The Monti (hills) district takes its name from the hills of Esquiline, Viminal and part of the Quirinal. Until the beginning of the 20th century, it also included Caelio, until it was separated into a separate district, Caelio. All of these hills are part of the famous seven, on which, according to legend, Rome was founded.
The medieval name of the neighborhood Regio Montium et Biberate referred to the same hills and the main street Via Biberatica, which crossed Trajan’s marketplace.
The Monti district is surrounded by streets and squares piazza del Colosseo, Via Fori Imperiali, piazza di Loreto, Via San Bernardo, Via Magnapoli, Via 24 Maya, Via del Quirinale, Via delle Quattro Fontane, Via Agostino Depretis, piazza Esquilino, Via Esquilino, piazza Santa Maria Maggiore, Via Merulana, piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano, Lateran Complex (inside the Aurelian Wall)*, Via della Ferratella, piazza di Porta Metronia, Via della Navicella, Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, Via Oliviero Plunkett and Via San Giovanni in Laterano.
*Nowadays the Lateran complex is excluded; it can be bypassed via Via dell’Amba Ardan and Via dei Laterani or via Piazzale Appio, Via Sannio and Via Farsalo and Piazzale Ipponio.
Monti is the largest neighborhood in Rome. Most of its streets were redesigned and rebuilt at the end of the 19th century. Nevertheless, the neighborhood has preserved many interesting relics, from imperial ruins to churches and basilicas from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
As its name suggests, Monti is mostly located in the hills and extends from the southern side of the Quirinal and Viminal to Esquilin, taking in a small part of Caelius as well. Esquilinus is the largest of these hills and has three peaks, called Cispius, Fagutalus and Oppius, each of which offers its own interesting sites.
The unusual shape of the “lintel” neighborhood is due to the transfer of part of its territory to the Esquilino and Celio neighborhoods founded in 1874 and 1921.
The huge historical and artistic “background” makes Monti almost a separate town in the heart of a large city. This is also evidenced by the special privilege granted in past centuries to the head of the district, who was the only one among his kind to be admitted to the city magistracy. The inhabitants of Monti, very proud of their status, traditionally claim that they are “more true Romans” than the inhabitants of other districts. In the old days they even spoke a special dialect, monticiano, which is no longer heard today.
There is no specific itinerary for visiting Monti. The sequence described below is just one example.
One can start from the western part of the neighborhood, occupied by a large complex built under Emperor Trajan around 110, comprising the forum (1)and the marketplace behind it (2). Only a few columns and fragments of marble tiles remain of the forum, which consisted of a wide square, a basilica, two libraries and a temple.
The marketplace, on the other hand, is quite well preserved and gives an amazing insight into the daily life of ancient Rome.
Its many stores on different levels make this structure, which operated almost 2,000 years ago, a precursor to modern shopping centers.
The market was crossed by a cobblestone street, via Biberatica, which has also survived to this day.
Trajan’s Forum is just one of the complex of Imperial Forums, which includes the forums of the dictator Julius Caesar and the emperors Augustus, Nerva, Trajan and Vespasinus and extends 400 meters towards the Colosseum. All these fora were built over a period of 150 years, from 46 BC to 113 AD in the vacant space along the northeast side of the Roman Forum. Trajan’s Forum was the largest of them all and the last. To build it, the architect Apollodorus of Damascus partially cut down the Quirinal Hill that was in the way. And the market actually became a support that prevented the Quirinal from sliding down into the hollow
The only almost completely preserved structure in the imperial forums is the famous Trajan’s Column, covered with a spiral bas-relief. It consists of 18 huge hollow cylinders of white marble, arranged one on top of the other, with an internal staircase reaching to the very top and illuminated by tiny windows. The column itself is just under 30 meters high, and together with the pedestal it is 40 meters high.
The bas-reliefs on the column tell of Trajan’s campaign against the Dacians, and inside the pedestal is a cell that may have held the emperor’s ashes. The bronze statue of Trajan at the top of the column was replaced by a statue of St. Peter at the end of the 16th century.
Then, in the late 16th century, when the forums were in a state of ruins mostly buried underground, the area became the property of Cardinal Michele Bonelli (nephew of Pope Pius V), better known as Cardinal Alessandrino because he came from Alessandria (Piedmont, northwestern Italy). On the ruins of the forums, he built an entire neighborhood, which came to be called Quartiere Alessandrino.
