Uncover the city’s living history. Rione maps Rome’s ancient quarters dynamically — unlocking subterranean layers, hidden stories and local secrets right where you stand.
Dynamic, interactive boundaries of all of Rome’s historical rioni, colour-coded and tappable.
Every monument with photos, history and the stories beneath the stones.
Modelled on Trajan's earlier column, this 30-metre marble shaft was raised between about 176 and 193 AD to celebrate the emperor Marcus Aurelius's hard wars against the Germanic and Sarmatian tribes along the Danube. A continuous spiral relief winds up its drum, narrating the campaigns in carved scenes that grow deeper and more emotional than Trajan's — the suffering of war is openly shown, in keeping with the philosopher-emperor who wrote the "Meditations".
Eleven colossal Corinthian columns, eluding 15 metres high, rise abruptly from the pavement of Piazza di Pietra — the flank of a temple dedicated around 145 AD by the emperor Antoninus Pius to his deified predecessor Hadrian. What looks at first like a free-standing ruin is in fact the surviving side wall of the temple's cella, swallowed and preserved by the buildings that grew around it.
Step off the busy Via del Corso through an unremarkable arch and you find yourself in one of Rome's loveliest secrets: a covered courtyard from around 1888, built when the Sciarra family modernised their palazzo, and frescoed from floor to glass roof in the exuberant Liberty (Italian Art Nouveau) style.