Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona is the most theatrical of Rome's Baroque squares, a long pedestrian oval in the historic centre whose distinctive elongated shape preserves the outline of the Stadium of Domitian, the ancient athletics arena built around 86 AD over which the present square was laid out. Visitors strolling its length pass three fountains aligned down the centre. The masterpiece is Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers, completed in 1651, where four colossal marble figures personify the Nile, Ganges, Danube and Río de la Plata around a towering Egyptian obelisk, the whole composition crackling with movement. At the southern end stands the Fountain of the Moor and at the northern end the Fountain of Neptune, both restored and reworked over the centuries. Facing Bernini's fountain is the dramatic concave façade of the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, designed by his great rival Francesco Borromini, whose interior is free to enter and richly decorated. The square has no admission and is open around the clock, lined with café terraces, portrait artists and street musicians, and a typical visit lasts 30 to 60 minutes, longer if pausing for a coffee. It is especially atmospheric in the evening when the fountains are lit and the crowds thin a little, and in December it hosts a long-running Christmas market with stalls and a nativity. The terrace cafés directly on the piazza are scenic but notably overpriced, so many visitors prefer to admire the fountains and take refreshment in the cheaper lanes nearby, which also lead quickly to the Pantheon and Campo de' Fiori. Crowds peak in the late morning and early evening. Free, beautiful and quintessentially Roman, Piazza Navona is a highlight of any walk through central Rome.