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, 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…

Via Veneto in Rome

1 November 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  4 minutes

© panoramio.com - randreu/cc-by-3.0

© panoramio.com – randreu/cc-by-3.0

Via Vittorio Veneto, colloquially called Via Veneto, is one of the most famous, elegant, and expensive streets of Rome, Italy. The street is named after the Battle of Vittorio Veneto (1918), a decisive Italian victory of World War I. Federico Fellini‘s classic 1960 film La Dolce Vita was mostly centered on the Via Veneto area. The street can be accessed via Line A of the Rome Metro at the Barberini – Fontana di Trevi station.   read more…

Capitoline Hill in Rome

21 July 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  22 minutes

Piazza del Campidoglio, on the top of Capitoline Hill, with the Palazzo Senatorio © Alvesgaspar/cc-by-sa-4.0

Piazza del Campidoglio, on the top of Capitoline Hill, with the Palazzo Senatorio © Alvesgaspar/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Capitolium or Capitoline Hill (Italian: Campidoglio), between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the Seven Hills of Rome. The hill was earlier known as Mons Saturnius, dedicated to the god Saturn. The word Capitolium first meant the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus later built here, and afterwards it was used for the whole hill (and even other temples of Jupiter on other hills), thus Mons Capitolinus (the adjective noun of Capitolium). In an etymological myth, ancient sources connect the name to caput (“head”, “summit”) and the tale was that, when laying the foundations for the temple, the head of a man was found, some sources even saying it was the head of some Tolus or Olus. The Capitolium was regarded by the Romans as indestructible, and was adopted as a symbol of eternity.   read more…

Palazzo Barberini in Rome

17 March 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  6 minutes

© flickr.com - Jean-Pierre Dalbéra/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Jean-Pierre Dalbéra/cc-by-2.0

The Palazzo Barberini (English: Barberini Palace) is a 17th-century palace in Rome, facing the Piazza Barberini in Rione Trevi. Today it houses the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, the main national collection of older paintings in Rome.   read more…

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