La Spina. Dall’Agro Vaticano a Via della Conciliazione at Musei Capitolini

The Eternal City isn’t always so eternal after all. Thanks to everything from flooding, to warfare, to modern city planning, Rome’s urban landscape has been in constant flux for centuries. La Spina del Borgo (literally the “backbone” of the Borgo) was a narrow stretch of medieval dwellings and shops gathered close to St. Peter’s Basilica.

In the 1930s, Italy’s dictator Mussolini decided to demolish and raze this expanse of the neighborhood, clearing the way for the iconic boulevard we now know as Via della Conciliazione, and seamlessly uniting the Basilica with Castel Sant’Angelo. While the change benefited Rome’s millions of religious pilgrims and tourists, countless residents were uprooted from their homes and a slice of the city vanished. Hosted by the Capitoline Museums, La Spina. Dalla’Agro Vaticano a Via della Conciliazione pays homage to this missing piece of the Borgo’s puzzle. Video installations, historical maps, photographs, paintings, prints, fresco fragments, and scale models transport visitors back in time, allowing them to re-imagine a part of Rome now long-forgotten.