Latina in Lazio

9 January 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Palazzo del Governo © flickr.com - Erik/cc-by-sa-2.0

Palazzo del Governo © flickr.com – Erik/cc-by-sa-2.0

Latina is the capital of the province of Latina, in the Lazio region, in Central Italy. As of 2011, the city has 126,612 inhabitants and is the second-largest city of the region, after the national capital Rome. It was founded as Littoria in 1932 under the fascist administration, when the area surrounding it which had been a swamp since antiquity was drained.   read more…

Caprarola in Lazio

19 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Environment Reading Time:  4 minutes

© Livioandronico2013/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Livioandronico2013/cc-by-sa-4.0

Caprarola is a town and comune in the province of Viterbo, in the Lazio region of central Italy. The village is situated in a range of volcanic hills known as the Cimini Mounts.   read more…

Great Synagogue of Rome

14 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Fczarnowski/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Fczarnowski/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Great Synagogue of Rome (Italian: Tempio Maggiore di Roma) is the largest synagogue in Rome. The Jewish community of Rome goes back to the 2nd century B.C when the Roman Republic had an alliance of sorts with Judea under the leadership of Judah Maccabeus. At that time, many Jews came to Rome from Judea. Their numbers increased during the following centuries due to the settlement that came with Mediterranean trade. Then large numbers of Jews were brought to Rome as slaves following the Jewish–Roman wars in Judea from 63 to 135 CE.   read more…

Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome

10 June 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  10 minutes

Column of Marcus Aurelius © flickr.com - Rodney/cc-by-sa-2.0

Column of Marcus Aurelius © flickr.com – Rodney/cc-by-sa-2.0

The Column of Marcus Aurelius (Latin: Columna Centenaria Divorum Marci et Faustinae, Italian: Colonna di Marco Aurelio) is a Roman victory column in Piazza Colonna, Rome, Italy. It is a Doric column featuring a spiral relief: it was built in honour of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and modeled on Trajan’s Column.   read more…

Ghetto of Rome

6 April 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  15 minutes

Great Synagogue of Rome © Livioandronico2013/cc-by-sa-4.0

Great Synagogue of Rome © Livioandronico2013/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Roman Ghetto or Ghetto of Rome (Italian: Ghetto di Roma) was a Jewish ghetto established in 1555 in the Rione Sant’Angelo, in Rome, Italy, in the area surrounded by present-day Via del Portico d’Ottavia, Lungotevere dei Cenci, Via del Progresso and Via di Santa Maria del Pianto, close to the River Tiber and the Theatre of Marcellus. With the exception of brief periods under Napoleon from 1808 to 1815 and under the Roman Republics of 1798–99 and 1849, the ghetto of Rome was controlled by the papacy until the capture of Rome in 1870.   read more…

Chigi Palace in Rome

7 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  8 minutes

Chigi Palace and column of Marcus Aurelius © flickr.com - jimmyweee/cc-by-2.0

Chigi Palace and column of Marcus Aurelius © flickr.com – jimmyweee/cc-by-2.0

The Chigi Palace (Italian: Palazzo Chigi) is a palace and former noble residence in Rome which is the seat of the Council of Ministers and the official residence of the Prime Minister of Italy. Since 13 February 2021, the tenant of the Chigi Palace has been Prime Minister Mario Draghi. It is located in the Piazza Colonna, next to Palazzo Montecitorio, seat of the Chamber of Deputies.   read more…

Palazzo Madama in Rome

15 September 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Fratello.Gracco/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Fratello.Gracco/cc-by-sa-4.0

Palazzo Madama in Rome is the seat of the Senate of the Italian Republic, the upper house of the Italian Parliament. After the extinction of the Medici in 1743, the palace was handed over to the House of Lorraine and, later, to Pope Benedict XIV, who made it the seat of the Papal Government. In 1849, Pius IX moved here the Ministries of Finances and of the Public Debt, as well as the Papal Post Offices. In 1871, after the conquest of Rome by the newly formed Kingdom of Italy, the palazzo became the seat of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy.   read more…

Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome

12 August 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  8 minutes

Chamber of Deputies © Quirinale.it

Chamber of Deputies © Quirinale.it

The Palazzo Montecitorio is a palace in Rome and the seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. The palace’s name derives from the slight hill on which it is built, which was claimed to be the Mons Citatorius, the hill created in the process of clearing the Campus Martius in Roman times.   read more…

Ventotene in Italy

28 July 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, EU blog post series, European Union Reading Time:  15 minutes

Town hall, called Il Castello (The Castle) at Piazza del Castello © IslandVita/cc-by-sa-4.0

Town hall, called Il Castello (The Castle) at Piazza del Castello © IslandVita/cc-by-sa-4.0

Ventotene is one of the Pontine Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, 46 kilometres (25 nautical miles) off the coast of Gaeta right at the border between Lazio and Campania, Italy. The municipality of Ventotene, of the province of Latina (Lazio) had 708 permanent residents as of 2008. The island, the remains of an ancient volcano, is elongated, with a length of 3 kilometres (2 miles) and a maximum width of about 800 metres (2,600 feet). The municipality includes the small ancillary island of Santo Stefano, located 2 km (1 1⁄4 mi) to the east, which was the site of a massive prison, now closed. Further islands are Ponza, Palmarola and Zannone, located 40 km (25 mi) to the west. The island is connected by a daily ferry and hydrofoil service to Formia provided by the ferry company Laziomar. This is supplemented by summer services to Anzio and Terracina on the mainland, and the nearby island Ponza. During the summer months, SNAV also operates routes between Ventotene and Naples, as well as the island of Ischia.   read more…

Return to TopReturn to Top