Villa del Priorato di Malta

[2] The site, on a rise directly overlooking the Tiber and access to the Roman Pons Sublicius, was already a fortified Benedictine monastery in the tenth century.

The site is reached by Via Santa Sabina, which ends in the small, picturesque Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta enclosed on two sides by the cypresses of the garden of the Benedictines backing the fantasy screen of obelisks and stele constructed in 1765 to designs by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, one of the very few executed designs by this etcher of Roman views who prided himself on being an architect.

[4] Ahead rises the Neo-Romanesque campanile of the Church of San Anselmo (1893-1900) attached to the international Benedictine seminary (Seminario Internazionale Benedettino).

At the northern side of the square the monumental entrance screen is located, also designed by Piranesi under commission from Cardinal Carlo Rezzonico, nephew of Pope Clement XIII.

The Villa is arguably best known for a small keyhole (Il Buco Della Serratura) in the arch-headed central portone, through which the copper-green dome of Saint Peter's Basilica, can be viewed at the end of a garden allée framed in clipped cypresses.