From the beginning of the 15th to the middle of the 17th centuries Rome was transformed from a medieval backwater into one of Europe’s pre-eminent cities. After a century in France, the newly-returned Papal Court transformed the urban appearance of the city and enhanced the prestige of the Catholic Church through a series of aggressively pursued public works. James Hill will explore the city in which he lived for many years, tracing the patronage of a series of powerful popes from the della Rovere Sixtus IV in the 1470s to the Chigi della Rovere Alexander VII in the 1660s. The popes were not alone as the increasing wealth of members of the College of Cardinals and the great princely families helped effect remarkable change. Churches were commissioned to honour God and the Saints, palaces built to secure the fame of their owning families, and bridges and new thoroughfares were laid out to manage the increasing numbers of pilgrims visiting the ‘Eternal’ city. Furthermore, the harnessing of the Tiber and the restoration of long-neglected ancient Roman aqueducts produced abundant supplies of water which not only quenched the thirst of a growing population, fed via a series of spectacular fountains dotted around the city’s urban landscape, but also left us a series of theatrical set-pieces, the epitome of Rome’s triumphant ‘Baroque’ as in the grandeur of Piazza Navona and the cascades of the nearby Trevi Fountain.