The geographic center of Rome, with exactly the right bull's-eye center-of-town feel . . .
To its builders, the Piazza Venezia was a modern urban showplace – Rome's answer to the new boulevards and squares that had so dramatically transformed Paris in the 1860's . . .
Admittedly, the piazza's historical cost in lost architecture may have been high. But its compensating virtues cannot be dismissed lightly . . .
Most cities are fortunate if they possess even a single unique urban open space. Rome possesses four: the Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps, St. Peter's Square, and the Piazza Venezia. The first three are Baroque, and incomparable. But the pulse of the modern city – the contemporary, rackety, chaotic, electric energy that sets Rome apart from its great rivals Florence and Venice – is best felt here in the Piazza Venezia, at the very heart of the Roman maelstrom.