10 Popes Who Shaped Rome: A History of the Papacy in the Eternal City

For nearly two millennia, no institution has left a greater mark on Rome’s streets and skyline than the papacy. Popes have waged wars, commissioned masterpieces, and reshaped the city to reflect their power and ambition. Some were visionary builders, others ruthless schemers; some were scholars at heart, while others were extravagant patrons of art. But whether carving grand avenues through medieval chaos or gilding their legacy in marble, mosaic and paint, each left behind a city unmistakably shaped by their reign. This is the story of ten popes whose legacies are written into the very fabric of Rome itself.

1. St. Peter (c.30 - 64 AD)

The Fisherman Who Became the Rock of Rome

Peter's crucifixion is the cornerstone of the Vatican story

Christ’s right-hand man, the first pope, the foundation stone of the Church - quite the résumé! Peter was a fisherman turned apostle, whom Christ famously called the rock (a pun on his name) upon which his church would be built. Arrested while preaching in Rome during Nero’s brutal persecution of Christians in 64 AD, Peter was crucified upside-down in the circus of Nero, a grand chariot-racing arena on the Vatican Hill.

In death, Peter transformed Rome. His burial site soon became a covert pilgrimage destination, drawing early Christians to pray at the site of their fallen leader’s tomb. When Constantine embraced Christianity three centuries later, he built a grand basilica directly above Peter’s tomb - the first St. Peter’s - fixing the Vatican as the heart of the Catholic Church.

The first church was demolished over a thousand years later to make way for Michelangelo’s dome and Bernini’s colonnades - but Peter’s grave remained the unshakable center of everything. Without Peter’s execution, there wouldn’t be a Vatican, and Rome would be a very different place today!

2. Paschal I (817–824)

The Mosaic Maker Who Shaped Rome’s Medieval Glory

Precious mosaics in Santa Prassede

Paschal I was a pope with a mission: to restore Rome’s faded artistic glory. By the 9th century, the city was a shadow of its former self, and its cultural and artistic influence had long been eclipsed by Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. But Paschal had a plan, and it was covered in gold and glass.

Determined to revive Rome’s sacred spaces, Paschal took advantage of the iconoclasm crisis in the Byzantine world to invite out-of-work master craftsmen to the city. From them he would commission a dazzling series of shimmering, otherworldly artworks that remain some of the most breathtaking in Rome. The apse of Santa Prassede is an ethereal vision of Christ in a golden heaven, flanked by saints and Paschal himself. Even more extraordinary is the Chapel of Saint Zeno, a jewel-box of mosaic brilliance built by Paschal for his mother, Theodora in the same church.

Beyond the art, Paschal was also a relic hunter extraordinaire, spearheading the rescue of countless martyrs’ remains from neglected catacombs and enshrining them within the churches he restored - including Saint Cecelia in her eponymous basilica in Trastevere.

Though Paschal presided over a Rome much reduced in power, his mosaics were a wonderful visual declaration that the Eternal City was not finished yet.

3. Nicholas V (1447–1455)

The Pope Who Laid the Foundations of Renaissance Rome

Fra Angelico's superb Niccoline chapel is testament to Nicholas V's patronage

When Nicholas V was elected Pope in 1447, Rome remained something of a backwater. The papacy had only recently returned from its exile in Avignon, and the Eternal City, battered by centuries of neglect and political instability, was crumbling. Steeped in the emerging values of humanism, Nicholas saw himself as the pope who would restore Rome’s dignity.

Nicholas wasted no time in restoring Rome’s collapsing walls and aqueducts, stabilizing its bridges, and rebuilding roads that had fallen into disrepair. In preparation for the fabulously successful Jubilee of 1450, Nicholas restored major churches, including Santa Maria Maggiore and San Lorenzo fuori le Mura. But his most enduring contributions lay within the Vatican itself.

Here he commissioned Fra Angelico to fresco the Niccoline Chapel, an extraordinary hidden jewel of Renaissance artistry, and laid the first plans for an ambitious reconstruction of St. Peter’s Basilica alongside the great architect and writer Leon Battista Alberti. If the High Renaissance was Rome’s golden age, Nicholas was the architect who laid its foundations.

4. Sixtus IV (1471–1484)

The Builder of Renaissance Rome

Early Renaissance splendor in the Sistine Chapel

If you’ve ever strolled across the Ponte Sisto, stepped into the Sistine Chapel, or navigated the streets of Rome without falling into a medieval cesspit, you have Sixtus IV to thank. The della Rovere pope enthusiastically continued Nicholas’ urban projects, building bridges, repaving ancient roads, and modernizing Rome’s sewage and water systems - sanitary successes that saw Rome’s population soar to equal Florence.

