Church, state and architecture: The 'Palazzo di Giustizia' of nineteenth-century Rome

Rome, as we know it, was reshaped in the late nineteenth century. The national Italian government that established itself in the caput mundi in 1870 transformed the traditional papal capital according to political agendas and architectural projects still imperfectly understood. The Palazzo di Giustizia, the Italian supreme courts of justice, is emblematic of the political and aesthetic transformation of Rome in the early modern period. The courthouse was commissioned in 1883 by the Minister of Justice Giuseppe Zanardelli (1829-1903) for a site in Prati di Castello, designed in 1888 by Guglielmo Calderini (1837-1916) in a heavy, neo-Cinquecento style on the scale of Baroque monuments, and finished in 1911. It symbolizes the centralized justice institution, the liberal secular government, and the resurgent national identity of modern Italy.;The conflict between the national secular state and the Roman Catholic church characterized the political culture of the late nineteenth century in Italy and colored all the architectural endeavors during this period. The government decided to erect its courthouse in proximity to the cathedral of Saint Peter so their relationship in the urban landscape might clarify through architectural symbols the equivalent and complementary roles of the spiritual and civil institutions in modern Italian society. Throughout the capital, the national government, in addition to municipal and private initiative, sought to counterbalance the images of the spiritual authority of the church with constructions that symbolized the temporal authority vested in new, democratic institutions of the state.;In this dissertation, the judiciary's role in political transformation is assessed and related to Zanardelli's selection of the site. An analysis of the functional program reveals the importance of historical sources. The chronicle of architectural competition judging process relies on original drawings and archival documents. A biography of Calderini demonstrates his conscious political character. Finally, this dissertation will examine the Palazzo di Giustizia in its historicist language, its ceremonial spaces, its sculptural decoration and secular iconography with the aim of suggesting an example and general framework for evaluating the late nineteenth-century architectural and urbanistic endeavors of the national Italian government in shaping the capital as a work of art.