Jewish Ghetto art and history

he stairway of the Aracoeli, in an area occupied in antiquity by an insula from the imperial era. The building was dismantled in order to open Via del Mare in 1928 and rebuilt in its current location in Via Montanara at the corner with Via del Teatro di Marcello in 1940. It was built as a church dedicated to San Biagio in the XI century (of the church, part of the Romanesque bell tower in brick remains at the foot of the Capitoline), restored by Carlo Fontana (1665) and under the papacy of Alessandro VII (Fabio Chigi, 1655-67) it was donated to the community by the Casciani family, who lived in Rome. The church retained the dedication to San Biagio until the year 1900 when, with the canonisation of Santa Rita, the dedication to the Umbrian Saint was added. The building, in the form of a Greek cross, developed in a particular way on the exterior: the lower order features a quadrilateral plan adorned vertically with pilasters that frame three arches with a skewed perspective; the upper order, which encloses the central cupola, has a profile with concave chamfered corners.

following a plague, a temple was dedicated to Apollo medicus. The building was subject in the Republican era to various restoration works which left the design unaltered with four columns at the front. A complete restoration was undertaken in 30 B.C. by the Consul Gaius Sosius on behalf of Augustus (23 B.C. - 14 A.D.). Other limited restorations were carried out in IV and the V centuries A.D. In later eras, the temple fell into ruins and the area was gradually occupied by medieval buildings. In the nineteenth thirties, the works to isolate the theatre of Marcellus brought the monument to light and led to the partial reconstruction of the elevation. The temple of the Augustan era presented a pronaos with six columns on the front and two on the side, and a cella decorated with seven semi-columns. Inside, the walls of the cella were decorated by a double order of columns and small shrines with shafts of coloured marble placed between the columns of the lower order. Access to the pronaos was by means of two side steps. The pediment, currently in the offices of the Centrale Montemartini of the Capitoline Museums, was decorated with sculptures stripped from a classical Greek temple (450-425 B.C.) depicting the battle of the Greeks against the Amazonians.

e of Apollo Sosianus, on a site already used for the staging of scenic representations (by means of mobile structures in wood) in honour of the divinity. Of smaller size than the Theatre of Pompey (around 130 metres in diameter), the spectator area had a curvilinear façade, with two orders of arches decorated by semi-columns and huge theatrical masks on the arch keystones. The third order was probably formed by a continuous wall decorated with pilasters. The stage, obliterated by later constructions (but which is known through the fragments of the marble plan of the city once displayed in the Forum of Peace) was rectilinear and flanked by the two edges of the great apsidal halls, perhaps the sacella of Diana and the Pieta whose temples were destroyed in order to build the theatre. Still in use in the V century A.D., in the Middle Ages the building was gradually occupied by construction until it was converted into a fortress in the XIII century and a noble palace by the Savelli in the sixteenth century (by Baldassare Peruzzi, 1523-27) As the documents of the time show, by the X century, the neighbouring area had become a lively district centred on the meat market. In the years 1926-1932, the lower part of the palace, corresponding to the Roman structures, was acquired by the Municipality of Rome and restored, completely removing all evidence of the medieval and Renaissance districts.

tator. It was embellished with numerous bronze statues including the female statue of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, the base of which was found near the side of the door of Sant\'Angelo in Pescheria. Between 33 and 23 B.C., the portico was dedicated by Gaius Ottavius (later Augustus) to his sister Ottavia. On this occasion, the libraries, the Curia Octaviae to the north and the monumental access in the direction of the Circus Flaminius were added. The remains still visible were part of the restoration by Septimius Severus in 203, as recorded by the inscription on the architrave of the propylaeum. The arch to the right, at the church of Sant\'Angelo, is a medieval addition. The portico of Ottavia is depicted in one of the fragments of marble from the Severian model of Rome (forma Urbis).From the Middle Ages (until around 1880) the portico of Ottavia housed the most important fish market in the city. The economic value of the fish trade was favoured by the precepts of the Catholic church, which forbad the consumption of meat for around a third of the year. The picturesque market inspired many artists, above all in the nineteenth century, such as Ettore Roesler Franz. The fish were displayed on large slabs of marble, rented from the Canons of the Chapter of Sant’Angelo by leading figures who hired them out to the vendors. A plaque records the privilege of the Conservators (Municipal authorities) of receiving the head (considered the best part) of any fish that exceeded the length of the slab (around a metre).