His most famous legacy, though, is the Sistine Chapel. Before Michelangelo ever touched a brush, it was Sixtus IV who had the chapel built as a grand statement of papal authority, its walls frescoed by Renaissance masters including Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Perugino.

Sixtus IV’s Rome was a city on the rise, both in grandeur and intrigue. Under his watch, the Vatican became a true Renaissance court, and Rome’s transformation from medieval decay to the dazzling capital of Christendom gathered pace. Yet Sixtus was no saint: he was unrepentantly nepotistic, and ruthlessly promoted family interests - including a scurrilous betrayal of the Medici in Florence during the failed Pazzi conspiracy.

5. Alexander VI (1492–1503)

The Infamous Borgia Pope

The superb Borgia apartments set a new standard for papal patronage

Rodrigo Borgia might just be the most notorious name in Papal history. And for good reason! Elected as Alexander VI in 1492, his reign was a masterclass in corruption, scandal, and raw political ambition. Simony? Check. Nepotism? You betcha. Sexual impropriety? The man had multiple mistresses and fathered several children while on the papal throne. Murder? Whispers of poisonings and political assassinations dogged his tenure.

Alexander’s unchecked corruption and political machinations directly fueled the discontent that would explode into the Protestant Reformation in the coming decades. Rome under his rule was a city of intrigue, blood feuds, and unrestrained ambition - perhaps best symbolized by his son, Cesare Borgia, the ruthless model for Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Yet, for all his moral failings, Alexander VI left an indelible mark on Rome. His patronage of Pinturicchio in the Vatican’s Borgia Apartments set a new standard for papal patronage, igniting an artistic arms race that would culminate in Raphael’s era-defining works in the Papal Palace a decade later. His pontificate also coincided with Columbus’s voyages to the New World. According to legend, Borgia used the first consignment of gold to arrive from the Americas to gild the ceiling of Santa Maria Maggiore.

6. Julius II (1503–1513)

The Warrior Pope and Michelangelo's Greatest Patron

Raphael's portrait captures the indomitable spirit of the Warrior Pope

Few popes have left as indelible a mark on Rome as Julius II. While Sixtus IV laid the groundwork for Renaissance Rome, it was his nephew Julius who built the empire. Known as the Warrior Pope, he was as comfortable in armor as he was in papal vestments, willingly leading armies to reclaim lost papal territories. But his true conquest was cultural - Julius II was the patron who turned Rome into the undisputed artistic capital of the world.

His grandest vision was a new St. Peter’s Basilica. Ordering the dismantling of the aging Constantinian structure, Julius hired Donato Bramante to design the largest church Christendom had ever seen. Bramante’s vision of colossal, classical grandeur defined the Renaissance aesthetic, but also earned him the nickname Il Maestro Ruinante - the Master Wrecker - for his willingness to demolish the ancient basilica.

And then there was Michelangelo. Julius had initially commissioned the artist to sculpt his grandiose, multi-figure tomb, but when the pope decided that a redecoration of the Sistine Chapel was in order, he commanded Michelangelo to lay down his chisels and take up his brushes instead. And so Michelangelo conjured something extraordinary: a vast theological panorama spanning the Book of Genesis that changed the course of Western art forever.

A keen connoisseur, Julius also collected and expropriated ancient statues - including the jaw-dropping Laocoön - that were emerging from the earth during digs across the city. He had these displayed in a sculpture gallery at the Vatican that would become the forerunner of the Vatican Museums. Oh, and Raphael’s frescoes in the Raphael Rooms? Yup, those were down to Julius as well. Julius may have waged wars with swords, but his true victories were carved in stone and painted in fresco.

7. Paul III (1534–1549)

The Counter-Reformation Powerhouse

With Paul III's patronage of Michelangelo, the Renaissance is coming to an end

The reign of the fearsome Paul III was defined by the Catholic Church’s response to the Protestant Reformation. A shrewd politician with a keen artistic eye, Paul III ushered in a second wave of Renaissance grandeur, helping to codify the triumphant artistic language of the Counter-Reformation.

His most famous commission was Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel - a sweeping vision of divine reckoning covering the entire altar wall. Completed in 1541, the fresco delighted and scandalized viewers in equal measure with its muscular nudes, writhing souls and apocalyptic drama.

