Mysterious Rome - The secret places of Rome that you should know

Rome is worldwide famous for its Roman monuments, for the Vatican City and for the museums and villas that you can find inside the city. But Rome is much more. There are hundreds of places and monuments that remain out of most touristic routes, although they worth a visit.
Here a list of some of them. Enjoy...

Doria Pamphilj Palace
The palace standing in Piazza Navona is a sort of isle of the Baroque sited in the heart of Rome: it was built at the beginning of 1400 by the family Della Rovere, a patrician family native of Savona, which gave to the Vatican two Popes, Sisto IV and Giulio II. During the XVII century the palace changed owners, going to the family Aldrobrandini. This family was native of Florence, where it became rich thank to international commerce and financial activities. The family, that reached a great fame in Florence and that acquired popularity thank to Madonna Giovanna Aldrobrandini that rumors said to be a saint, was later divided in various stocks, due to bad relations between the Aldobrandinis and the Medici, lords of Florence. The family divided in various Northern and Central Italian regions and some members arrived in Rome.
When the Aldrobrandinis bought the palace, they added two lateral wings and a new courtyard.
Its last owners where the Doria-Pamphilj, which added a theatre and a chapel. This latter was inaugurated by princess Cristina of Sweden, a protestant princess who converted to the catholicism and has her grave inside the Vatican.
During the XVIII century the Doria-Pamphiljs added a gallery in baroque style, to collect the big family collection of art: in the gallery there are in total 400 paintings, some of them realized by very famous painters like Velasquez, Caravaggio and Guercino.

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The obelisk in Piazza del Popolo
Many people, including many Romans, don't know the long story of the obelisk standing in the middle of the ellictic square Piazza del Popolo.
The obelisk is very old: it came to Rome from Egypt, where it was made at the time of Ramesse II. It was brought to Rome for order of Octavian Augustus after the defeat of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra.
Originally the obelisk was sited in Circus Maximus, where it remained until the XVI century. Then Pope Sisto V ordered to move the obelisk to its current place.
On the obelisk you can read hyerogliphics, but also a Latin writing dating back to Augustus' time, that dedicades the obelisk to the Sun.
On the side of the obelisk that faces the church of Santa Maria del Popolo there is a more modern writing of XVI century: in the writing it is the obelisk itself to speak and says to be very glad to be in front of a temple dedicated to She, from whom the Sun of the Justice has born.
The obelisk is therefore a mix of Egyptian mysteries, paganism and christian "correction".

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Via dei Coronari
This street was an ancient Roman street, called Via Recta, leading from Piazza Colonna to the Tiber. In Middle Age Via dei Coronari was crossed every day by thousands of christian pilgrims going to the Vatican.
In the street there were many hawkers and rascals selling rosaries (in Roman dialect "coronari") to the pilgrims. The amount of crowd and the rogues passing every day through the street made the place very dangerous: cronicles say that only in the year 1450 200 pilgrims died in the street. Pope Niccolò V became worried of the dangerousness of the street and decided to favour the transit of the crowd by destroying the ancient Roman arc sited there.
Today the street is no more dangerous, on the contrary it is an elegant street crossing the Renaissance borough and is full of antiquarian shops. Besides there are still some studies of painters and some ancient bars.

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[to be continued...]