Spanish Steps

The Spanish Steps: Built by the French, Named for the Spanish, Funded by a Dead Diplomat

The Spanish Steps are not Spanish. The 135-step staircase linking Piazza di Spagna with the Trinità dei Monti church above was funded by a bequest from French diplomat Étienne Gueffier, who died in 1660 and left money specifically for their construction. The church at the top has been under French royal patronage since its founding in 1495. The architects who designed the steps, Francesco de Sanctis and Alessandro Specchi, were Roman. The name comes from the Palazzo di Spagna, the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See, which occupies the square at the bottom. The stairs were built between 1723 and 1726 to connect what were then the French and Spanish zones of influence in Rome’s urban politics. The naming is not subtle.

In 2015, Bulgari funded a €1.5 million restoration of the travertine, cleaning centuries of oxidation and biological growth. The following year, the City of Rome introduced a ban on sitting on the steps, enforced by fines of €250 for sitting and up to €400 for eating, drinking, or dirtying the stone. The ban is enforced, particularly during peak season. This is not a technicality: a significant portion of every tourist visit to the Spanish Steps used to consist of sitting on them and watching the square. That experience no longer exists legally.

The Steps Themselves

The staircase has 135 steps (some sources say 136; the discrepancy depends on where the first step is counted from) arranged across three widening landings in a Rococo design. Seen from the bottom, the composition narrows and then widens as it rises, creating an effect of movement that is unusual for a static structure. The design was deliberately theatrical: this was a ceremonial connection between the city’s street level and an elevated church, and the steps were meant to be seen from below as a sweeping approach.

From the top, beside the Trinità dei Monti, the view down into Piazza di Spagna and across Rome’s rooftops toward the Pantheon dome in the distance is one of the city’s best ground-level panoramas. Sunrise and the first two hours after it give the widest angle before tour groups fill the square.

Piazza di Spagna and the Barcaccia

The fountain at the foot of the steps, the Fontana della Barcaccia (the fountain of the ugly boat), was designed by Pietro Bernini, father of the more famous Gian Lorenzo. It was built in 1629 to commemorate a Tiber flood that left a boat stranded in the square; the design is intentionally low to the pavement because the local water pressure was insufficient to support a taller spray. Gian Lorenzo reportedly contributed to parts of the design, which the two Berninis disputed during their lifetimes.

The Keats-Shelley House, on the right side of the steps as you face the stairs, occupies the apartment where John Keats died in February 1821. He was 25 years old and had travelled to Rome hoping the climate would help his tuberculosis. The museum contains one of the most significant collections of Romantic period manuscripts in the world, including manuscripts and personal objects belonging to Keats, Shelley, Byron, and Hunt. Entry costs around €6 and the museum is habitually undervisited given what it contains.

The Borghese Gallery

Villa Borghese, the large park north of the steps, contains the Borghese Gallery, which holds the most concentrated collection of Bernini sculpture anywhere in the world alongside important works by Caravaggio, Raphael, and Titian. The gallery limits entry to 360 people at a time in two-hour slots. Full-price tickets cost €16 plus a pre-sale fee. The gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday, 09:00 to 19:00, closed Monday. Tickets sell out months in advance during peak season. Book through the official gallery site at galleriaborghese.cultura.gov.it as soon as your dates are fixed. Walking from the Spanish Steps through the villa gardens takes about 25 minutes.

The Borghese Gallery is, in the opinion of many people who have seen a lot of European museums, the single most satisfying museum visit in Rome. Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, in which Daphne’s fingers are transforming into laurel branches as the marble is cut, is worth the entire trip to Rome by itself.

Via Condotti and Shopping

Via Condotti runs west from Piazza di Spagna toward the Tiber and is the most concentrated luxury shopping street in Rome, with Gucci, Bulgari, Prada, and Cartier occupying what are effectively palazzi adapted as stores. The street is expensive to walk through and free to walk through; window-shopping the architecture of the buildings is its own reward.

Where to Eat Near the Steps

The cafes in and immediately around Piazza di Spagna price everything at the location premium. Caffè Greco on Via Condotti, open since 1760 and historically frequented by Keats, Shelley, Goethe, and Byron, is tourist-facing and not cheap, but the interior, with its series of small rooms lined with portraits and mirrors, is genuinely atmospheric. A coffee at the bar (standing) costs much less than table service.

For a proper meal, the honest strategy is to walk 10 minutes toward the Trevi Fountain or northeast toward the Prati neighbourhood. Da Mariolino, one block from the steps, is one of the few restaurants in the immediate area with consistently positive reviews from residents; the dishes are Roman classics (cacio e pepe, coda alla vaccinara) at prices around €15 to €25 for a main course.

Sant’Andrea, slightly further from the tourist epicentre, has been doing handmade pasta and Roman hospitality for close to a century. Artesfizio is a bistro that makes a point of Lazio’s regional cheeses, wines, and cured meats alongside traditional cooking.

Where to Stay

Hotel de Russie on Via del Babuino, a short walk from the square, is one of Rome’s best hotels and overlooks a terraced garden. It is expensive in proportion to its reputation. For mid-range options, the streets between Via Sistina (at the top of the steps) and the Trevi Fountain have numerous smaller hotels in the €150 to €250 range for a central double room in peak season.

Practical Notes

The walk from the Spanish Steps to the Trevi Fountain is under 10 minutes. The route via Via Due Macelli and Via del Tritone is direct. The Pantheon is an additional 15 minutes further. This triangle of sites forms the most walked tourist circuit in Rome and is navigable on foot; avoid it between noon and 16:00 in July and August when the heat is maximal and the crowds peak.

The April azalea display, when the steps are decorated with pink azaleas, draws additional visitors in late April and early May but is genuinely attractive. The fines for sitting apply even during the azalea season.

The Keats-Shelley House deserves 45 minutes that most visitors to the square do not give it. It is one of the few places in Rome’s centre where you can stand in an unaltered 18th-century apartment and read letters written by the people who lived in it.