mary's forehead.

[31] Next to the chapel, Pius VI had a small fountain built, consisting of a frame surmounted by an epigraph and his coat of arms; the water poured from a white marble putto's head with his cheeks outstretched because of the effort to channel the jet into a basin.

[32] Subsequently leaned against the front of the Carmelites convent on the opposite side of the road, and long believed to have been lost during the demolition works,[32] the fountain has been found in the municipal storerooms.

[29] The church, which became one of the parishes of the Borgo, was run by the Carmelites, which lived in a monastery placed to the east of the shrine; to the right side of Santa Maria was erected an Oratory devoted to the Christian doctrine, built in 1714–15.

On the N side, aligned with Borgo Nuovo, Adriano Castellesi, treasurer of Alexander VI and later Cardinal of Corneto (today's Tarquinia),[43] let erect (possibly by Donato Bramante) a palace, which follows the outlines of the Palazzo della Cancelleria.

Soderini actually wanted to pull down the block and built a palace by Bramante, but his turbulent life (he was a staunch enemy of the House of Medici, which for his misfortune, during those years arrived to the papacy twice, with Leo X and Clement VII did not allow him to fulfill his plan.

[56][53] Beyond the palazzo di Jacopo da Brescia the northern side of the road continued with Palazzo Rusticucci-Accoramboni, a large Renaissance Palace erected by Domenico Fontana and Carlo Maderno on behalf of Cardinal Girolamo Rusticucci;[57] In 1667, the above–mentioned demolition of the first south block of the road in occasion of the erection of St. Peter Square let the palace overlook the new piazza, which took the building's name.

[59] The northern side of Borgo Nuovo until the construction of the colonnade of St. Peter's Square ended with a block whose last building on the street was the church of Santa Caterina delle Cavallerotte (or Cavalierotte: so were called in Rome girls from rich and noble families who wanted to become nuns), founded in the 14th century.