Giovanni. A plan of improvements was made, under the direction of Mgr. de Merode, during the reign of Pius IX. ; and, although only very partially executed, has served as a basis for later efforts.
Great changes in the municipal and social conditions followed the occupation of the city by the Italians (Sept. 20, 187o), and the rapid increase of population due to immigration from other parts of Italy. In a rush of land-speculation, trees and fine villas were unfortunately destroyed. As soon as political circum stances admitted, the municipality set to work.
Two principal problems presented themselves. The more im portant was the confinement of the Tiber in such a manner as to render impossible the serious floods which had from time to time inundated the city, often causing great damage to property and rendering the lower streets more or less impassable. There were floods which almost reached the level of the first storey near San Carlo in the Corso, and it was common to see the great Piazza Navona and the neighbourhood of the Pantheon full of water for days together during the winter. The interruption of traffic can be imagined, and the damage to property was serious. The other urgent matter was one of which the govern ment of Pius IX. had been partially aware, namely, the necessity for opening better thoroughfares between different parts of the city.
It is necessary to distinguish between the work carried out by the municipality, and that which was done in the way of private speculation. The first was on the whole good, and has proved enduring; the second was in many cases bad, and resulted in great loss. As soon as the opening of such streets as the Via Nazionale and the Via Cavour, the widening and straightening of the Via dell' Angelo Custode, now the Via del Tritone Nuovo, and similar improvements, such as the construction of new bridges over the Tiber, had demonstrated that the value of property could be doubled and quadrupled in a short time, and as soon as the increase of population had caused a general rise in rents, owners of property awoke to the situation of affairs, and became as anxious as they had at first been disinclined to improve their estates by wholesale building.
The most important work executed by the government with the assistance of the municipality was the construction of the em bankments along the Tiber. Though damaged by the great flood of December 1900, their truly Roman solidity saved the city from the disastrous consequences of a wide inundation. It is impossible
not to admire them, and not to feel respect for a people able to carry out such a plan in such a manner and in so short a time, in the face of such great difficulties. But so far as the life of the city was concerned, the cutting of new streets and the widening of old ones produced a more apparent immediate result. The opening of such a thoroughfare as the Via Nazionale now named in part Via Cesare Battisti, and in part Via Quattro Novembre could not but prove to be of the greatest value. It begins at the Piazza delle Term; in which the principal railway station is situated, and con nects the upper part of the city by a broad straight road, and then, by easy gradients, with the Forum of Trajan, the Piazza dei Santi Apostoli and the Piazza di Venezia, whence, as the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, it runs through the heart of the old city, being designed to reach St. Peter's by a new bridge of the same name opened in 1911 near the bridge of S. Angelo. It is true that, in order to accomplish this, the Villa Aldobrandini had to be partially destroyed but this is almost the only point which lovers of beauty can regret, and in compensation it opened to full view the famous palace of the Massimo family, the imposing church of S. Andrea della Valle, and the noble pile of the Cancelleria, one of the best pieces of architecture in Rome. Another great artery is the Via Cavour, which was intended to connect the railway sta tion with the south-western part of Rome, descending to the Forum, and thence turning northwards to reach the Piazza di Venezia on the east side of the monument to Victor Emanuel II. It was proposed again (1928) to extend the Via Cavour to the Piazza. Rome is now divided clearly into two parts, the old and the new, of which the old is incomparably the more artistic and the more beautiful, as it will always remain the more interesting. A tunnel under the Quirinal Hill connects the north end of the old city, the Corso, Babuino, etc., and the upper part of modern Rome, including the former Via Nazionale and the Esquiline. A causeway and bridge unites the Pincio with the Villa Borghese, or, as it is now called, the Villa Umberto Primo. In 1911 zoological gardens were arranged in the grounds of the Villa and a fine col lection of modern Italian art was opened in the Palazzo delle Belle Arti, to the west of the Villa.