Jubilee 2025: work on the redevelopment of Piazza Pia has begun

A press conference was held this morning in the Conciliazione Auditorium in Rome to present plans for the redevelopment of the Piazza Pia area in preparation for the 2025 Jubilee Year. Among the projects which will help make the capital more welcoming for the influx of pilgrims expected, is the redevelopment and pedestrianization of the piazza located between Castel Sant'Angelo and the Via della Conciliazione, a project financed with 70 million euros of Jubilee funding.

The project was presented to the public by the Mayor and Extraordinary Commissioner Roberto Gualtieri, the Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers Alfredo Mantovano, His Excellency Archbishop Rino Fisichella, delegated by Pope Francis to oversee the organization of the 2025 Holy Year, the CEO of ANAS, the Italian roads agency, Aldo Isi and Rome council’s Assessor for Public Works Ornella Segnalini and Assessor for Mobility Eugenio Patanè who illustrated the amended road layouts which will be in place during the works.

“The government is committed” - Mantovano stated – “to playing its part in the success of the Jubilee, which is an initiative unlike any other. The appropriate secular approach of the government requires us not to neglect Rome’s centuries-old tradition of faith and the civic value that pilgrimage has always had in our history. In recent months we have agreed a ‘Jubilee methodology’: we meet every two weeks with Mayor Gualtieri and Archbishop Fisichella for a real-time update on the works’ progress, so as not to waste time and make sure that we have everything in place and ready for Christmas Eve of 2024, when the Holy Door will be opened».

Mayor Gualtieri said:  "This is the start of a seriously important program of public works".

“The project we are presenting today” - continued the mayor – “is perhaps the most important from a symbolic point of view, because it aims to bring back together two fundamental sites in the city, which have always been a vital axis: Saint Peter’s and Castel Sant'Angelo.

“We want to move on from the ‘reconciliation’ that is recognized in the name of the road (Via della Conciliazione) leading from Castel Sant’Angelo to St Peter’s Square to an ‘embrace’, between Italy and the Vatican, on the occasion of this upcoming Jubilee of Hope. So it will be an urban redevelopment project with significant artistic importance too.

“The actual excavations will begin on August 20 and 21 this year and will end in December 2024, and all changes to the road layout in the surrounding area will be promptly communicated to the citizens of Rome. Yes, there will be inconveniences, but the Jubilee represents a great opportunity for the future of Rome."

“We are deeply grateful for the constant and indeed daily collaboration” - Archbishop Fisichella said – “which has been in place for a long time for the Jubilee. I would like to point out that this very venue in which we are making the announcement today, was one of the fruits of the Holy Year of 1950.

“Every Jubilee, in fact, has left Rome with particular signs of beauty, art, and civic facilities and the Roman people themselves have the spirit and history of the Jubilee years in their DNA. In fact, in a beautiful city like Rome, life is improved, and violence is reduced and we are trying to achieve that again this time.

“The works will give people a perspective of beauty that can only assist their sense of contemplation. The Jubilee is first and foremost a spiritual event that we want everyone to experience, and the passage through the Holy Door, taking place in a context of surrounding beauty that assists contemplation, can only be something very positive.”

The Assessor for Public Mobility of Rome City Council, Eugenio Patané, went into some detail on the scale of the public works that are being planned. “The creation of this pedestrian precinct will unite the Castel Sant'Angelo area with via della Conciliazione and then on to St. Peter’s, ensuring that those who use this area will do so safe from traffic, while at the same time, we will be ensuring the free flow of vehicles through an underpass that will link up with the riverside road of Lungotevere in Sassia.

“The current road system in Piazza Pia, where 3,000 vehicles pass every hour, will be directed towards the existing underpass, which was built as part of the works for the Great Jubilee of the year 2000. The project will see the extension of the underpass by approximately 130 meters and will follow the so-called ‘cut and cover’ method that allows work to be carried out simultaneously on the surface and below. The alternative road system designed to allow the works to be carried out provides for changes of direction for various roads, changes which will also affect some bus routes. There will also be various traffic light adjustments and work on parking spaces and taxi stands. The goal is to distribute the traffic flows and limit inconvenience to citizens as much as possible."