Er core de Nerone: The heart-shaped cobblestone in St Peter's Square

Hidden among two million sampietrini in St Peter's Square lies a tiny carved heart whose origin has long puzzled Romans and scholars. Millions of visitors cross St Peter's Square each year without noticing that one of its cobblestones is unlike any other. The pavement of the piazza is composed of some two million sanpietrini, or sampietrini - the small, square basalt blocks characteristic of Rome's historic streets - but one, measuring roughly ten centimetres by ten, bears a heart carved in low relief. It sits within the band of marble that runs around the central obelisk to form the Rosa dei Venti - the compass rose - specifically next to the representation of the Libeccio, the south-westerly wind, on the left side of the square as seen from the basilica façade. The stone is most commonly known as "er core de Nerone" - Nero's heart in Roman dialect. It is also referred to at times as the heart of Bernini or the heart of Michelangelo, depending on which story one prefers to believe. Legends One legend attributes the carving to Bernini, designer of the great colonnade surrounding the square, as a symbol of the true love he never found. Another tells of Michelangelo, said to have carved it to commemorate a lost love. A third story holds that it was the work of a woman, carved in memory of her husband who had been unjustly condemned to death. A fourth connects it to the events of 2 July 1849, when Garibaldi addressed the crowd in the square before departing Rome, marking the end of the Roman Republic - a moment one grieving soldier is said to have commemorated by carving the stone. Some also believe the heart was placed to honour the martyrs of Nero's reign. The site on which the square now stands was once, in antiquity, the location of the Circus of Nero, which may partly account for the imperial name that has attached itself to the stone. Mystery Scholars have proposed rather more prosaic explanations. Latin epigraphers have suggested that the stone may be a recycled fragment of ancient masonry that once bore a Latin inscription, and that what appears to be a heart when viewed one way is, in fact, the figure of a hedera distinguens - an ivy leaf used as a text divider in ancient carvings - when seen the other way round. A more specific hypothesis points to the abbot and astronomer Filippo Luigi Gilij. It was Gilij who arranged the compass rose around the obelisk in 1789, transforming it into a large sundial, and since the heart sits squarely within the Libeccio section of that installation, some have suggested he placed it there as a tribute to an exotic plant he had cultivated from South American seeds, the solanum lycopersicum pyriforme - the plum tomato. However, as sources note, the resemblance between a tomato and the carved shape is not particularly convincing when the two are directly compared. The square's paving has been relaid several times, most recently in 1936, when all the existing sanpietrini were replaced - except for those within the sections of the Rosa dei Venti, possibly because of their irregular shape or slightly different material. It is to this circumstance, and a degree of good fortune, that the heart-shaped stone appears to owe its survival. The true origin of er core de Nerone remains unknown. It has since become a recognised curiosity in its own right, noted in guidebooks among the more unusual things to seek out in the city - a small, enigmatic detail embedded in one of the world's most famous public spaces, walked over daily by those who have no idea it is there.

WIRE — Hidden among two million sampietrini in St Peter's Square lies a tiny carved heart whose origin has long puzzled Romans and scholars. Millions of visitors cross St Peter's Square each year without noticing that one of its cobblestones is unlike any other. The pavement of the piazza is composed of some two million sanpietrini, or sampietrini - the small, square basalt blocks characteristic of Rome's historic streets - but one, measuring roughly ten centimetres by ten, bears a heart carved in low relief. It sits within the band of marble that runs around the central obelisk to form the Rosa dei Venti - the compass rose - specifically next to the representation of the Libeccio, the south-westerly wind, on the left side of the square as seen from the basilica façade. The stone is most commonly known as "er core de Nerone" - Nero's heart in Roman dialect. It is also referred to at times as the heart of Bernini or the heart of Michelangelo, depending on which story one prefers to believe. Legends One legend attributes the carving to Bernini, designer of the great colonnade surrounding the square, as a symbol of the true love he never found. Another tells of Michelangelo, said to have carved it to commemorate a lost love. A third story holds that it was the work of a woman, carved in memory of her husband who had been unjustly condemned to death. A fourth connects it to the events of 2 July 1849, when Garibaldi addressed the crowd in the square before departing Rome, marking the end of the Roman Republic - a moment one grieving soldier is said to have commemorated by carving the stone. Some also believe the heart was placed to honour the martyrs of Nero's reign. The site on which the square now stands was once, in antiquity, the location of the Circus of Nero, which may partly account for the imperial name that has attached itself to the stone. Mystery Scholars have proposed rather more prosaic explanations. Latin epigraphers have suggested that the stone may be a recycled fragment of ancient masonry that once bore a Latin inscription, and that what appears to be a heart when viewed one way is, in fact, the figure of a hedera distinguens - an ivy leaf used as a text divider in ancient carvings - when seen the other way round. A more specific hypothesis points to the abbot and astronomer Filippo Luigi Gilij. It was Gilij who arranged the compass rose around the obelisk in 1789, transforming it into a large sundial, and since the heart sits squarely within the Libeccio section of that installation, some have suggested he placed it there as a tribute to an exotic plant he had cultivated from South American seeds, the solanum lycopersicum pyriforme - the plum tomato. However, as sources note, the resemblance between a tomato and the carved shape is not particularly convincing when the two are directly compared. The square's paving has been relaid several times, most recently in 1936, when all the existing sanpietrini were replaced - except for those within the sections of the Rosa dei Venti, possibly because of their irregular shape or slightly different material. It is to this circumstance, and a degree of good fortune, that the heart-shaped stone appears to owe its survival. The true origin of er core de Nerone remains unknown. It has since become a recognised curiosity in its own right, noted in guidebooks among the more unusual things to seek out in the city - a small, enigmatic detail embedded in one of the world's most famous public spaces, walked over daily by those who have no idea it is there.

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