Via della Lungara

Via della Lungara is a street that links Via di Porta Settimiana to Piazza della Rovere in Rome (Italy), in the Rione Trastevere.

The former name of the street was Sub Janiculensis or Sub Jano, while the pilgrims coming to Rome to visit St. Peter's Basilica called it Via Sancta. It was later known as Via Julia, just like the street of the same name on the opposite bank of the Tiber, although Pope Julius II didn't create the street (this credit goes to Pope Alexander VI), but just adapted it.

Finally, the name was changed into the present one, that refers to its straight length.

Since 1728, in Via della Lungara rose the mental hospital of Santa Maria della Pietà, an extension of the Ospedale di Santo Spirito. The hospital was enlarged in 1867 and then demolished during the building of the Lungotevere.

Via della Lungara is connected to an ancient Roman adage:

A via de la Lungara ce sta 'n gradino
chi nun salisce quelo nun è romano,
nun è romano e né trasteverino

(In Via della Lungara there is a step:
he, who doesn't scale it, is not a Roman man,
he is not a Roman nor a Trastevere man)

It refers to the three steps giving access to the Prison of Regina Coeli: the adage means that an authentic Roman should have lived the hard experience of jail and then descended "the step of the Coeli".

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Wikipedia