4.04.2005

Via dei Riari 48d

The apartment is lovely, and my landlord, Pietro, is a king among Romans. There are several cats on the premises, who apparently think of me as an interloper, to the extent that they can be bothered (which is hardly). The back of the house is against the Orto Biologico (botanical gardens) on the Gianicolo, which is beautiful.

Here are some pictures of the place...

Outside (yes, those are lemons):
via dei Riari 48d outside


Inside:
via dei Riari 48d inside

Interesting note about the Riari for whom the street is named: The Palazzo Corsini, at the head of the street, was originally built for a member of the Riario family - cousins of the delle Rovere pope Sixtus IV, who was himself responsible for building the Sistine chapel and the Ponte Sisto over the Tiber. Sixtus was involved in a botched (only 50% successful) assasination attempt against Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici, the rulers in Florence, for his cousin Girolamo Riario's sake. This, understandably, made the Tuscans a bit uncomfortable with the pope's politics (by "uncomfortable", I mean, "led to decades of intermittent warfare"). The palazzo ultimately passed to the Corsini famly, and was also used by the scandalous (or at least, put-off-ish) Queen Christina of Sweden, and was where she died. It now houses part of the National Gallery of Art, the bulk of which is at Palazzo Barbarini.

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