Pantheon and Campo de' Fiori Walk

The Pantheon features a massive concrete dome with a circular opening, or oculus, at its center. This structure stands as the best-preserved monument from ancient Rome, despite two thousand years of earthquakes and looting. When it was…

A small Egyptian elephant carved from white marble carries a stone obelisk on its back in the center of the piazza. Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the monument in sixteen sixty-seven, basing his creation on a dream described in a…

The Church of Saint Louis of the French sits behind a white travertine facade decorated with statues of Charlemagne and Saint Louis. This building serves as the national church for the French in Rome, functioning as a home for the French…

Piazza Navona holds the exact footprint of Domitian’s Stadium, built two thousand years ago for athletic contests. The long, concave shape of the buildings surrounding the open space follows the curve of the ancient track where Roman…

The torso of Pasquino stands on a street corner in Rome, a battered marble fragment missing its arms, legs, and nose. For five centuries, locals have used this statue as a public bulletin board. They tape handwritten poems, insults, and…

The bronze statue of Giordano Bruno looms over the center of the piazza, his hooded face turned toward the Vatican. In sixteen hundred, the Roman Inquisition burned the philosopher alive on this very spot for his insistence that the…

The Palazzo Farnese is a massive, three-story cube of brick and travertine that anchors the piazza. It began as a status project for Alessandro Farnese, who became Pope Paul the third. He commissioned the design from Antonio da Sangallo…

The Galleria Spada occupies a seventeenth-century palace distinguished by the dense, ornate stucco reliefs covering its facade. Cardinal Bernardino Spada acquired the building in sixteen thirty-two and filled the rooms with a collection of…