Here we have a couple of photos which capture Piazza del Popolo while the Sun sets on the horizon. Another perspective for one of the most celebrated and famous squares of Rome, that I usually explain to my tourists to be an area full of history.

We can appreciate the breadth and elegance of the square, completely renovated at the beginning of the XIX century by the architect Valadier, a man who worked hard in Rome. But this place, the first intersection and the entrance on the north side of the Eternal City, has also a dark perspective and side. Imagine how the Piazza del Popolo, for centuries, was used as a place for public executions. During the papal Rome to the condemned were on the gallows to be hanged or, even, for being condemned to the so-called "roman mannaja". What was it? A sort of guillotine ante litteram! It was a real guillotine, whose blade came down from above to take off the prisoners. The French people, therefore, although it has been patented and improved, have not invented anything!

The famous Mastro Titta, a very active executioner during the XIX century, used to note in his diary, in detail, all the condemnation that he performed. He was expert in the use of "roman mannaja". Mastro Titta (whose real name was Giovanni Battista Bugatti), had assets of well 514 of the performances you go to a good end. Not surprisingly, therefore, he was nicknamed "er boja de Roma". To say, moreover, that these executions were real shows, so much that several people used to be there, looking at the execution. Famous characters came face to face with the public death, as the English poet Byron, who in his diary tells us of how one day, walking through the streets of Rome, he found himself, at the Piazza del Popolo, in a hanging public. He was dismayed by the presence of screaming festive children, who were looking forward to see died people. You think that just that experience put an end to the romantic and intense roman adventure of Byron. In short in Rome, there are not only monuments and ancient christian basilicas...