The Alessandrino quarter stood until the beginning of the 20th century. Between 1924 and 1932 it was razed to open the wide Via dell’Impero (today’s Via dei Fori Imperiali). During construction, excavations were carried out, uncovering the remains of the forums. Today, the foundations and parts of the cellars of old houses can be seen at the edge of this archaeological site.
Behind Trajan’s Market is the slightly shrivelled but still imposing Torre delle Milizie (Tower of the Militia)(3). It is one of the tallest medieval towers in Rome, built in the mid-13th century. Its upper part collapsed after a hundred years due to the great earthquake of 1368. According to popular legend, it was from this very spot (but certainly not from the tower) that Emperor Nero looked down on a blazing Rome in 64 AD while playing his lyre.
In the Middle Ages, Rome was filled with hundreds of towers. All powerful families owned at least one, and the more important a family was, the taller and stronger its tower was. About a hundred towers were demolished in 1257 when Senator Brancaleone came to Rome from Bologna. He attempted to quell the centuries-old feud between families who supported the emperor and those who sided with the pontiff, which had turned into a civil war. As a result, the senator survived two assassination attempts and served several months in prison. Back in power, Brancaleone continued the demolition of the towers and was, for this, excommunicated by Pope Alexander IV, who fled Rome for Anagni. After the senator threatened to wipe Anagni off the face of the earth, the excommunication was lifted.
Today, about 30 surviving towers can be seen in Rome. The largest number of them is in Monti. The second most famous (after the Milizia Tower) is the Torre dei Conti (Conti Tower)(4), also built in the 13th century and located at the southern end of the imperial forums. Once twice as tall as it is now and mentioned by Petrarch, it is considered one of the wonders of Rome. Two other peers of the towers mentioned above stand on top of the Cispia, opposite each other. They originally belonged to the Arcione family, but were later transferred to the Capocci (the one above) and Cerroni families. Both were later acquired by the Graziani family.
The rear part of the Augusta Forum is occupied by a late medieval building, the House of the Knights of Rhodes (5). This Order, also known as the Knights Hospitallers, was founded in the 12th century, during the Crusades. Initially it only provided medical assistance to pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land, but after a while it began to provide them with armed escorts, performing this task together with the Knights Templar
After the fall of Jerusalem, the Hospitallers had to seek refuge, first in Cyprus and then in Rhodes, from where they took their last name. In 1312 the Templar Order was officially dissolved and its property was transferred to the Hospitallers, who in the 14th and 15th centuries became one of the most powerful orders, including in economic terms. After the Protestant Reformation and the Anglican schism, the Knights of Rhodes changed their location again, moving to Malta in 1530. From then on they became known as the Knights of Malta.
In 1798 Napoleon expelled them from the island and the order disbanded. It reunited again in the 19th century under the name Sovereign Military Order of Malta and still runs hospitals and social services.
The House of the Knights of Rhodes is built on the 9th century church of St. Basil, which itself was built on the ruins of the Temple of Mars the Avenger in the Forum of Augustus, long since reduced to ruins. In the 13th century, the church and monastery were given to the Hospitallers. In 1470, Pope Paul II greatly increased the size of the small structure by incorporating the outer wall of the Forum Augusta and a number of Roman houses located behind. All the windows of the resulting structure are in typical Venetian style, as Paul II was himself from Venice.
A large loggia was also built (today it faces Via dei Fori Imperiali), decorated with frescoes attributed to Pinturicchio.
In 1566, the Hospitaller residence was moved to the Aventine, after which the House of the Knights of Rhodes was turned into a Dominican convent, whose nuns were called Neophytes because their task was to convert Jewish girls to Catholicism. After 1946, the building was returned to its original owners.
The rear of the House of the Knights of Rhodes faces the steep, narrow street Salito del Grillo, named after the noble family whose 18th-century mansion stands here, connected by an archway to another medieval tower, the Torre del Grillo (6).
The area behind the imperial forums was known as Subura or Suburra (from Latin sub urbs – on the outskirts of the city). In ancient Rome, this area, built on swampy land, was notorious. Criminals and prostitutes lived in its slums.