portico of Ottavia. Starting from the XII century, when it was restructured in Romanesque form, it took the name of Sant’Angelo in foro piscium from the fish market, one of the main fish markets in Rome held near the portico of Ottavia from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. The canons of the chapter of Sant’Angelo rented out the pietre del pesce, slabs of marble on which the catch was displayed. From here, in 1347, Cola di Rienzo set off to occupy the Capitoline. Lying at the southern edge of the Ghetto, sermons were held every Saturday in support of the forced conversion of the Jews. The church, with three naves, had a brick façade installed in the rear colonnade of the portico of Ottavia. Inside, a fresco is preserved from 1450 of the Madonna that is attributed to Benozzo Gozzoli, originally located on the outer wall of the rectory. The church was restored several times, starting from the XVI century until the XIX century, when the current bell tower was built to replace the thirteen centurty edifice that had collapsed in the XVII century. Annexed to the church is the Chapel of Sant\' Andrea erected by the Compagnia del Pescivendoli in 1571, with a painting by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574).

ylaeum of the ancient Porticus Octaviae, part of the side of which was incorporated. In this area, the Forum Piscium stood in the medieval era, one of the main fish markets in the city from the VI-VII century. The building was known as the Turris Fornicata or Soricara or Torre dei Grassi after the name of the family belonging to the city\'s mercantile nobility in the late medieval era, who acquired it from the Orsini in 1369. The construction of the tower dates from the XIII century and the middle of the XIV century. The building has a curtain wall in exposed brick and an irregular squared plan, the northwestern side facing the nearby church of Sant’Angelo in Pescheria, clearly oriented in that way because of an ancient roadway. On the Via del Portico d’Ottavia is the grand entrance decorated with abutments and reused marble architraves surmounted by a brick lintel. On this façade, there must have been three windows, of which some marble elements of the cornices remain. An equal number of windows was also present on the side of Via di Sant’Angelo in Pescheria, surmounted however by an architrave constructed with reused architectural elements and a brick lintel above; at a later time, perhaps the XV century, the stairway with a gooseneck canopy giving access to the main floor was constructed. The third side incorporates part of the propylaeum of the Porticus, with a window.

the new perimeter was assigned to the Tempio Maggiore. A competition won by architects Vincenzo Costa and Osvaldo Armanni was announced for the construction of the place of worship. The first stone was laid in 1901 and the synagogue was inaugurated in 1904. The imposing building, visible from every panoramic point of the city, is in an eclectic style with references to Greek and Assyrian architecture. The main façade, along via del Tempio, introduced by a portico with four columns, is decorated with Jewish symbols. The Greek cross plan (oriented to the east so that the worshippers, in accordance with the principle contained in the Bible, could recite the prayers oriented towards Jerusalem) is surmounted by a pavilion-shape dome on a square tambour, made of translucent aluminum. The interior is richly decorated with geometric and floral motifs that are repeated on the walls, on the dome and on the glass windows. The two seats of the bimà (the place from which the Torah is read aloud) and the two cabinets destined to the Bible scrolls, precious works in colored marble dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, come from the old Five Scole synagogue. The women\'s gallery, the area dedicated to women only, is located on three sides of the temple, in a raised position. The museum of the Jewish community of Rome and a small synagogue, the Spanish Temple, are located on the lower floor. The authors are Costa Vincenzo and Armanni Osvaldo (1899-1904).

Cenci, a family known in Rome as far back as the Middle Ages: the building was the church’s land registry court. In the medieval era, the area was characterised by the presence of mills on the left bank of the Tiber, from which it took the name of San Tommaso in capite molarum (above the millstones). The building was also known by the name of San Tommaso Fraternitatis, because for some time it was the site of the Romana Fraternitas, one of the most important and ancient Roman fellowships. The current name is derived from the palace of the Cenci, to which it was annexed from the XV century. The church, documented from the XII century, was completely renovated between 1559 and 1575 at the wishes of Cristoforo and Francesco Cenci: the two-part façade bears, between the two portals, the Roman funerary inscription of Marcus Cincius Theophilus, placed here by the Cenci because of the similarity with the name of the family. The interior has a rectangular layout with a single nave and houses the chapel of the Cenci; the high altar has a tondo of turquoise murra, a rare variety of marble, the only example in Rome. In the first chapel on the left is the Storie della Vergine by Sermoneta (1585).

y located in piazza Giudia or Giudea, then definitely re-composed in 1930 in piazza delle Cinque Scole.

