Overview
Rome is the capital of Italy and also of the homonymous province and of the region of Lazio. With 2.7 million residents in 1,285.3 km², it is also the country’s largest and most populated municipality and fourth most populous city in the European…
List of sights
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Andersen Museum (001)
Andersen Museum
Andersen was born in Bergen, Norway in 1872, and immigrated as an infant with his family to Newport, Rhode Island the following year. As a young man in Newport, Andersen began his work as a sculptor and learned to mingle among the city’s wealthy…
Appian Way (1)
Appian Way
The Appian Way was one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, Puglia, in south-east Italy. The road is named after Appius Claudius Caecus, the Roman censor who began and…
Auditorium (1)
Auditorium
Auditorium Parco della Musica is a large multi-functional public music complex in Rome. The complex is situated in the north of the city, in the area where the 1960 Summer Olympic Games were held. Parco della Musica was designed by Italian…
Aula Ottagona (1)
Aula Ottagona
The Aula Ottagona is part of Diocletian’s Baths and used to be called the Hall of Minerva. Probably designed originally to provide a concourse area, it is octagonal in shape with four semi-circular niches in the corners.
Baths of Caracalla (1)
Baths of Caracalla
The Baths of Caracalla in Rome, were Roman public baths, or thermae, built in Rome between AD 212 and 216, during the reign of the Emperor Caracalla. Records show that the idea for the baths were drawn up by Septimius Severus, and merely completed…
Campo dei Fiori (1)
Campo de’ Fiori
Campo dei Fiori is a rectangular square near Piazza Navona in Rome, on the border of rione Parione and rione Regola. Campo dei Fiori, translated literally from Italian, means “field of flowers”. The name was first given during the Middle Ages when…
Canova Tadolini Workshop (1)
Canova Tadolini Workshop
In January 1818, at the height of his European fame, Antonio Canova signed a contract for a property destined for the practice of sculpture. This was to favour his favourite pupil, the promising Adamo Tadolini. The housings, located on the corner…
Capitoline Hill (1)
Capitoline Hill
The Capitoline Hill (Campidoglio), between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the Seven Hills of Rome. It was the citadel (equivalent of the ancient Greek acropolis) of the earliest Romans. By the 16th century, Capitolinus had become…
Palazzo dei Conservatori (1)
Capitoline Museums
The Capitoline Museums (Italian Musei Capitolini) are a group of art and archaeological museums in Piazza del Campidoglio, on top of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy. The museums are contained in three palazzi surrounding a central trapezoidal…
Cemetery Campo Verano (1)
Cemetery Campo Verano
The Campo Verano (Cimitero Comunale Monumentale Campo Verano) is a cemetery in Rome that was founded in the early nineteenth century. The cemetery is currently divided into sections: the Jewish cemetery, the Catholic cemetery, and the monument to…
Centro Agroalimentare Roma (1)
Centro Agroalimentare Roma
The Chamber of Commerce of Rome invested more than 20 million euros in the implementation of the Rome Food Centre. The Centro Agroalimentare Roma (CAR) (with 12 hectares covered with modern equipment and a total of 140 hectares) is an innovative…
Chiesa del 2000 (1)
Chiesa del 2000
The church “Dives in Misericordia” is located in Tor Tre Teste in Rome, and was designed by Richard Meier, winner of the competition announced in the frame of the diocesan program “50 Churches for Rome 2000”. This architecture has the particular…
Chiesa del Santo Volto di Gesu (1)
Chiesa del Santo Volto di Gesu
The Chiesa del Santo Volto di Gesu is a church of Rome, in Portuense district, in via della Magliana. It is one of the most successful examples of modern religious architecture in Rome, comparable to other contemporary churches such as the Chiesa…
Coppede (1)
Coppede
The architect Gino Coppede planned this quarter in the Twenties. It’s a very particular quarter where do several styles peep in: Liberty, Deco, Italian Baroque, which mixed together they produce an amazing effect. The passer-by is surprised and…
Festa della Primavera (1)
Festa della Primavera
