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.
Set into the portico wall of the lovely medieval church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, the "Mouth of Truth" is a great circular slab of marble carved with the face of a bearded god — probably a river deity or a sea-god, and most likely an ancient drain cover or fountain mouth from around the 1st century.
Now a vast grassy hollow between the Palatine and Aventine hills, the Circus Maximus was the largest sports arena ever built — a chariot-racing track over 600 metres long that, at its peak, could hold a quarter of a million roaring spectators, perhaps a third of the entire city, free of charge.
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Officially the Parco Savello, this walled orange grove on the Aventine occupies the site of a fortress built by the Savelli family in the 13th century, itself raised on earlier defences. Laid out as a public garden in 1932, it is planted with rows of bitter-orange trees and aligned on a single axis that draws the eye to a panoramic terrace.
Rome's municipal rose garden tumbles down the slope of the Aventine facing the Palatine, and its history is unexpectedly poignant: for centuries this was the city's Jewish cemetery. When a public rose garden was created here in 1950, the layout of the paths was designed in the shape of a menorah, and a stele still marks the ground's earlier use.
Standing in the old Forum Boarium — Rome's ancient cattle market, by the Tiber beside Santa Maria in Cosmedin — this small, perfectly circular temple ringed by twenty slender Corinthian columns is the oldest marble building to survive in Rome, built around 120 BC. For centuries it was wrongly called the "Temple of Vesta" because of its round shape; it was in fact dedicated to Hercules Victor, patron of the merchants who traded here.
At the top of the Aventine, in the quiet Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, stands the green door of the Priory of the Knights of Malta — and in it, the most famous keyhole in Rome. Put your eye to it and you see a perfectly framed view down an avenue of clipped hedges to the dome of St Peter's, floating in the distance as if placed there by a painter. The garden beyond belongs to the Sovereign Order of Malta, the basilica to the Vatican, and the keyhole to Italy, so the glance is said to take in three sovereign territories at once.
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