Paul III also employed Michelangelo to redesign the Capitoline Hill as a fitting seat of civic government as well as commissioning Palazzo Farnese, a fortress-like palace in downtown Rome that remains one of the greatest Renaissance residences in the city - a fitting reflection of the pope’s dynastic ambitions.

8. Sixtus V (1585–1590)

Il Papa Tosto, Rome's Brutal Reformer

Sixtus V was obsessed with obelisks...

Sixtus V ruled Rome with the authority of a warlord and the vision of a master planner, bulldozing through centuries of urban disorder with a single-minded determination that earned him the title Il Papa Tosto - the tough pope. He waged an uncompromising war on crime, turning Rome’s lawless streets into a place where hardened bandits and unwary citizens alike feared the gallows. But his true legacy lay in radical urban planning.

With the help of his chief engineer Domenico Fontana, Sixtus imposed a pioneering new street plan on the city, carving out grand avenues to connect its major basilicas, bulldozing ramshackle neighborhoods and inaugurating a new aqueduct to bring fresh water flowing into the growing metropolis.

Fun fact: he was also obsessed with obelisks. Sixtus hauled four towering Egyptian monoliths - once symbols of imperial Rome now turned to the service of a Christian ruler - into new locations, most famously raising the Vatican Obelisk in St. Peter’s Square in an operation so perilous that he threatened to execute anyone who spoke during the process.

A man of colossal ambition, in just five years Sixtus left behind a Rome remade: grander, more structured, unmistakably his.

9. Urban VIII (1623–1644)

The High Wizard of Baroque Rome

Urban VIII and Gianlorenzo Bernini formed the ultimate Baroque tagteam

Urban VIII’s fingerprints are all over the Rome we see today. Over the course of two decades, the man born Maffeo Barberini turned the Eternal City into a stage set for Baroque brilliance, a place where art, power, and spectacle converged in ways never seen before.

Urban VIII’s special relationship with Gian Lorenzo Bernini was instrumental in this process. Most emblematic is the baldacchino of St. Peter’s Basilica - a towering, twisting bronze canopy over the high altar that seems to defy gravity. To fund it, Urban infamously stripped bronze from the Pantheon, inspiring the famous quip: Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini - “What the barbarians didn’t do, the Barberini did.”

Bernini’s impact didn’t stop at the basilica. Urban also tasked him with redesigning the Palazzo Barberini, his family’s palatial residence, a sprawling Baroque masterpiece that became the model for aristocratic palaces across Europe. Urban continued to drain the coffers with an array of monuments dedicated to himself, including an amazing tomb in St. Peter’s and a public fountain swarming with sculpted bees - the family emblem.

For all his artistic achievements, Urban’s reputation was marred by his lavish spending - one anonymous contemporary verse dryly noted that “As well he fed the bees, badly he fed the sheep.”

10. Innocent X (1644–1655)

The Maker of Piazza Navona

We can gain an incredible insight into the character of Pope Innocent X through the sensational portrait Velázquez painted of him in 1650: a razor-sharp study of power, suspicion, and barely contained menace.

Determined to cement the Pamphilj’s legacy, Innocent sought to reshape Rome in his family’s image. Nowhere was this clearer than in Piazza Navona, which he transformed into a stage for his family’s power. Here he built the grand Palazzo Pamphilj, flanked it with Borromini’s Sant’Agnese in Agone, and crowned the square with the exquisite Fountain of the Four Rivers, Bernini’s swirling masterpiece of river gods and an ancient obelisk.

As a favorite of the hated Urban VIII, the sculptor had been frozen out of papal favor - but when a model of his design was smuggled into the Palazzo Pamphilj, Innocent couldn’t resist: “Those who do not want to employ Bernini, he admitted, “should not look at his work.”

Innocent’s reign, however, was defined by more than artistic triumphs. His sister-in-law Olimpia Maidalchini - la Papessa - was rumored to control papal affairs, from appointments to finances. When Innocent died, she was said to have looted the treasury before his body had even grown cold. His legacy, like his Rome, was one of magnificence laced with intrigue.

So there you have it—ten popes who left their mark on Rome, shaping its skyline, streets, and spirit across the centuries. But with nearly 300 pontiffs in history, there’s plenty of room for debate. Who would make your list? Did we leave out a favorite? Let us know which popes you think had the biggest impact on the Eternal City! If you fancy following in the popes' footsteps yourself, then consider joining our range of expert-led tours of Rome and the Vatican City!

MORE GREAT CONTENT FROM THE BLOG:

A History of the Papacy: 10 Popes Who Shaped Rome