Capitoline Hill

The city legend starts with the recovery of a human skull (the word for head in Latin is caput) when foundation trenches were being dug for the Temple of Jupiter at Tarquin's order.

[7] The Tabularium, located underground beneath the piazza and hilltop, occupies a building of the same name built in the 1st century BC to hold Roman records of state.

[13] The church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli is adjacent to the square, located near where the ancient arx, or citadel, atop the hill it once stood.

In the Middle Ages, the hill's sacred function was obscured by its other role as the center of the civic government of Rome, revived as a commune in the 12th century.

[14] In 1144, a revolt by the citizens against the authority of the Pope and nobles led to a senator taking up his official residence on the Capitoline Hill.

The senator's new palazzo turned its back on the ancient forum, beginning the change in orientation on the hill that Michelangelo later accentuated.

The existing design of the Piazza del Campidoglio and the surrounding palazzi was created by Renaissance artist and architect Michelangelo Buonarroti in 1536–1546.

At the height of his fame, he was commissioned by the Farnese Pope Paul III, who wanted a symbol of the new Rome to impress Charles V, who was expected in 1538.

This full half circle turn can also be seen as Michelangelo's desire to address the new, developing section of the city rather than the ancient ruins of the past.

[14] The sequence, cordonata, piazza, and the central palazzo are the first urban introduction of the "cult of the axis" that was to occupy Italian garden plans and reach fruition in France.

The Cordonata Capitolina was not in place when Emperor Charles arrived, and the imperial party had to scramble up the slope from the Forum to view the works in progress.

The bird's-eye view of the engraving by Étienne Dupérac shows Michelangelo's solution to the problems of the space in the Piazza del Campidoglio.

The stepped ramp of the cordonata was intended, like a slow-moving escalator, to lift its visitors toward the sky and deposit them on the threshold of municipal authority.

[20] An interlaced twelve-pointed star makes a subtle reference to the constellations, revolving around this space called Caput mundi, Latin for "head of the world."

The aspect of the piazza that makes this most immediately apparent is the central statue, with the paving pattern directing the visitors' eyes to its base.

Michelangelo also gave the medieval Palazzo del Senatore a central campanile, a renovated façade, and a grand divided external staircase.

On the narrow side of the trapezoidal plan, he extended the central axis with a magnificent stair to link the hilltop with the city below.

Following the war, it was claimed by the Comune di Roma, which demolished a large section of the palazzo's east wing to create the Caffarelli Terrace.

Michelangelo's renovation of it incorporated the first use of a giant order that spanned two storeys, here with a range of Corinthian pilasters and subsidiary Ionic columns flanking the ground-floor loggia openings and the second-floor windows.

[14] A balustrade fringing the roof emphasizes the emphatic horizontality of the whole against which the vertical lines of the orders rise in majestic contrast.

[23] The verticality of the colossal order creates the feeling of a self-contained space while the horizontality of the entablatures and balustrades emphasize the longitudinal axis of the piazza.

Until the 1470s the main market of the city was held on and around the Campidoglio, while cattle continued to be taxed and sold in the ancient forum located just to the south.

[24] Built during the 13th and 14th centuries, the Palazzo Senatorio ("Senatorial palace") stands atop the Tabularium, which had once housed the archives of ancient Rome.

It now houses the Roman city hall, after having been converted into a residence by Giovanni Battista Piranesi for the Senator Abbondio Rezzonico in the 18th century.

[14] The steps, beginning at the center of each wing, move gently upward until they reach the inner corner, level off and recede to the main surface of the façade.

The two massive ancient statues of Castor and Pollux that decorate the balustrades are not the same as those posed by Michelangelo, which now are in front of the Palazzo del Quirinale.