The Spanish Steps are a set of steps in Rome, climbing a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinita dei Monti, dominated by the Trinita dei Monti church at the top. The Scalinata is the widest staircase in Europe. The…
Fontana dell’Acqua Paola (1)
Fontana dell’Acqua Paola
The Fontana dell’Acqua Paola also known as Il Fontanone “The big fountain” is a monumental fountain located on the Janiculum Hill, near the church of San Pietro in Montorio, in Rome. It was built in 1610-12 to mark the end of the Acqua Paola…
Fountain of the Goddess Rome (1)
Fountain of the Goddess Rome
The Fontana della Dea Roma (Fountain of the Goddess Rome) from Igor Mitoraj is located Piazza Monte Grappa. Igor Mitoraj (born 1944) is a Polish artist born in Oederan, Germany. He studied painting at the Krakow School of Art and at the Krakow…
Fountain of the Tortoises (1)
Fountain of the Tortoises
Designed by Giacomo della Porta, the Fountain of the Tortoises (Fontana delle Tartarughe) was built in 1581-1588 and decorated by the Florentine sculptor Taddeo Landini. The four bronze tortoises, which give the name to the fountain, were added by…
Galleria Sciarra (1)
Galleria Sciarra
The Galleria Sciarra is a pedestrian passage of Rome, located between Via Marco Minghetti, Vicolo Sciarra and Piazza dell’Oratorio, in the Trevi district. Built as a courtyard of the palazzo Sciarra Colonna di Carbognano, the gallery is composed…
Goal - Mario Ceroli (1)
Goal - Mario Ceroli
The 16.5 m high sculpture “Goal” by Mario Ceroli was built by the artist during the World Cup in 1990. The sculpture is composed of two built-in wood and galvanised steel structures, one, the “Box”, within the other, the “Sphere”. Mario Ceroli was…
Janiculum (1)
Janiculum
The Janiculum (Gianicolo in Italian) is a hill in western Rome. Although the second-tallest hill (the tallest being Monte Mario) in the contemporary city of Rome), the Janiculum does not figure among the proverbial Seven Hills of Rome, being west…
Il Vittoriano (1)
Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II
The Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II or Altare della Patria or “Il Vittoriano” is a monument to honour Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy. It occupies a site between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitoline Hill. The…
Ospedale delle Bambole (1)
Ospedale delle Bambole
The Restauri Artistici Squatriti, 29 Via Ripetta at the coner to Via del Vantaggio in Rome, known to Romans as the “Ospedale delle Bambole”, or the “Dolls’ Hospital”, is the place where Federico Squatrito and his mother Gelsomina nurse ailing…
Palazzo dei Tribunali (1)
Palazzo dei Tribunali
The Palazzo di Giustizia or Palazzo dei Tribunali is located in Rome, on the banks of the Tiber, near the Castel Sant’Angelo. The palace was built between 1888 and 1910. For this purpose, gigantic blocks of Roman travertine from Tivoli…
Pantheon (1)
Pantheon
The Pantheon is a building in Rome, commissioned by Marcus Agrippa as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome, and rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in about 126 AD. The building is circular with a portico of large granite Corinthian columns (eight in…
Parco degli Acquedotti (1)
Parco degli Acquedotti
The Parco degli Acquedotti is a public park in Rome, named after the aqueducts, crossed by the Aqua Felix and containing part of the Aqua Claudia and the remains of Villa delle Vignacce to the South East. Although just 8 km from the centre of…
Piazza Colonna (001)
Piazza Colonna
Piazza Colonna is a piazza at the centre of the Rione of Colonna in the historic heart of Rome. It is named for the marble Column of Marcus Aurelius which has stood there since 193 CE. The bronze statue of Saint Paul that crowns the column was…
Piazza del Popolo (1)
Piazza del Popolo
Piazza del Popolo is a large urban square in Rome. The name in modern Italian literally means “People’s Square”, but historically it derives from the poplars (populus in Latin, pioppo in Italian) after which the church of Santa Maria del Popolo,…
Piazza della Rotonda (1)
Piazza della Rotonda
The Piazza della Rotonda is a square in Rome, on the south side of which is located the Pantheon. The square gets its name from the Pantheon’s informal title as the church of “Santa Maria Rotonda”.
