Capitoline Hill and Piazza Venezia

The Insula Romana beneath the Church of Santa Maria in Via Lata features a brick facade with a series of tall, narrow window arches that once opened onto a busy street. It is a rare example of a Roman apartment block, rising several…

The Cordonata Capitolina is the wide, shallow staircase that climbs the Capitoline Hill with ramps instead of traditional stairs. Michelangelo designed these low, inclined steps so that a person could ride a horse all the way to the top…

The Piazza del Campidoglio features a complex geometric star pattern paved into the ground, centered around the bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius. Michelangelo designed this space in fifteen thirty-six to shift the orientation of the…

The Senatorial Palace sits atop the Capitoline Hill, recognizable by its double-ramp staircase and the bell tower reaching above the roofline. Michelangelo designed the facade in the sixteenth century, wrapping an older medieval fortress…

One hundred and twenty-four marble steps climb the slope to the facade of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Those stairs were a gift from the people of Rome to mark the end of the Black Death in thirteen forty-eight. Inside, the church holds a…

The Monument to Victor Emmanuel the Second dominates the north side of the Piazza Venezia with a massive white Brescian marble facade. It stretches over one hundred meters wide, featuring a central equestrian statue of Italy's first king…

The vast white marble monument at the edge of Piazza Venezia dominates the Roman skyline with its massive Corinthian columns and golden statues of winged victories. This is the Altare della Patria, built to honor Victor Emmanuel the…