The Priory of Malta on the Aventine is perhaps the most romantic spot in Rome. Every single day, hundreds of visitors line up here to look at the dome of St Peter’s through a tiny keyhole. The perspective effect that appears beyond the door is a sight unique in the world, and yet few people know that even the garden, normally closed to the public, can be visited.
Let’s make one useful distinction right away, because almost everyone gets it wrong: looking through the keyhole is free and you can do it at any hour, simply by stepping up to it from the square. Entering the villa and the gardens of the Priory of Malta, on the other hand, is a different matter: it is only possible by reservation, on a few specific days and times.
If you want to step beyond the door of Rome’s most famous “keyhole”, wander through the beautiful gardens of the Priory of Malta and understand a little more about these mysterious knights, all you have to do is discover the ancient Magistral Villa on the Aventine Hill. I was lucky enough to visit the garden on a warm October day, and it goes without saying that I loved it.
Would you like to hear about my experience?
I’ll tell you all about it below.
The Knights of Malta, between myth and reality
You may well have heard it, or perhaps you too have confused the two orders, but people very often mix up the Knights of Malta with the Templars. Some think they are a monastic order, others that you must come from the island of Malta to become a knight.
In short, a great deal of confusion surrounds the Order of the Knights of Malta.
I too, once I had stepped through the door of the Priory of Malta in Rome, expected to find men in armour on horseback, a sword at their side and an eight-pointed cross on their cloak.
In reality this ancient order lost its military character long ago and today is devoted above all to assistance: it is in fact a hospitaller order, still active with clinics, hospitals and humanitarian missions all over the world.
Would you ever have guessed?
Now let me tell you their ancient history.
The villa of the Priory of Malta
Today the villa of the Priory of Malta, or Magistral Villa, stands on the Aventine Hill, in a raised position from which you can take in the whole of the Eternal City.
In Roman times this was a sacred place, occupied by temples dedicated to the pagan gods. As happened with Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the foundations of those ancient buildings were later reused to build more recent churches and palaces. A short walk away stands the beautiful Basilica of Santa Sabina, one of Rome’s most important examples of an early Christian basilica, which I warmly recommend visiting.
And after the Roman era?
As early as the 10th century a Benedictine monastery stood on the hill; in the Middle Ages it passed to the Templars. As you may know, the Templar order was officially suppressed on 22 March 1312 by Pope Clement V with the bull Vox in excelso: from that moment the property passed to the Knights of St John (the future Knights of Malta), who made it their Roman priory.
The garden in the form we see today was laid out from 1678 by the architects Mattia de’ Rossi and Carlo Fontana, but the real turning point came almost a century later. In 1764 Cardinal Giovanni Battista Rezzonico, Grand Prior of the order and nephew of Pope Clement XIII, entrusted the restoration of the whole complex to a brilliant artist: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Between 1764 and 1766 it was he who redesigned the little square in front of the entrance, rebuilt the small church of Santa Maria del Priorato and created the perspective of the “keyhole”. A telling detail: this is the only work of architecture that Piranesi, famous above all as an engraver, actually built.
But that’s not all!
The keyhole of the Priory of Malta
As I was saying at the start, the keyhole of the Priory of Malta is famous because it offers a perfectly framed view of the dome of St Peter’s in the Vatican. Every day and every evening, Romans and tourists head to what has become one of the most romantic places in Rome just to admire the trompe-l’œil that Piranesi gave us.
There is one detail I love to share: looking through that little hole, you see three different “states” at once. The keyhole belongs to the territory of the Sovereign Order of Malta, the garden is in Italy and the framed dome is in the Vatican. Three sovereignties in a single glance.
The perspective was studied by the architect to perfection, with the vanishing lines of the garden ending right on the dome, making it look bigger and closer than it really is. In fact, if you step inside the Priory of Malta and walk down the narrow corridor of intertwined plants, you’ll realise that, once on the terrace, the dome of St Peter’s appears far more distant than it seemed from the keyhole.
