The Spanish Steps, Revisited - A Temporary Exhibition

The Keats-Shelley House is glad to announce the opening of a new temporary exhibition celebrating the three hundred years of the Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti,

The Spanish Steps, Revisited

1 May 2025 - 1 November 2025

curated by Luca Caddia and Fulvio Chimento,

in collaboration with Ella Francesca Kilgallon and Carlotta Minarelli

The Spanish Steps, Revisited, aimed at celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of the 'Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti' (2025-2026), is developed through two areas of study: one historical and one contemporary.

The first illustrates the events that led the Pincian slope to become the object of contention between the papacy and the French court in the Ancien Régime, showing the architectural projects and engravings of the ephemeral apparatuses on loan from the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Biblioteca di Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, The Istituto Centrale per la Grafica and the Museo Civico di Bassano del Grappa.

The second is presented as an 'update', in the awareness that the monument conceived by Francesco De Sanctis is the result of a journey and not the only possible solution.

Inspired by the history of the area, the curators have invited contemporary artists and architects to imagine a different place, asking them: 'If you could redesign the Spanish Steps today, how would you do them?'

The artists involved are:

Stefano Arienti, Elena Bellantoni, Elisabetta Benassi, Jeffrey Dennis, Michele Di Stefano, Margherita Morgantin, Cesare Pietroiusti, Alfredo Pirri, Spazio in situ, Patrick Tuttofuoco, T-yong Chung, and Italo Zuffi, as well as architects Roberto Einaudi, Manuel Aires Mateus, Giorgio Pasqualini and Gaia Maria Lombardo (Open House Roma). The exhibition also benefits from the collaboration of a selection of 2024-2025 Fellows from the American Academy in Rome and the British School at Rome.

** Please be aware that for the temporary exhibition The Spanish Steps, Revisited we have had to remove from display the relics and manuscripts relating to the Shelleys and Byron. For visitors particularly interested in these writers we would encourage you to plan your visit from 1 November onwards. If you would like more information, please contact us at info@keats-shelley-house.org **