ROME

Squares

Piazza Bocca della Verità ("The Mouth of Truth")	Piazza Campo dei Fiori	Piazza del Campidoglio
Piazza del Popolo (the People's Piazza)	Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Piazza)	Piazza Navona
Piazza San Pietro (Saint Peter's Square)	Piazza Venezia

Piazza del Popolo (the People's Piazza)
This grandiose urban square was created in the beginning of the nineteenth century by Valadier, who abandoned the traditional concept of closed space and opened the piazza to the east, along the tree-lined hills of the Pincio (see chart).
Its limits are defined by two semi-circles, each one decorated by a fountain at one end, with sphinx and statues representing the seasons. In the southeast corner are two little baroque churches. Santa Maria di Montesanto is on an elliptical plan and Santa Maria dei Miracoli is on a circular plan.
They were begun by Rainaldi but finished by Bernini and Fontana.
At the center of the piazza is the oldest obelisk of Rome, which came from Egypt and dates to the twelfth century B.C. Behind the obelisk is the Porta del Popolo ("People's Gate"), built in the middle of the sixteenth century by Nanni di Baccio Bigio and completed by Bernini, who added the internal facade in 1655.