Via della Conciliazione

Via della Conciliazione (Road of the Conciliation) is a street in the Rione of Borgo within Rome, Italy. Roughly 500 metres (1,600 ft) in length, it connects Saint Peter's Square to the Castel Sant'Angelo on the western bank of the Tiber River. The road was constructed between 1936 and 1950, and it is the primary access route to the Square. In addition to shops, it is bordered by a number of historical and religious buildings – including the Palazzo Torlonia, the Palazzo dei Penitenzieri and the Palazzo dei Convertendi, and the churches of Santa Maria in Traspontina and Santo Spirito in Sassia.

Despite being one of the few major thoroughfares in Rome able to cope with a high volume of traffic without congestion, it is the subject of much ire both within the Roman community and among historical scholars due to the circumstances under which it was constructed. The area around the church was rebuilt several times following the various , and again after having deteriorated due to the loss of prosperity resulting from the Papacy's relocation to Avignon during the 14th century. Through all of these reconstructions, the area in front of the short courtyard of Saint Peter's Basilica remained a maze of densely packed structures overhanging narrow side-streets and alleyways.

Plans were drawn up several times over the years for the construction of a major link between the Vatican City and the centre of Rome; the number of submissions increasing dramatically with the onset of the Italian Renaissance. The first design was submitted by Leone Battista Alberti during the reign of Pope Nicholas V, and formed one of the two perennial designs proposed for the area. Alberti envisioned an "open" plan, consisting of a single voluminous V-shaped boulevard, widest at St. Peter's Basilica itself and tapering as it approached the Tiber. The other scheme of designs submitted by architects was a "closed" plan that would consist of two roads arching outwards in an ellipse, with the Tiber and the Square at opposite ends. Proponents of a closed plan would usually suggest that the space between the two causeways be separated by a colonnade, or by a row of inhabited structures whose designs would be scrutinised and approved by architects employed by the Holy See. Variations on both themes were submitted time and time again. Proponents of an "open" plan included such architects as Giovanni Battista Nolli and Cosimo Morelli. A number of other architects, such as Carlo Fontana, and at least one Pope (Sixtus V) favoured a "closed" design, with a number of streets radiating from the central square, maintaining the "spina", or spine, of the structures of Borgo directly between the square and the Tiber. Neither approach moved beyond sketches and blueprints. Both open and closed designs were considered by the Vatican, but were ultimately discarded for reasons of expense. A thorough examination of the costs of constructing a thoroughfare was made by the Vatican-approved St. Peter's Building Commission in 1651. Their conclusion was that "the cardinals' proposal to demolish all the buildings between the Borgo Nuovo and the Borgo Vecchio for a greater and longer vista to the church" would be infeasible due to inordinately high expropriation costs and vested property interests.

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