Urban development at Rome's Porta Esquilina and church of San Vito over the longue durée

Abstract

San Vito's modern location on the Esquiline betrays little of the importance of the church's site in the pre-modern city (fig. 1). The small church was begun under Pope Sixtus IV for the 1475 jubilee and finished two years later along what was at that time the main route between Santa Maria Maggiore and the Lateran. Modern interventions, however, and particularly the creation of the quartiere Esquilino in the late 19th c., changed the traffic patterns entirely. An attempt was made shortly thereafter to connect it with the new via Carlo Alberto by reversing the church's orientation and constructing a new façade facing this modern street. This façade, built into the original 15th-c. apse, was closed when the church was returned to its original orientation in the 1970s, and, as a result, San Vito today appears shuttered. In the ancient and mediaeval periods, by contrast, San Vito was set at a key point in Rome's eastern environs.