Piazza Scossacavalli

Piazza Scossacavalli, also named Piazza di San Clemente, Piazza di Trento, Piazza d'Aragona, Piazza Salviati, was a square in Rome, Italy, important for historical and architectonic reasons. The square was demolished together with the surrounding quarter in 1937 due to the construction of Via della Conciliazione.

Located in the Borgo rione, the square, of quadrangular shape, was located between the two roads of Borgo Nuovo and Borgo Vecchio, which crossed it tangentially respectively along its north and south side at about two-thirds of their length in direction of Saint Peter's Basilica. Piazza Scossacavalli was the center of the so–called spina (the name derives from its resemblance with the median strip of a Roman circus), composed of several blocks elongated in E–W direction between the castle and Saint Peter.

The square's name derives from that of the church of San Giacomo placed on the east side of the square, and this gave birth to a legend; when Helena (mother of Constantine the Great) returned from her trip to the Holy Land, she brought back two stone relics: one from the presentation of Jesus at the Temple and one on which Abraham bound Isaac. The empress wanted to donate the stones to Saint Peter's Basilica, but when the convoy arrived at the site of the future church the horses (Italian: cavalli) refused to move further despite urging (Italian: scossi). A chapel hosting the stones was built, and this was the origin of the toponym. The most probable reason for the name was the discovery, near the square, of a thigh from a Roman equestrian statue (coxa caballi in Vulgar Latin).

The square bore also several other names, all linked to cardinals who were renters or owners of the palaces surrounding the square (specially palazzo della Rovere): it was named Piazza di San Clemente (Domenico della Rovere was cardinal priest of San Clemente al Laterano); Piazza di Trento (diocese of Cardinal Carlo Gaudenzio Madruzzo, who acquired in 1609 the palace for 26,000 scudi); Piazza d'Aragona (from Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona, natural grandson of king Ferdinand I of Naples and father of the cortigiana and poet Tullia d'Aragona, who lived in the palace since 1514); Piazza Salviati (from Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, nephew of Pope Leo X (r. 1513–21), renter of the palace since 1524).

In the Roman age, the future rione of Borgo, part of the ager Vaticanus, was crossed by two roads: the via Cornelia which started from Ponte Milvio and – running along the right bank of the Tiber – reached Hadrian's Mausoleum, and the via Triumphalis, which crossed the Tiber on the Pons Neronianus, heading north in direction Monte Mario and then flowing into the via Cassia. Many scholars think that the two roads crossed each other in a place corresponding to the Piazza Scossacavalli. In the Middle Ages the square consisted of an irregularly shaped open space surrounded by small houses and brick kilns. Along the east side, it lay the church of San Salvatoris de coxa caballi ("St. Saviour of horse thigh"), later named San Salvatore de Bordonia and finally in 1250 dedicated to San Giacomo.

The northern side of the church was bordered by a blind lane ending by a vegetable garden and the Meta Romuli, a pyramid similar to that of Gaius Cestius along the via Ostiensis, while the south side of the piazza was traversed by the Carriera Martyrum road (the future Borgo Vecchio) Along the north side of the square there was a field where the bricks were placed to dry. In this area during late 15th century Cardinal Ardicino della Porta the younger owned several houses and plots.

The golden age of the piazza started with the Renaissance and Pope Sixtus IV (r. 1471–84) who, after repairing Borgo Santo Spirito and Borgo Sant'Angelo roads, on 1 January 1474 promulgated a bulla according many benefits to those who would have built houses in Borgo higher than 7 canne (15 m). The first to profit from this law was Cardinal Domenico della Rovere, nephew of the pope, who in the last two decades of the 15th century let build on the south side of the piazza along Borgo Vecchio (at the n 139–158) his palace, obtaining in 1481 from the pope the exemption from the payment of censo fee; the building was possibly designed by Florentine architect Baccio Pontelli.

In 1499, Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492–03) let open for the holy year of 1500 the road which bore at first its name (via Alessandrina) and later that of Borgo Nuovo. The new road crossed the square along its north side, and due to that and to the parallel crossing of Borgo Vecchio on the south side, piazza Scossacavalli became the fulcrum of the rione and the junction between the Borgo Vecchio, which became an isolated, familiar and simple road, and Borgo Nuovo, which was prestigious, touristic and busy. The pope gave special privileges, such as tax exemptions, to the people willing to erect buildings at least 5 canne (11 m ca.) high along the new road. Adriano Castellesi, treasurer of Pope Alexander VI and later Cardinal of Corneto (today's Tarquinia), in 1504 bought the plots at the north side of the piazza, occupied by a vegetable garden and several small houses, and let erect there (possibly by Donato Bramante) a palace, which follows the outlines of the Palazzo della Cancelleria. Castellesi in 1505 presented the palace, still unfinished, to Henry VII of England, to make of it the English embassy in Rome; in 1519 Henry VIII presented it to cardinal Lorenzo Campeggi.