The
building where the restaurant ad hoc is, in ripetta street n.43, has
been builded by the vatican at the end of the fourteen century with the
s.giacomo hospital, and it was the doctor’s house. ( there’s a passage
from the building to the hospital that can be used today !). The
hospital was called “of the incurables” because the pope builded it when
there was the plague, and here all the “incurables” persons lived.The building of ad hoc is very old, approximately the fifteen or sixteen century but the general structure is older than fifteen century: probably the second century abd inside the restaurant there are visible old columns of that period.
In the reinassament period, pope leone x gaves to ripetta street the definitive position. It was the gold period when the most importance monuments, squares and streets found place, spanish steps ( piazza di spagna ) connected to ripetta street with “via del corso” and “via dei condotti” or “piazza navona” and pantheon, connected with “ via della scrofa”.
Near
the restaurant there’s the tiber and in the old times there was the port
of “ripa piccola” (the port of “ripa grande” is another port in the
closeness that had a more commercial vocation ). That will be visible in
the future after the works of restauration. The port was buryed ih the
first part of this century to build the new embankements of the tiber.In the back side of ripetta street there’s the wonderfoul “villa borghese” and the flights of steps of “trinita’ dei monti”.
