This famous, quaint and quaint public square was created at the top of the Aventine Hill in 1765, commissioned by a Grand Knight nephew of Pope Clement XIII and designed by the architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi who is buried in the church of the Priory, Santa Maria del Priorato.
Surrounded by cypress trees and a wall festooned with obelisks and military trophies, the piazza takes its name from the Order of the Knights of Malta and houses the residence of the Grand Priory of the Order.
The Priory began as a Benedictine monastery built in the 10th century. In the 12th century it passed into the hands of the Templars, warrior-monks and defenders of Christianity against the Muslim threat. The Order of the Templars was suppressed in 1312 and its Priory acquired by the Knights of Rhodes. In the early 16th century, this Order changed its name to the current Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta. In 1765 Piranesi was commissioned to restructure the square and the façade of the Priory-Church of San Basilio, renamed Santa Maria del Priorato. Legend has it that a Templars ship lies hidden in the area always ready for embarking for the next crusade to the Holy Land.
Armed soldiers guard the square because of its status as an extraterritorial entity which the Order enjoys even as the world’s tiniest sovereign state. To stand in the piazza is to stand neither in Italy nor in the Vatican City State, the world’s second-smallest sovereign nation.
Many visitors come to the piazza to peep through a small keyhole found in the bronze door of the villa’s entrance gate. This is a treat that knowledgeable Roman tourists should not deny themselves.
