Borgo, the Rome district living in St Peter's shadow

Most people march through Borgo eyes front, with St Peter’s dome ahead and no time to lose. To my mind they’re missing the point, because this district is the reason the Vatican looks the way it does. It was built to house pilgrims, popes ran through it in fear of their lives and half of it was knocked down to make way for an avenue. It deserves an afternoon of your time.

A district built for pilgrims on their way to St Peter

The name comes from the Saxon “Burg”, a small fortress or walled village, and that’s no accident. In 727 the Saxon king Ine founded the Schola Saxonum here to house pilgrims coming to Peter’s tomb, and over the centuries that hostel grew into Santo Spirito in Sassia. Sixtus V made the area Rome’s rione XIV on 9 December 1586 and gave it a coat of arms with a crouching lion before three hills and a star, his own emblem.

Today Borgo stretches from the edge of St Peter’s Square, at Piazza Pio XII and Largo del Colonnato, to the riverside and Castel Sant’Angelo. Rome’s tourist board calls it the natural antechamber to St Peter’s and the Museums, full of small restaurants, hotels, religious souvenir shops and historic tailors making cassocks and vestments. From the centre you reach it over Ponte Sant’Angelo and its ten angels.

What to see on Borgo Pio and the streets around it

Borgo Pio, Borgo Vittorio and Borgo Angelico are the streets in the northern part of the district. They date from 1565, when Pius IV Medici built the walls here, and that’s when the Passetto stopped being a defence and became part of the street plan, running above the houses. Borgo Pio is the one everyone searches for and the one I’d walk first.

My favourite detail is where Borgo Pio meets Via del Campanile. Carved into the stone there is a circle that fixed the smallest a loaf could legally be in times of famine, so no baker could cheat. What I love is that there’s nothing papal about it. It’s the everyday life of the neighbourhood, right beside one of the great seats of power in history.

The clerical outfitters are the district’s other quirk. The tourist board lists them as historic workshops, and even if you’re not buying, peering into a window full of cassocks two streets from the Pope has a certain charm.

The Passetto, the corridor running over your head

The Passetto di Borgo is a battlemented corridor of around 800 metres linking the Vatican palaces with Castel Sant’Angelo along Via dei Corridori and Borgo Sant’Angelo. Clement VII fled along it to the castle during the Sack of Rome in 1527. From the street you can follow it for free, tracing it between the rooftops.

Since 23 December 2024 you can walk it inside with a guide, always entering through the castle except on the step-free visit, which starts at the Torre del Mascherino. Prices, days and the Saturday evening visit are all in my guide to Castel Sant’Angelo. If you only pay for one thing in the district, I’d make it this.

Two churches almost everyone walks past

Santo Spirito in Sassia stands on the old gardens of Agrippina the Elder, and its basements still hold Roman walls, mosaics and frescoes. It’s one of the oldest hospitals in Europe. Outside you’ll find the Ruota degli Esposti, the wheel where abandoned newborns were left, and inside Sixtus IV’s Corsie Sistine run 120 metres long and 13 wide, with over 1,200 m² of frescoes restored up to July 2022. Under the octagonal lantern stands a ciborium that is Andrea Palladio’s only work in Rome. The Sala Alessandrina now houses the Museo di Storia dell’Arte Sanitaria, a museum of medical history.

Santa Maria in Traspontina, right on Via della Conciliazione, has one of my favourite stories in Rome. Pius IV pulled down the earlier church in 1564 because it got in the way of the castle’s cannons, and the new one, from 1566, was given a dome without a drum so it would never block the line of fire again. The castle’s gunners prayed in its chapel of St Barbara.

What Via della Conciliazione swept away

Via della Conciliazione is now the grand approach to the Vatican, but to build it the Spina di Borgo was demolished between 1935 and 1937. It was a triangular block of houses between Borgo Nuovo and Borgo Vecchio, pointing towards the castle. The tourist board doesn’t mince its words. The surprise of stepping out of the narrow streets and suddenly facing the colonnade and the basilica was lost. I’m sorry I never got to see it that way.

What the district has gained is Piazza Pia, traffic-free since 23 December 2024, with cars sent through the Lungotevere in Sassia tunnel. You can now walk from the castle to St Peter’s without crossing a road. This was also where the Meta Romuli stood, a Roman funerary pyramid, long gone, that for centuries was thought to be the tomb of Remus.

Is Borgo a good place to stay and eat?

For sleeping, I’m clear on it. If the Vatican is the core of your trip, if you’re going to the Wednesday papal audience or travelling with small children, Borgo puts everything within walking distance. The catch is it has no metro station of its own, so for the rest of Rome you’ll rely on Ottaviano, Lepanto or the bus. If the Vatican is just one day of your trip, I’d look at Prati first. The full comparison is in where to stay near the Vatican.

For eating, the tourist board talks of little streets full of small restaurants, but it doesn’t publish a list and I won’t recommend a specific place without checking it first. My rule is to get away from the first row on the square and on Via della Conciliazione and head into the inner streets. If you’d rather shop at a market, the Trionfale and the Unità are a stroll away in Prati, as I explain in where to eat near the Vatican.