The current appearance of Suburra dates back to the 15th and 17th centuries, when ordinary houses were built here. The deep remodeling carried out in the Monti neighborhood in the late 19th century partially spared this area, preserving a few old buildings. The typical narrow and crooked sloping alleys are intersected by several long straight streets opened by Pope Sixtus V in the late 16th century. One such street is Via Panisperna (7). In ancient times, the local church of St. Lawrence offered bread and ham (Latin panis et perna) to the poor on the saint’s day, hence the street’s name. Its up and down curves follow the shape of the neighborhood hill.
At the top of Fagutal, the westernmost peak of Esquiline, stands the church of San Pietro in Vincoli (8), or St. Peter in Chains, which traces its origins back to the 5th century. It contains the chains believed to have been worn by St. Peter in prison in Palestine, and the chains with which he was chained in prison in Rome. These relics are displayed in a crystal case under the main altar of the church. But the most visited “attraction” here is the tomb of Pope Julius II, one of Michelangelo’s major works.
Julius II commissioned this magnificent monument from the artist at the beginning of the 16th century, while he was still alive. It was to be installed in the new St. Peter’s Basilica, which was just beginning construction. The original design had 47 statues, but the pope’s growing interest in the new basilica and other projects commissioned by Michelangelo, such as the painting of the vault of the Sistine Chapel, forced him to temper his ambitions and reduce the number of figures (some of the unfinished ones are now preserved in Florence and Paris).
In 1516 Julius II died and the tomb was not yet completed. The Della Rovere family was no longer willing to spend a fortune on a monument to their ancestor, which also slowed down the work, which was only completed by 1545 by Michelangelo’s pupils. The final location of the tombstone, on which only six original statues remained, was the church of San Pietro in Vincoli.
According to the original plan, the central figure of Moses was to have a symmetrical pose, in accordance with the late medieval scheme. Michelangelo considered this too conventional and directly in the process of working on the statue changed its pose to a more dynamic one. The difficulty of remaking an already partially finished statue was overcome with great skill – the size of the figure was slightly reduced, the head was partially turned, the tip of the nose became the cheekbone of the new figure, and the left leg was bent backwards to disguise its smaller size than the right.
Legend claims that Michelangelo, satisfied with the end result, struck the statue’s knee with a hammer, shouting “Why don’t you talk?” But the tombstone itself, “patched up” many times, represented one of the artist’s greatest disappointments.
The body of Julius II, embalmed and kept all this time in the Vatican basilica, was badly damaged during the sacking of Rome in 1527. What was left was finally buried under a tombstone in 1610.
The square on which the church stands and from which another medieval tower, the Torre degli Annibaldi, built in the 13th century, can be reached from Via Cavour via a steep staircase (9). The staircase cuts into a tunnel under a complex of old buildings, consisting of an early 16th century house and another 13th century tower. In antiquity there was an alley called vicus sceleratus (evil alley), traditionally thought to be the place where, in 535 BC, Tullia, wife of Tarquinius the Proud, drove a chariot over the body of her father, Servius Tullius (sixth king of Rome).
The grim memories of this place probably gave rise to another popular belief concerning the building above the flight of stairs. The famous Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, is said to have poisoned her lovers in this house. The whole complex is still widely known as the “Borgia houses”. However, there is no documentary evidence that any member of this family ever lived here. In fact, the house belonged to the Cesarini family, who later donated it to the local monastery.
The northern boundary of the Monti district runs along the top of the Quirinal Hill to the junction of the Four Fountains, separating it from the Trevi district. In imperial times, this was the site of the Thermae of Constantine. To the northeast of this place, two small but very beautiful churches were built in the middle of the 17th century by the Baroque masters, Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, one next to the other.
Sant’Andrea al Quirinale (10), built between 1658 and 1670, faces the long side of the Quirinal Palace and stands on the site of the earlier church of Sant’Andrea a Montecavallo, built in the 16th century. The church is known for its sumptuous marble work and golden dome. Bernini sat here for hours, pondering what he considered one of his best projects.
Sant’Andrea al Quirinale is the third most important Jesuit church in Rome, originally intended for the novices of the order. Its construction was commissioned by Camillo Pamphili, the nephew of Pope Innocent X, who was appointed a cardinal but later gave up this position to marry (his coat of arms above the entrance is decorated with a crown, not a cardinal’s hat). It is here that the first act of the drama Tosca by French playwright Victorien Sandu unfolds. In Giacomo Puccini’s more popular operatic adaptation, the action was moved to the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, located in the Parione neighborhood.
