Generations of heated debate over how the steep, 29-metre (95 ft) slope[2] to the church on a shoulder of the Pincio should be urbanized preceded the final execution.

Archival drawings from the 1580s show that Pope Gregory XIII was interested in constructing a stair to the recently completed façade of the French church.

The Roman-educated Cardinal Mazarin took a personal interest in the project and entrusted it to his agent in Rome—whose plan included an equestrian monument of Louis XIV of France—an ambitious intrusion that created a furore in papal Rome.

A competition held in 1717 was won by Francesco de Sanctis, though Alessandro Specchi was long thought to have produced the winning entry.

The first such divided and symmetrical stairs were devised for the Belvedere Courtyard in the 1600s by Donato Bramante, while shaped and angled steps were introduced by Michelangelo in the vestibule to the Laurentian Library.

[7] The restoration of the almost 32,300 square feet (3,000 m2) of travertine stone, as well as brick, marble and plaster employed more than 80 people and cost €1.5 million.

However, in July 2019 the administration of Mayor Virginia Raggi, as part of an attempt to get ill-mannered tourists to behave themselves in Rome, introduced more stringent ordinances designed to "guarantee decorum, security and legality".

On the same right side stands the 15th-century former cardinal Lorenzo Cybo de Mari's palace, now Ferrari di Valbona, a building altered in 1936 to designs by Marcello Piacentini, the main city planner during Fascism, with modern terraces perfectly in harmony with the surrounding baroque context.

The man, who abandoned the car and fled the scene, was later apprehended at Milan Malpensa Airport after being identified through surveillance cameras and was charged with inflicting aggravated damage to cultural heritage and monuments.

[12] In April 2023, climate protestors from Ultima Generazione poured a charcoal-based black powder into the Fontana della Barcaccia, discoloring its water and leaving stains on its marble surface.

In the film To Rome with Love (2012), Hayley (Alison Pill) and Michelangelo Santoli (Flavio Parenti) met on the Spanish Steps.

On 16 January 2008, the Italian artist Graziano Cecchini covered the Spanish Steps with hundreds of thousands of multicolored plastic balls.

He claimed it was done to raise international awareness of the situation of the Karen people in Myanmar,[15] and as a protest against the living conditions of artists in Italy.