The Rione Borgo

The Borgo district occupies part of the so-called Ager Vaticanus of ancient Rome, in which Agrippina had numerous possessions.

St. Peter had his martyrdom in the circus built by Caligula and the emperor Constantine had the first Vatican church built here. Subsequently and following the numerous pilgrimages, autonomous communities called Scholae were created and settled permanently in this area located near the area outside the Aurelian walls. The Scholae were mostly composed of communities from northern Europe, such as that of the Franks and Frisians, that of the Lombards and Saxons who had their own places of worship. The term village itself derives from the Gothic “burg” and was configured as a settlement that was entirely its own and particular to the rest of the city.

The expression Leonine city derives from the surrounding walls erected in 852 AD. by Leone Quarto, after the sacking by the Saracens, to protect the settlement and the church from possible and subsequent invasions. During the Middle Ages the population wound around the two main arteries: the “portica”, that is a long portico that started from Ponte S. Angelo up to the basilica of San Pietro and the other constituted by the village of the Saxons. In the mid-fifteenth century the Pope Niccolò Quinto gave life to a rearrangement of the village and, in 1500, a new street was created in line with the entrance to the Vatican, forming the Alessandrino village, called the new village while the portico took on the name of village old. After a long period of peace and splendor, Rome was sacked in 1527 and Paolo Terzo enlarged the walls.

The enlargement of the village was carried out by Pio Quarto who created a new segment in the northern part, creating the Borgo Pio. In the mid-seventeenth century the demolitions were carried out for the creation of the portico of San Pietro and, at the end of the nineteenth century, the walls of Pio Quarto were eliminated for the creation of the new Prati district. In the twentieth century and precisely in the period between 1936 and 1950, the demolitions were carried out for the rearrangement of the area and the opening of via della Conciliazione, which led to the destruction of the church of San Giacomo in Scossacavalli.

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