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.
Founded as Rome's first colony and grown into the great commercial port that fed the imperial capital, Ostia Antica was slowly abandoned as the harbour silted up — and that abandonment preserved it. The result is one of the best-preserved Roman cities anywhere, often called a quieter, greener Pompeii.
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The long main street, the Decumanus Maximus, runs dead straight through the heart of the city, paved in basalt and lined with the ghosts of shops and porticoes. Walking it, with the ruts of ancient cart-wheels still worn into the stone, is the simplest way to feel the rhythm of a living Roman town.
The restored Roman theatre, still used for summer performances, looks out over the Square of the Corporations, where the mosaic emblems of ancient shipping firms still pave the ground — ships, dolphins and grain-measures advertising the offices of merchants from across the Mediterranean.
Beside the excavations stands an elegant late-15th-century fortress, built to guard the Tiber mouth and one of the earliest examples of military architecture designed for cannon. Its rounded, sloping walls were a deliberate response to gunpowder, deflecting cannonballs where the tall vertical walls of medieval castles would have shattered.
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