The fountain is fed by the Acqua Vergine and was built between 1626 and 1629 by Pietro Bernini, appointed architect of Acqua Vergine by pope Urban the Eighth Barberini (1623-1644). Some scholars attribute it to his son Gian Lorenzo, but it is...
The Pincio Promenade is the public garden on the Pincian Hill, above Piazza del Popolo, in Rome. You reach it by ramps and hairpin bends from the square, and it is one of the city's most celebrated viewpoints, with the panorama reaching to the...
The Mouth of Truth is a large marble mask with a gaping mouth, set into the portico of the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, in Rome. Legend says it bites the hands of liars.
When Gregory Peck stuck his hand into the Mouth and pulled it...
The building known as "Livia's House" was built on the Palatine Hill, most likely in the first half of the 1st century BC, and underwent a substantial renovation (to which the magnificent frescoes visible today are due) around 30 BC. The rooms...
The fountain was commissioned by Urban the Eighth Barberini (1623-1644) and built by Gian Lorenzo Bernini between the end of 1642 and the first half of 1643. It is sculpted in travertine blocks. Four dauphins emerging from the centre of the pond...
The Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella is a Roman tomb in the shape of a round tower, on the Via Appia Antica, in Rome. The travertine cylinder, about 30 meters wide, has dominated the road for two thousand years, and is one of the best-known...
Trajan's Column is a monument about thirty meters tall in the Forum of Trajan, in Rome, next to the remains of the Basilica Ulpia. It was erected to celebrate the emperor's conquest of Dacia, present-day Romania.
It is the first...
Built in the 12th century on the remains of the ancient Tabularium and using pre-existing fortifications built by powerful baronial families, this palazzo makes up the background to the piazza. It owes its name to its function as senatorial seat...
The basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) stands on the Oppian Hill, in the Monti district of Rome. It is famous for two things: it keeps the chains of St. Peter and houses the tomb of Pope Julius II with Michelangelo's...
The Ara Pacis Museum is the white case of glass and travertine, near the Mausoleum of Augustus and the Tiber, in the center of Rome, that protects the Ara Pacis, the altar of peace commissioned by Augustus. It also hosts temporary...
The Mithreum, a place consecrated to the cult of the God Mithra worshipped in the Orient, is situated in one of the underground galleries assigned to the services of the Thermae of Caracalla. It was discovered in 1912 and proves to be the largest...
The National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art is today a museum with two hearts.
The first is the Museum's connection to the past. Its cultural history is intertwined with that of the Italian State which achieved complete political unity...
Palazzo Massimo alle Terme is the main seat of the National Roman Museum, a stone's throw from Termini station, in Rome. It gathers the best of ancient Roman art: portraits, statues, frescoes, mosaics and jewelry.
In March 1885, on the...
The building known as Palazzo dei Conservatori, seat of an elected magistrature which had the task of administering the city, goes back to the middle of the 15th century.
The building originally featured a portico on the ground floor and...
The first square of modern Rome created by the criteria of a uniform project due to the genius of Michelangelo, rises on the Capitol hill (Capitolium), the place where an old village had been and the appointed place to dedicate numerous temples...
The palace, nicknamed “il dado” (the Dice) because of its shape, was began in 1517 by Antonio da Sangallo the Young for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who became pope in 1534 with the name of Paul III (1534-1549). When Sangallo died, the works went...
The Catacombs of San Callisto are the best known of the Roman catacombs and the first official underground burial site for early Christians, including many second- and third-century martyrs. It was probably Calixtus who was chiefly responsible...
The Vatican Gardens have been a place of quiet and meditation for the Popes ever since 1279 when Nicholas III (Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, 1277-1280) moved his residence back to the Vatican from the Lateran Palace.
Within the new walls,...
Palazzo Altemps is one of the four museums of the Museo Nazionale Romano, a few steps from Piazza Navona: a Renaissance palace full of ancient sculpture, which is also one of the most pleasant and peaceful places in the center of Rome. Here the...
Palazzo Nuovo was built in the 17th century under the guidance of Girolamo Rainaldi and his son Carlo.
Its slanting orientation, which imitates that of Palazzo dei Conservatori opposite, was influenced by a pre-existing retaining wall on...