Piazza Navona (1)
Piazza Navona
The Piazza Navona is a city square in Rome, Italy. It is built on the site of the Stadium of Domitian, built in 1st century AD, and follows the form of the open space of the stadium. The ancient Romans came there to watch the games, and hence it…
Piazza Sant'Ignazio (052)
Piazza Sant’Ignazio
Piazza di Sant’Ignazio is a square located in the historic centre of Rome, in front of the church of Sant’Ignazio di Loyola in Campo Marzio. The square owes its shape to the architect Filippo Raguzzini, who built it around 1727-1728.
Ponte Milvio (1)
Ponte Milvio
The Milvio Bridge (Ponte Molle or Ponte Milvio) is a bridge over the Tiber in northern Rome. It was an economically and strategically important bridge in the era of the Roman Empire and was the site of the famous Battle of Milvio Bridge. In late…
Ponte Sant'Angelo (1)
Ponte Sant’Angelo
Ponte Sant’Angelo, once the Aelian Bridge or Pons Aelius, meaning the Bridge of Hadrian, is a Roman bridge in Rome, completed in 134 AD by Roman Emperor Hadrian, to span the Tiber, from the city centre to his newly constructed mausoleum, now the…
Protestant Cemetery (1)
Protestant Cemetery
The Protestant Cemetery, now officially called the Cimitero Acattolico “Non-Catholic Cemetery” and often referred to as the Cimitero degli Inglesi “Englishmen’ Cemetery” is a cemetery in Rome, located near Porta San Paolo alongside the Pyramid of…
Roman Forum (1)
Roman Forum
The Roman Forum (Latin: Forum Romanum, Italian: Foro Romano) is a rectangular forum (plaza) surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the centre of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this…
Sant'Ignazio (1)
Saint Ignatius of Loyola at Campus Martius
The Church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola at Campus Martius is Roman Catholic titular church dedicated to Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, located in Rome. Built in Baroque style between 1626 and 1650, the church functioned…
San Clemente (1)
San Clemente al Laterano
The Basilica of Saint Clement is a Roman Catholic minor basilica dedicated to Pope Clement I located in Rome. Archaeologically speaking, the structure is a three-tiered complex of buildings: (1) the present basilica built just before the year 1100…
San Giovanni in Laterano (1)
San Giovanni in Laterano
The Papal Archbasilica of St John Lateran, commonly known as St John Lateran’s Archbasilica and St John Lateran’s Basilica, is the cathedral church of the Diocese of Rome and the official ecclesiastical seat of the Bishop of Rome, who is the Pope.…
San Pietro in Montorio (001)
San Pietro in Montorio - Tempietto
San Pietro in Montorio is a church in Rome, which includes in its courtyard the Tempietto, a small commemorative martyrium (tomb) built by Donato Bramante.
Santa Cecilia (1)
Santa Cecilia in Trastevere
Santa Cecilia in Trastevere is a 5th century church in Rome, devoted to Saint Cecilia, in the Trastevere rione. The first church on this site was founded probably in the 3rd century, by Pope Urban I; it was devoted to the Roman martyr Cecilia,…
Santa Maria del Popolo (1)
Santa Maria del Popolo
Santa Maria del Popolo is an Augustinian church located in Rome. It stands to the north side of the Piazza del Popolo, one of the most famous squares in the city. The Piazza is situated between the ancient Porta Flaminia and the park of the…
Santa Maria in Cosmedin (1)
Santa Maria in Cosmedin
The Basilica of Saint Mary in Cosmedin is a minor basilica church in Rome. It is located in the rione of Ripa. The church was built in the 8th century during the Byzantine Papacy over the remains of the Templum Herculis Pompeiani in the Forum…
Santa Maria Maggiore (1)
Santa Maria Maggiore
The Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major known also by other names, is the largest Roman Catholic Marian church in Rome. There are other churches in Rome dedicated to Mary, such as Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Santa Maria…
Santi Ambrogio e Carlo (1)
Santi Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso
Santi Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso (usually known simply as San Carlo al Corso) is a basilica church in Rome, facing onto the central part of the Via del Corso. The apse of the church faces across the street, the Mausoleum of Augustus on Via di…
Snow in Rome 2012 (1)
Snow in Rome - February 2012
Snow began falling in the late morning on Friday the 03 February 2012. The last substantial snowfalls in Rome were in 1985 and 1986, though there have been other cases of lighter snow since then, including in 2010.
