City guide · Roma

Rome

The 'Eternal City': the Colosseum, the Pantheon and the Vatican, a state within a city

Photo: Bert Kaufmann · CC BY-SA 2.0

Rome stacks nearly three thousand years of history: the Colosseum and Pantheon of ancient Rome, the churches and squares built by Renaissance popes, and St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, a state within the city. Start the morning with an espresso at the bar, then walk into streets two thousand years old.

History

How the city came to be

The Romans' own legend says Romulus founded Rome in 753 BC; archaeology shows the city grew in the mid-8th century BC from villages around the Palatine Hill. In 509 BC the Romans expelled their king and founded the Republic; in 27 BC Octavian took the title Augustus, and Rome entered the imperial era. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire Rome gradually came under papal rule, and from the 8th century it was capital of the Papal States until 1870. From the Renaissance onwards, popes built on a grand scale to make Rome the artistic centre of the world. In 1871 Rome became capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1929 the Lateran Treaty created Vatican City State within it.

753 BCLegendary founding by Romulus (the starting point of Rome's calendar)
509 BCThe last king was expelled and the Republic founded
27 BCOctavian became Augustus and the imperial era began
80Emperor Titus inaugurated the Colosseum
8th centuryRome became capital of the Papal States
1871Became capital of the Kingdom of Italy
1929The Lateran Treaty created Vatican City State

Stories

Stories of the city

History · Colosseum

Giving Nero's private lake back to the people of Rome

Emperor Vespasian began building the Colosseum around AD 70–72 on the site of an artificial lake that Nero had appropriated for himself; filling in the lake to build the arena was seen as a gesture of returning the land to the people. According to a reconstructed inscription, the work was funded by the emperor's share of war spoils as commander. When Vespasian died in 79 it had reached the third storey; his son Titus completed it in 80 and held inaugural games, and Domitian later added the underground passages for holding animals and slaves.

History · St Peter's Basilica

A dome taken on by a man in his seventies

On 1 January 1547 Michelangelo, then in his seventies, succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as chief architect of St Peter's Basilica. He said he took on the job 'only for the love of God and in honour of the Apostle'. He returned to Bramante's Greek-cross plan and redesigned the dome; when he died in 1564 the drum beneath the dome was complete, and the dome itself was built after his death by Giacomo della Porta and others.

History · Pantheon

A temple bearing someone else's name

The inscription on the Pantheon's frieze bears Agrippa's name, but today's building was rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian. After the temple built by Agrippa in the age of Augustus burned down, Hadrian oversaw its reconstruction, completed around 126; he chose to have Agrippa's original inscription recut on the new temple, which has also made it hard for later generations to date. In 609 it became a church, and it is precisely because it has been in continuous use that it is so well preserved.

People