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The vatican hill, located on the right bank of the Tiber river, was outside the boundaries of the city for a long time. During the Roman Empire, it was covered with gardens, those of Agrippina Major, mother of Caligula, all later absorbed into various imperial estates.
When pope Gregory XI returned to Rome in 1377 from Avignone, the traditional residence of the Lateran was abandoned. The pope went to live in the vatican, in large part to escape the pressure of the " Roman people" and to ensure his own safety. At that time, the area surrounding the basilica of Constantine was occupied by natural thickets and fallow fields. Pope Nicolas V ( 1447 - 1455 ), a great builder, took the initiative because he thought that only grandeur and magnificent buildings could instill in simple souls a feeling for the divine eternity and majesty of the church.
The great roman villas of the Renaissance did not exist yet. The medieval aesthetic was still there: the predominance of straight lines and geometric shapes. But this geometry was not gratuitous. it imposed the reason on the freedom of nature. The gardens created by Innocent VIII and the palaces at the back of saint Peter basilica replaced the vineyard of Nicolas V, which had received only scattered,poorly coordinated development, the main item being a fountain fed,it seems, by rainwater and natural springs. A plan for a garden had been commissioned from Leon Battista Alberti. Plantings of all sorts of plants and trees had been planned, with fountains of fresh water. But this project was never realized, and all possibilities were open when the Belvedere was first built.
In the middle of the Renaissance period, the architect Pirro Ligorio later designed the Casino of Pius IV Medici, finding the prototypes for it in a whole range of antique buildings and decorating it with elaborate stucco work on the outside and frescoes inside. The decoration of this building gathers pagan and christian worlds; classical mythology and church fathers are drawn upon to make this elaborately wrought garden a very beautiful resting place for the afternoon hours which the renaissance architecture created.
Ligorio was a dedicated antiquarian, epigraphist and excavator and his detailed compilations are one of the main sources of knowledge and interpretation of antiquity in the sixteen century.
It's from his love for the ancient architecture that his remodeling of the Belvedere court in the vatican must be understood. The work on Bramante's project which, after the sack of Rome in 1527, was restricted to the maintenance of what was left standing, progressed vigorously under Julius II and Pius IV. In the upper court, the exedra was reduced in size by the insertion of a corridor and given an upper storey.
Bramante's round staircase,was removed and replaced by a double stairway with straight steps planned by Michelangelo. Under Pius IV a semicircular vault known as the Nicchione, was built over the exedra. An inscription running round the whole records the achievement of Pius IV.
In the lower court, the steps to the upper terrace, already planned by Bramante were executed, and the west wing begun. The insertion of semicircular steps on the narrow side under the Stanze provided seats for an arena for openair tournaments; an engraving of 1565 shows the ceremonial opening of this arena on the occasion of the wedding of one of the Pope's nieces.
Ligorio had published in 1553 a small volume, "Antichita' di Roma", describing the construction of antique circuses. With its surrounding buildings, the Belvedere court too became a circus with exedrae on both sides. The wall behind the theatre steps to the lower court was to be enriched by a lavish decoration of roman and greek statuary.