Rome Hotels near Piazza Navona

No, it’s sometime before 86 A.D; the Emperor Domitian is running the Roman Empire, and the Circus Domitianus has been constructed to introduce the Roman populace to athletic competitions styled after those invented by the Greeks. Called the Agonal games, they never caught on.

The Romans turned thumbs down on the stadium, which was sacked of its magnificent marble accoutrements when Constantine visited Rome in 356 A.D., and was nothing more than a ruin by the end of that century. But the term “in Agone”, referring to the defunct games, became permanently attached to the area surrounding the stadium.

Pope Innocent X, inspired by the Italian Renaissance spirit, decided in 1644 to build a piazza on the site of the Circus Domitianus, and requested a fountain from sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The result was the Fountain of the Four Rivers, which stands majestically at the center of the Piazza. The Piazza, originally known as the Piazza in Agone, saw its name gradually evolve to “Piazza in Agona,” to the modern Piazza Navona.

Piazza Navona Attractions

Bernini’s fountain is now one of three in the Piazza Navona, with the Fountain of the Moor and the Fountain of Neptune. On the west side of the Piazza, its entrance directly facing the Pernini fountain, is the Francesco Borromini designed church of Sant'Angese in Agone, with its concave façade making the church dome appear larger than it is.

At Christmas the Piazza is alive with vendors selling Nativity scenes, biscotti, candy, and wooden toys from stalls, and on Epiphany La Befana herself makes an appearance to hand out gifts and candy to eagerly waiting children.

In warm weather, Piazza Navona is one of Rome’s most popular gathering places, with open air cafes, strolling artists; balloon-sellers; and visitors from far and wide who descend on the Tre Scalina for some of the richest tartufo--chocolate gelato--known to man.

Segregated from the din of city traffic, the Piazza Navona is the perfect place to relax at a café table, enjoy the music of buskers or antics of mimes, feed the pigeons, and otherwise soak in the atmosphere in the shadow of buildings constructed centuries ago.

Accommodations Close to Piazza Navona

A short walk from the Piazza Navona, and only fifty metres from the Pantheon, The Grand De La Minerva Hotel is a five-star accommodation housed in a seventeenth-century palace.