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.
Augustus rebuilt this grand colonnaded enclosure around 27 BC and dedicated it to his sister Octavia; it once framed two temples, libraries and a covered walk filled with Greek statues looted in war. The surviving fragment — a broken pediment carried on mismatched columns — became, in the Middle Ages, the porch of the church of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria.
Established by papal bull in 1555, when Pope Paul IV ordered Rome's Jews confined behind walls on this low, flood-prone bend of the Tiber, the Ghetto is one of the oldest in the world and the heart of a community that has lived in Rome continuously for over two thousand years — since before the time of the Caesars. For three centuries its inhabitants were locked in at night and subject to harsh restrictions, until the walls finally came down with Italian unification in 1870.
Begun by Julius Caesar and completed by Augustus around 13 BC — who dedicated it to his nephew and intended heir Marcellus, dead tragically young — this was the great theatre of ancient Rome, seating perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 spectators. Its tiered arcades of Doric and Ionic half-columns set the pattern that would later be scaled up for the Colosseum a century afterwards.
Hidden in the quiet Piazza Mattei, the "Turtle Fountain" (1581–88) is one of the most charming small fountains in Rome. Designed by Giacomo della Porta and sculpted in bronze by Taddeo Landini, it shows four lithe youths, each resting a foot on a dolphin's head, gently helping four turtles climb up into the upper basin.