Just a few meters from Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, Borromini built the church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (11), right on the corner of the famous intersection of the Four Fountains. From here you can see the three obelisks standing at the foot of three of the four streets converging at this spot.
Because of its rather small size, the Romans nicknamed the church San Carlino. The surface of the entire building corresponds in size and shape to the cross section of one of the columns supporting the huge dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. The curious bell tower has a spiral shape, but it is now partially hidden behind neighboring buildings.
Borromini planned to be buried in the crypt of San Carlo, but as he ended his life by suicide, his remains were denied this privilege and the chapel he built for himself was left empty.
The Monti neighborhood is particularly rich in medieval religious sites, most of which are located in its southern part. And the most famous of these is, of course, the Lateran complex at the ancient Porta Azzinaria (Donkey Gate).
The main part of the complex is the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, the cathedral church of Rome. It was originally built in the 4th century and was modified several times until it took its present form in the 17th and 18th centuries. Pope Gregory XI (1370 – 1378) gave it the title of “mother of all churches in the world”, and for almost 1000 years all popes were crowned here.
Next to the basilica is the Lateran Palace (1586), built on the ruins of the Patriarchium, a much larger building in which the popes lived before moving their cathedra to Avignon in 1305 (the Avignon Captivity). Just a few years later, the Patriarchium was destroyed by a massive fire, and when the papacy returned to Rome, its residence was moved to the Vatican.
С одной стороны нынешнего дворца возвышается самый высокий египетский обелиск Рима, а с другой, через дорогу, в здании конца 16 века находится старая частная часовня пап, известная как Sancta Sanctorum. Это единственная сохранившаяся часть древнего Патриархиума, к которой ведет мраморная лестница, называемая Святыми Ступенями, ошибочно считающаяся оригиналом из претория Понтия Пилата в Палестине, где Христос встретил свой суд. По этой причине верующие взбираются по ее ступеням на коленях. В часовне над алтарем висит древний образ, который, по популярной традиции, был нарисован сверхъестественным существом. В средние века, во время эпидемий и других бедствий, папы несли этот образ впереди процессий.
On one side of the present palace rises Rome’s tallest Egyptian obelisk, and on the other, across the street, in a late 16th century building, is the old private chapel of the popes, known as the Sancta Sanctorum. It is the only surviving part of the ancient Patriarchate and is accessed by a marble staircase called the Holy Steps, mistakenly believed to be the original from the Praetorium of Pontius Pilate in Palestine, where Christ met his judgment. For this reason, the faithful climb its steps on their knees. In the chapel above the altar hangs an ancient image which, according to popular tradition, was painted by a supernatural being. In the Middle Ages, during epidemics and other calamities, popes carried this image ahead of processions.
Two-thirds of the way from Lateran to the Colosseum stands the Basilica of San Clemente (12), which has three levels. The so-called 12th-century Upper Basilica, with its fine mosaics and frescoes, is built over the 4th-century Lower Basilica, badly damaged during the Norman raid led by Robert Huisker in 1084, the remains of which are now below ground level.
Still deeper are the remains of Roman buildings from the 2nd-1st centuries BC and a mitreum from the imperial period.
The group of medieval churches also includes the nearby Santi Quattro Coronati, but the rocky cliff on which it is built now belongs to the Celio neighborhood. Nevertheless, one side of the Celio hill remains in the Monti neighborhood, and on it is the unusually shaped church of Santo Stefano Rotondo (13). It is the first Italian church with a circular layout, founded in the 5th century. Its surroundings are a section of an ancient aqueduct, the so-called Rivus Caelimontani branch.
Originally Santo Stefano Rotondo had two circular galleries and four transepts in the shape of a cross. But due to the poor condition of the church, three transepts and the outer gallery had to be demolished in the middle of the 15th century. In the preserved inner gallery the famous frescoes, painted in the first half of the 16th century and depicting the cruel executions of Christian martyrs, are of interest.
A Roman military camp is being excavated beneath the church.
At the top of Oppia, the boundaries of the three districts of Monti, Esquilino and Castro Pretorio meet in a very large square. In the center of this square is the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (14), the oldest and largest of the Roman churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Its other unofficial names are Liberian Basilica and Santa Maria of the Snow, as legend has it that Pope Liberius built it on the spot where a sudden snowfall occurred on August 5. Every year on this day, the square hosts a popular event – an artificial snowfall to commemorate the legend.
