The Ghetto, Tiber Island and Trastevere

This fascinating itinerary, which explores both sides of the River Tiber, will help us discover evocative glimpses of Roman districts famous for their local flavour and alive and authentic to the eyes of visitors. These areas have also been closely linkedfor centuries to the presence of the Jewish community in Rome, the oldest in Europe. 

The Ghetto

Still today the Ghetto is renowned for traditional Roman food and famous dishes that have been appreciated over the centuries by both Roman residents and visitors alike. 

We will begin our visit in the noble quarter of Rione Sant’Angelo featuring imposing family residences which include that of the Mattei family, overlooking the charming Turtle Fountain which delights like an unexpected gem.

Then, from Piazza Campitelli, also home to majestic and aristocratic residences as well as to the beautiful seventeenth century church of Santa Maria in Portico, we will enter the narrow Medieval streets and admire the remains of an attractive portico incorporated in a more recent building in via della Tribuna. Later, through a narrow passageway, we will reach the impressive surviving columns of the main entrance to the celebrated Portico of Octavia, dedicated by the emperor Augustus to his beloved sister.

Part of the south facing entrance to this monumental complex is clearly visible, partly encompassed in the façade of the church of Sant’Angelo in Pescheria. This name reminds us that in the Middle Ages the original remains of the Portico became the site of the Forum Piscium or fish market serving a densely populated neighbourhood.

Events in this area changed completely when Pope Paul IV decided in 1555 to confine the Jewish community in Rome to this restricted precinct, following the accusation of deicide proclaimed in a Papal bull which declared it absurd that Catholics and Jews should live together in the same city! This ghetto, surrounded by walls, with five access points closed at nightfall, became increasingly more and more unhealthy — as time passed and due to repeated flooding of the Tiber.

Few original buildings from the ghetto are visible today, most of the area was razed to the ground when Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy in 1870 and three new apartment blocks were built along with the new Synagogue, the Major Temple. 

The square in front of the Portico of Octavia, called 16 October 1943, reminds us of another terrible chapter in our history, the inacceptable arrests which uprooted much of the population of this community, and deported them to the Nazi extermination camps.

The Tiber Island

Crossing the Tiber Island towards the district of Trastevere on the opposite bank, we will learn the history of this island, whose ancient presence is still witnessed by the two bridges Fabricio and Cestio and the original decoration from Roman times which make it seem like a boat sailing upriver.

Trastevere

Ultimately we reach Trastevere, known originally in Latin as Trans Tiberim, meaning ‘across the Tiber’, indicated asthe XIVAugustean Region, the largest in the city, extending on the right bank of the Tiber at the foot of the Janiculum hill, from Vatican City as far as the first kilometre on the via Portuense.

The presence of theriver port and other commercial activities related to the river meant that many foreign workers and artisans settled here, often immigrants from the East, as well as Jewish merchants.

The importance of the Tiber as a commercial route throughout the history of Rome is no longer so easy to see since the building of the high embankment along the river which effaced all traces of former activities, including the Port of Ripa Grande.

We will begin our visit in Piazza in Piscinula, whose name recalls an ancient bathing complex, and is home still today to the properties of the important Mattei family, present on this side of the river and involved in high positions in city life since the thirteenth century.

In the southeast corner of this square we can see the bell tower of St Benedict in Piscinula, the smallest Romanesque example in Rome! The church was founded in the sixth century above the remains of the domus of the Anicii family, to whom St Benedict belonged and where he stayed as a guest while in Rome.

Then we continue towards the Vicolo dell’Atleta  which is named after an important Roman statue in marble (a copy of the bronze original by Lysippus) discovered heremidway through the nineteenth century. The statue is of a young athlete, the Apoxyomenos, one of the most famous masterpieces in the Vatican Museums, in the act of cleaning his body with a strigil. We will stop to observe a Medieval building, possibly, according to tradition, the oldest site of a Synagogue in Rome. You will see a Hebrew inscription in one of the columns in the Loggia.

Continuing through this busy district along picturesque narrow streets, we will reachPiazza Santa Cecilia and visit the Basilica dedicated to this saint. Built according to tradition over the home of the renowned martyr Cecilia and her husband Valerian was reconstructed in 821 by Pope Pascal l, when her body was found in the St Callixtus catacombs and transferred here. The wonderful mosaic in the apse goes back to this moment. Under the altar we can admire the statue sculpted by Stefano Maderno which shows exactly how the saint’s body appeared, in an exceptional state of preservation, after she was exhumed under the direction of Cardinal Sfondrati in 1599.

We will now turn back to Via della Lungaretta, passing by Piazza Sidney Sonnino and crossing Viale Trastevere,the major thoroughfare carved out at the end of the nineteenth century leading to Trastevere Station from the Tiber and dividing the district inexorably into due parts.

Leaving on our left the beautiful Romanesque bell tower on top of San Crisogono (whose underground archaeological area can also be visited during our ‘Trastevere Underground’ itinerary), we will continue along Via della Lungaretta towards our final destination – the famous Basilica of Santa María in Trastevere.

Arriving in the square outside, our eyes are drawn to the octagonal fountain in the centre designed by Carlo Fontana, and we see before us the oldest Roman church according to tradition, and the first to be dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The façade is embellished by a thirteenth century portico in travertine,decorated with a beautiful mosaic representing the Blessed Mother enthroned with baby Jesus and flanked by female figures carrying lamps on either side. To the right is the majestic Romanesque bell tower.

The interior, divided into three naves and dating back to the twelfth century at the time of Pope Innocent ll, is extremely impressive with gigantic columns of ancient Roman origin, with various bases and capitals, from the Baths of Caracalla. The gilded wooden coffering in the ceiling was based on a design by Domenichino, while the Cosmatesque flooring has been refurbished according to the original design.