Piazza Navona Walking Tour

Walk through the crowded streets of the historic center of Rome to Piazza Navona, one of the largest and most eye-popping squares in the city, a six-minute walk from the Pantheon, in the direction of the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. In this square there are three large fountains, the baroque church of Sant’Agnese in Agone and is surrounded by a lively atmosphere of street restaurants, artists and musicians. Going down under the square you can explore the past of Rome and admire the Stadium of Domitian, built by the emperor Domitian in 86 AD. This stadium is one of many examples of the layers of history that make up Rome. With a special permit, visitors can go underground to discover the ancient arena, once about 240 meters long and 65 meters wide, which housed up to 20,000 spectators to attend festivals and sporting events such as foot races. Designed in the classic Greek architectural style with an elongated U shape, the stadium gives us the explanation of the long oval shape of the square. Oratories were built on the arena from the 8th century, followed by houses and towers in the 13th century which were replaced by churches and palaces during the Renaissance. The stadium is accessible from the square in via Tor Sanguigna 3 and is illuminated by skylights. You can admire steps, pillars and radial walls originally made of travertine, then replaced by bricks, on the curved side of the stadium. Piazza Navona was paved in the 15th century to create what we see today: an open-air architecture museum in the heart of the Eternal City, filled with Baroque-era sculptures. Thanks to its large size, this area hosted the city’s main market for nearly 300 years, before being moved to nearby Campo de ‘Fiori in 1869. Its main attraction is the trio of fountains, which begins with the spectacular central fountain, the Fountain of the Four Rivers built in 1651 by Bernini, which includes an Egyptian obelisk and male personifications of the Nile, Ganges, Danube and Plate rivers. At the two ends of Piazza Navona there are two other fountains that precede those of Bernini, sculpted by Giacomo della Porta in 1574. At the southern end is the Fontana del Moro with four tritons, to which Bernini later added a statue of a Moor who fight with a dolphin. On the northern side of the square is the Fountain of Neptune, also begun by della Porta, and to which in 1878 Antonio della Bitta added a Neptune fighting with a sea monster, to create harmony between the three fountains.