In fact, the basilica was founded by Sixtus III shortly after the Council of Ephesus (431), at which the Virgin Mary was confirmed as the “Mother of God”.
Santa Maria Maggiore is the fourth largest basilica in Rome and one of the most venerated by Christians. From the Middle Ages until the 19th century, many popes contributed to its expansion and enrichment. The result is an incredible collection of styles spanning 10 centuries of art history.
The floor of the basilica is covered with original marble tiles from the mid-12th century with inlays in the Cosmatesco style. By the end of the following century, mosaics decorated the facade and apse of the church. The bell tower was built in 1375 and is considered the tallest in Rome. The impressive coffered ceiling dates from the 16th century. It is said that the first gold imported from America was used to gild it. This may be true, as Columbus’ venture was sponsored by the Spanish king, and Pope Alexander VI, whose pontificate was at the time the ceiling was built, was also Spanish.
Two magnificent chapels were built on either side of the basilica by Popes Sixtus V (1585-1590) and Paul V (1605-1621). Their size is so large that they themselves could have served as separate churches.
In the mid-18th century, a Baroque porch and a loggia were added to the facade of the basilica, replacing a smaller, medieval one, to protect the mosaics of the upper part of the facade.
Santa Maria Maggiore is famous for its mosaics. The panels over the nave and the covering of the triumphal arch date from the 5th century and are among the earliest known mosaics with religious subjects. The apse mosaics date from the 13th century, as do the loggia mosaics.
Next to the main altar is the tomb of Gianlorenzo Bernini, a Roman Baroque genius who took his first steps in his father’s workshop, located in the building on the left side of the basilica, as commemorated by a plaque.
The column in front of the church is the only surviving column from the Basilica of Maxentius. Paul V moved it here from the Roman Forum in 1613. On the opposite side is an ancient Egyptian obelisk, moved to its present location from the entrance to the Mausoleum of Octavian Augustus by Sixtus V in 1587.
Another ancient church nearby is Santa Pudenziana (15). Its entrance is now well below ground level and is reached by a double staircase. The present appearance of this basilica dates from 1590, although it was originally built in the 4th century. The mosaic in its apse was transferred from the original structure. Its characters wear ancient Roman togas, and the background shows how the city might have looked 16 centuries ago.
Mosaics from the time of Charlemagne (9th century) can be seen in the neighboring Basilica of Santa Prassede (16th), now almost hidden in a narrow and dark street.
The heart of the Monti neighborhood was once almost entirely occupied by a fabulous mansion (17) built for himself by Emperor Nero after much of Rome was destroyed by fire in 64. This Domus Aurea (Golden House) stretched from Mt. Oppia to the southern end of the Roman Forum and one side of the Caelia, occupying more than 20% of the city inside the Servian Wall.
The palace’s countless halls and corridors were adorned with wall paintings, while its gardens covered four city districts and included in its wonders an artificial lake and a giant bronze statue of the emperor himself. The bronze colossus was originally located on Velius Hill, but later Emperor Hadrian moved it to the famous amphitheater.
Immediately after Nero’s death, his memory, because of his notoriety, began to be destroyed. The ruins of his mansion were buried, and Emperor Trajan built public thermae on the land, the remains of which can still be seen today in the public park on Oppius Hill. Their size still gives an idea of how grand the ancient structure was.
The lake was also filled in, and the largest and most famous public building of ancient Rome, the Flavian Amphitheater, better known as the Colosseum, was erected on the resulting wide plain.
The ruins of the Golden House were discovered in the early 16th century. Many Renaissance artists reached its underground halls, which they called grottoes, by descending on ropes (often leaving their names and graffiti on the ceilings).
Undoubtedly, the discovery of the wall paintings of the Golden House, preserved in color thanks to the airtight underground environment, had a huge influence on the Renaissance style of wall and ceiling decoration. Unfortunately, these antique frescoes are now almost invisible. After contact with the atmosphere and moisture, they began to fade and today look badly damaged.
After the construction of the Flavian Amphitheater, Emperor Domitian ordered the construction of the Ludus Magnus (18), the largest gladiatorial school, nearby. Its shape followed that of the amphitheater itself, but its size was much smaller. A surviving underground gallery connected the school to the Colosseum. The surviving remains of Ludus Magnus represent only half of the first floor area of the original structure, but the oval outline of its arena is clearly visible.