Ah, if you enjoy these games of perspective, you should know that Rome has several of them. One of the most famous is the perspective gallery created by Borromini at Palazzo Spada: a colonnade that looks almost 40 metres long and in fact measures barely 8. The other, even more curious, is found along Via Niccolò Piccolomini: as you drive towards the Vatican, the dome of St Peter’s seems to shrink the closer you get, and to grow larger as you move away. An optical illusion that still leaves everyone open-mouthed.
Inside the garden of the Priory of Malta
The part I loved most about the villa is without doubt the garden of the Priory.
Here you’ll find the only surviving trace of the Templar era in Rome: a small stone well, flanked by numerous busts of illustrious men and by hedges clipped into the shape of crosses, immaculately kept.
The impression it gave me was one of perfect harmony: it really feels like being in an oasis of peace, light years away from the chaos of the traffic and the bustle of the city-centre lanes.
But the beauty of this place is not given only by its geometric shapes and ancient objects: nature plays its part too. At the centre of the garden of the Priory of Malta rises a majestic cedar of Lebanon. It is no ordinary tree: estimates of its age vary widely, but the most common ones credit it with at least five centuries of life, with a huge trunk and branches spreading all around.
It is even said that Michelangelo liked to rest and draw in its shade. It’s one of those legends that is hard to verify - the present garden is Piranesi’s work, two centuries later - but that make the visit all the more evocative. Imagine my emotion when the guide told me the story!
The symbolism within the Priory
In recent years there has been much talk of symbolism, and of Masonic symbolism in particular. But these symbols, which seem so strange to us today that they fuel conspiracy theories and superstitions, were perfectly ordinary at the time the Priory of Malta was built.
Piranesi was in fact a brilliant architect, but also a Freemason and a refined connoisseur of symbols. That is why he chose to give the villa of the Priory of Malta a very precise shape, drawing its outline so that, seen from above, it would resemble a ship.
The little tower flying the flag of the Order of Malta represents the mainmast, while the dense tangle of the garden stands for the ship’s ropes, ready to be pulled to weigh anchor.
This symbolism obviously recalls the military and seafaring vocation of the Knights of Malta, who moved from island to island across the whole Mediterranean, founding towns and villages that can still be visited today, such as beautiful Rhodes.
The church of Santa Maria del Priorato and its symbolic meanings
The symbolism of Piranesi’s villa is present above all in the small church next to the palace. It is here that the most important ceremonies take place, and here that the throne of the Grand Master of the order stands.
This building struck me because it is white both outside and in, and manages to be sober and elegant despite the richness of its decoration.
On the façade you’ll see four fluted pilasters bearing the symbols of the Hierosolymitan order: the ship, the cross, weapons and military emblems. The snake, here, does not represent evil: it echoes the hospitaller vocation of the order, being an attribute of Aesculapius, the ancient god of medicine, still present today in the caduceus, the symbol of the pharmacy. It is no coincidence that the Aventine Hill was once known as mons serpentarius, the hill of serpents.
The two chained crescent moons represent the subjugation of the Muslims, historic adversaries of the Knights of Malta, while the castles recall the strongholds from which the order defended the islands and repelled attackers.
Inside the church of Santa Maria del Priorato: ingenious devices and the study of light
The interior of the church is an original blend of neoclassical sobriety and Baroque exuberance. The forms are regular and simple, except for the great stucco decoration of the ceiling, which celebrates the order, and for the sculptures of the altar.
The sculptures, the work of Tommaso Righi to a design by Piranesi, are the heart of the church, in a weave of shapes, rays and putti. In a bas-relief there is the Madonna and Child, while higher up sits Saint Basil in Glory, greatly venerated by the Knights of Malta. The saint rests on an ark, halfway between an ancient sarcophagus and a ship: once again, a reference to the seafaring and military vocation of the patrons.
Here too Piranesi deploys one of his devices: the white of the stucco is heightened by the chiaroscuro, thanks to the natural light entering from a window behind the altar, invisible to the viewer. The back of the sculptural group is perfectly smoothed and free of decoration, so as to let the light filter through easily and illuminate the saint being taken up to heaven, as if it came from a divine source.