the sources from the XII century onwards with the name of San Salvatore de Caccabariis (that is, pot workers, or copper bowl makers, who were based nearby at Monte Cenci). The current name relates to a miraculous event in 1546 when, after a violent brawl, the fresco of the Madonna on a wall of the Portico d’Ottavia was seen to cry. The miraculous image was removed and taken to the church which still bears the name today.The current building was constructed at the beginning of the XVII century when the existing church that had housed the miraculous image was demolished. The works on the new building began in 1612 but the new church remained incomplete, without a façade. Access to the interior of the church, in the form of a Greek cross with a hemispheric cupola encompassed on the outside by octagonal cladding, is gained through a simple nineteenth century marble portal which faces onto Via di Santa Maria dei Calderari, actually opening onto the ground floor of one of the buildings adjacent to the church. Seriously damaged by lightning at the end of the nineteenth century, the church remained closed for worship for several decades due to restoration works.

civic number 23.

he Late-Sixteenth century.

ttei in the square where his family palace was located. The usual layout, already employed several times by the architect, was in this case abandoned in favour of a composition in which the sculptural element was to the fore, probably in part due to the influence of the sculptor Taddeo Landini who collaborated on the project. The model may have been the Fontana del Nettuno in Florence, the work of Bartolomeo Ammannati (1563-75) with its bronze statues of satyrs and fauns. The central element in Della Porta’s fountain thus became the four bronze ephebes with their arms raised and dolphins above the accomplished basins in Portasante marble in the form of conch shells. On the border of the basin, a restoration ordered by Pope Alessandro VII (Fabio Chigi, 1655-1667) in 1658 extended the quadrangular exterior pool and added the four bronze turtles in the act of jumping into the basin, perhaps the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Gonzaga. By the second half of the fifteenth century, the interests of the Mattei family were already concentrated in the Rione Sant’Angelo in the large block erected near the remains of the ancient theatre of Balbus, where the fortified settlement known as Castrum Aureum was developed in the IX century. The palace was the last of the family’s buildings which formed the Isola dei Mattei. From the exterior, it appeared to be a closed building in late sixteenth century style following the traditional model with the main courtyard separated from the rear garden by an arcade on a single level. In fact, the architecture reveals a more open layout which suggests the complex should be appreciated in its individual parts, with the contrast between the simplicity of the exterior and the richness of the internal courtyard with reliefs and antique statues.The palace has two entrances and two prospects, the main one facing towards the church of Santa Caterina dei Funari, the other on Via dei Funari. The two entrances offer similar perspectives but with different development. One opens on the thoroughfare of Via dei Funari framed by the arcade of the inner courtyard that displayed one of the major collections of ancient marble in the city. The other opens on Via Caetani from the landing of the large, four ramp stairway, flanked by statues. The three-story palace is surmounted by a cornice decorated with the heraldic motifs of the Mattei and the Gonzaga and by a rooftop loggia with arcade, set on the medieval tower known as Turris Salitulae.Inside are paintings with themes from the Old Testament by the major painters active in Rome in the early seventeenth century: Francesco Albani, Lanfranco, Pomarancio and Pietro da Cortona.

aureo. The first name indicates the founder of the church, which originated with the monastery annex around the IX century on the remains of the Crypta Balbi, inside the Castrum Aureum (from which the second name was derived). The current name refers to the rope makers who operated in the quarter. Between the end of the XII century and the beginning of the XIII century, the building was enlarged considerably, but the current form derives from the reconstruction carried out between 1560 and 1564 at the initiative of Ignazio di Loyola, who had founded a home for poor young women in the monastery. The design was assigned to the architect Guidetto Guidetto, a pupil of Michelangelo. The façade was inspired by late Renaissance examples: two superimposed architectural orders with parastades and Corinthian capitals bordering panels with niches. Among these was a band adorned with festoons and the emblems of the wheel, the rose and the palm; scrolls and the upper tympanum complete the facade. The remains of a XV tower were used for small bell tower. The interior is a single nave and vaulted ceiling, with three chapels each side. It houses works of art by some of the most illustrious artists of Roman Mannerism: Incoronazione di Maria by Annibale Carracci, Deposizione by Girolamo Muziano, Assunzione by Scipione Pulzone, Storie di Santa Caterina by Federico Zuccari, Martirio di Santa Caterina e Gloria della Santa by Livio Agresti, Storie di San Giovanni by Marcello Venusti.