The Museum of Rome was inaugurated in 1930 and was first located in the former Pantanella Pasta Factory near the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. In 1952 it was moved to the eighteenth century Palazzo Braschi, former seat of the Fascist...
It occupies the area of the ancient circus of Flora, where floral games took place in May to celebrate springtime. Placed in a depression and inhabited already in the first centuries of the empire, it filled with villas and gardens during the...
After cardinal Lorenzo Corsini was elected pope with the name of Clement the Twelfth (1730-1740), his family moved from Florence to Rome, purchasing the sixteenth century Palazzo Riario, former residence of the Queen Christine of Sweden that...
In 1878 the Italian Parliament decided to build a national monument in honour of the recently deceased sovereign Victor Emanuel II. After publishing two international competitions (in 1880 and 1882) for drawings, it was decided to choose the ones...
Palazzo Corsini is typical of Ferdinando Fuga's work, built between 1732 and 1736 on the site of the old Riario Palace, founded in the 15th century and known, among other things, for having been chosen for her home by Queen Christina of...
The Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine (sometimes known as the Basilica Nova - meaning "new basilica" - or Basilica of Maxentius) was the largest building in the Forum.
Construction began on the northern side of the forum under the...
Officially named Chiesa del Santissimo Nome di Gesù all'Argentina (English: Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus at the "Argentina"), its facade is "the first truly baroque façade", introducing the baroque style into architecture. The church...
Emperor Augustus, after visiting the tomb of Alexander the Great in Alexandria, decided to build a magnificent tomb for himself and for his family in Campus Martius. The works started in 30 B.C. upon his return to Rome after the war against...
Inserted at the foot of the Spanish Steps on the right is the house that was the residence of the English poet John Keats from November 1820 to February 23 1821, the day of his death, known as the Casa Rossa (Red House).
The poet had...
The villa Farnesina is situated on Via della Lungara, opposite the Corsini Palace. The Sienese banker, Agostino Chigi, named "magnifico" by his contemporaries, acquired the villa, which had been completed in 1509 by Baldassarre Peruzzi, a Sienese...
The promenade on the Pincian Hill lies between Piazza del Popolo, Villa Medici and the Muro Torto. It has a direct connection to Villa Borghese through Via delle Magnolie and was devised by the Napoleonic administration (which was established in...
The palace is the result of a series of architectural vicissitudes that lasted four centuries. It is among the few palaces of Rome to be still occupied by its owners and it preserves an extraordinary collection of furniture and works of art. The...
Dating back to the 15th century and Pope Martin V Colonna (1417-1431), it was rebuilt in 1730 by architect Nicola Michetti.
The present building fills the large block stretching from Piazza SS Apostoli to Via della Pilotta, which it...
The construction of the palace was began in 1451 by Pope Paul II Barbo when he was the titular Cardinal of the nearby Basilica di S. Marco and continued in 1464 whe he was elected Pope. The work was later carried on by his nephew Marco...
The Tabularium was used for the conservation of the bronze tabulae containing the laws and the official deeds of the Roman State. The building occupies the area of the Asylum, the depression of the Capitoline Hill between the Arx and the...
Villa Doria Pamphilj is the park Romans love most, on the Janiculum: 180 hectares of pines, lawns, little lakes and avenues just outside the walls, the third-largest public park in the city. Inside is a 17th-century villa rich in ancient statues,...
The original core of the building was linked to Giovanni de' Medici, future pope Leo X, who in 1503 transformed a preexisting 15th century palazzo. More enlargements were made in 1512. In 1533 the building passed to "Madama" Margaret of Austria,...
The lifts operate from the middle terrace, which can be accessed from:
- Piazza Venezia (Vittoriano main entrance, until 4.00 pm);
- Left side entrance (Via di San Pietro in Carcere) through the Museo del Risorgimento;
- Right side...
The most famous of the ancient roman streets, also called Regina Viarum, was built in 312 BC by the censor Appio Claudio Cieco, the same person that had the first aqueduct built in the city. For the first time, a street gets the name from his...
These are the biggest thermal baths in Rome, built between 298 and 306 AD. The thermal system is like the one of the thermal baths of Traiano up Colle Oppio with a big semicircular exedra and the rectangular calidarium with three semicircular...