A device very similar, in the end, to the one used by Bernini in many of his Roman churches, such as Sant’Andrea al Quirinale.
Piranesi’s tomb in the church of the Knights of Malta
After all the effort he put into creating this church, Piranesi wished to be buried right here. And here he truly rests, since 1778, the year of his death.
The life-size statue placed to decorate the funerary monument was made by Giuseppe Angelini in 1779: a sculpture unique in Rome for a tomb of that era. The great architect is portrayed deep in thought, with all the tools of his trade, the compass and the set square.
These instruments are often associated with Freemasonry too, of which the artist was a member: the Freemasons, after all, began as a brotherhood of builders, so much so that the word maçon, in French, still means bricklayer today.
Here too the symbolic references abound. The inverted torches represent death, while the snake coiled behind the artist’s head, the ouroboros biting its own tail, symbolises the eternal continuity of life and of nature’s energy. Piranesi is portrayed as an ancient philosopher, leaning on a herm - a rectangular marble pillar - while in his hand he holds a scroll bearing the plan of a temple that long puzzled historians.
A short history of the Knights of Malta
Are you interested in a little of the history of the Knights of Malta?
Here are a few key points to round off my visit to the Priory villa.
The Knights of Malta were born around 1048 in the Holy Land, when a group of merchants from the maritime republic of Amalfi founded a hospice in Jerusalem to care for pilgrims. Their name was the Order of St John of Jerusalem, and they soon came to be called Hierosolymitans.
The order was recognised by the Church as a religious order in 1113. Following the wars that saw Jerusalem constantly contested, the order also took on a military character: its aim was to defend the pilgrims and protect its own seats.
After the loss of the territories in the Holy Land, the knights migrated to Cyprus, then to Rhodes (from 1310) and finally to Malta (from 1530), the island that gave them the name we know them by today.
The order took part in many battles against the Ottoman Empire. One of the most famous is undoubtedly the naval battle of Lepanto, on 7 October 1571, in which the Holy League - Venice, Spain, the Papacy, Genoa, Savoy and the Knights of Malta - crushingly defeated the Ottoman fleet in the Gulf of Patras, in Greece. An episode so impressed on the order’s memory that the knight who acted as my guide recounted it with deep pride.
Having lost Malta with Napoleon’s arrival (1798), the order moved its seat first to Sicily, then to Ferrara, before settling definitively in Rome in 1834, right here on the Aventine. Since then the Magistral Villa has been the heart of the Sovereign Order of Malta, which enjoys an international status and is present today in every part of the world.
How to visit the Priory of Malta on the Aventine
Let’s return to the distinction from the beginning, because it’s the question everyone asks me.
- The keyhole is in Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta and is free and accessible at any hour: just join the queue in front of the door and look through. No booking needed. At peak times, though, expect a little queue (at dawn or sunset the light is magical and there are fewer people).
- The visit to the villa and gardens, on the other hand, has only been possible since 2013 and only by reservation. Openings are generally on Friday mornings (roughly 9:30 am to 12:30 pm), with the occasional extra Saturday; in August the villa is closed. You book by writing to the order’s Visitors Centre at visitorscentre@orderofmalta.int. The guided visit costs around 20 euros and lasts about two hours. I’d recommend checking the current days and times when you book, as the calendar changes often.
If you’d like to take in the whole area with a guide - the history of the knights, the Basilica of Santa Sabina and the lovely Orange Garden right next door - you can also join a walking tour of the Aventine Hill: the keyhole stays free, but the guided walk helps you read the symbols and discover corners that, on your own, are easy to miss.
Getting there: the Aventine is a few minutes’ walk from the Circo Massimo metro stop (line B). From there a short climb takes you between the Orange Garden, Santa Sabina and Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, all a stone’s throw from one another.
If you still have time and an appetite for Rome, after the Aventine you can head down towards the centre and end the day at the Vatican Museums, where you’ll come face to face with the very dome of St Peter’s you had spied through the keyhole.
And you - have you already peeked through the most romantic keyhole in Rome, or would you love to discover the secret garden hidden beyond that door too?