Theatre of Marcellus (001)
Theatre of Marcellus
The Theatre of Marcellus is an ancient open-air theatre in Rome, built in the closing years of the Roman Republic. At the theatre, locals and visitors alike were able to watch performances of drama and song. It was named after Marcus Marcellus,…
Tiber (1)
Tiber
The Tevere (Tiber) is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing 406 km through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at 17,375 km². The river has achieved lasting…
Trash People (1)
Trash People
Trash People: The one thousand life-sized Trash People started their trip around the world in 1996 in Xanten. They stopped in Paris (1999), Moscow (1999), Beijing and the Great Chinese Wall (2001), Cairo and Giza (2002), Zermatt (2003), Kilkenny…
Trevi Fountain (1)
Trevi Fountain
The Trevi Fountain (Fontana di Trevi) is a fountain in the Trevi district in Rome. Standing 26 m high and 20 m wide, it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world. In 1629 Pope Urban VIII, finding…
Valentino in Rome (7)
Valentino in Rome
The exhibition “Valentino a Roma” was set around the Ara Pacis and spread throughout the museum, creating an exact chronological retrospective, visible to passers-by and accentuating the ties which bind Valentino Garavani to Rome and Rome to…
San Pietro (1)
Vatican City
Vatican City, or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome. It has an area of approximately 44 hectares, and a…
Via Margutta (1)
Via Margutta
The Via Margutta is a narrow street in the centre of Rome, near Piazza del Popolo, accessible from Via del Babuino in the ancient Campo Marzio neighbourhood also known as the foreigner’s quarter. Via Margutta originally was home to modest…
Villa Doria-Pamphili (1)
Villa Doria-Pamphili
The Villa Doria-Pamphili is a seventeenth century villa with what is today the largest landscaped public park in Rome. It is located in the quarter of Monteverde, on the Gianicolo (or the Roman Janiculum), just outside the Porta San Pancrazio in…
Villa Torlonia (1)
Villa Torlonia
Villa Torlonia is a villa and surrounding gardens in Rome, formerly belonging to the Torlonia family. It is entered from via Nomentana. It was designed by the neo-Classic architect Giuseppe Valadier. Construction began in 1806 for the banker…
Description
Rome is the capital of Italy and also of the homonymous province and of the region of Lazio. With 2.7 million residents in 1,285.3 km², it is also the country’s largest and most populated municipality and fourth most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. The urban area of Rome extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of around 3.8 million. The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber within Lazio (Latium). Rome is the only city in the world to contain in its interior a whole state; the enclave of Vatican City.
Rome’s history spans more than two and a half thousand years, since its legendary founding in 753 BC. Rome is one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in Europe. It is referred to as “The Eternal City”, a notion expressed by ancient Roman poets and writers. In the ancient world it was successively the capital city of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and is regarded as one of the birthplaces of Western civilization. Since the 1st century AD, Rome has been considered the seat of the Papacy and in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. In 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic.
After the Middle Ages, Rome was ruled by popes such as Alexander VI and Leo X, who transformed the city into one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance along with Florence. The current version of St Peter’s Basilica was built and the Sistine Chapel was painted by Michelangelo. Famous artists and architects, such as Bramante, Bernini and Raphael, resided for some time in Rome, contributing to its Renaissance and Baroque architecture.