HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
A great wealth of ancient Roman monuments is concentrated in this neighborhood. Famous sites include the Capitoline hill, the Palatine, and the Roman Forum. The center of the district was, and still is, the Campidoglio: here were the seats of the government, the civic institutions and the main places of worship. The Palatine was a residential area, where Augustus built his palace (the word palace, meaning noble dwelling, derives from Palatium, the ancient name of the hill). In medieval times the district fell into decay and only ruins are left where its great monuments once stood. The area at the foot of the hill, the only inhabited zone, developed into a sort of Rive Gauche during the Renaissance period: its residents included artists such as Michelangelo, Giulio Romano and Pietro da Cortona. In the 15th century Paul III carried out restoration work on both the Campidoglio and the Palatine, while the forum continued to be used as grazing land (systematic archeological excavations were not carried out until the 19th century). Between the late 19th and early 20th century the neighborhood underwent extensive demolition work, which canceled out entire swathes of the ancient urban fabric and brought to light new archeological finds: all to the advantage of the hill, its beauty enhanced by its isolation position.
NOT TO BE MISSED
From Piazza d'Aracoeli a flight of steps - 124 in number, made in the 14th century from marble taken from the nearby ruins - leads to the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, built in the seventh century on the site of the temple of Giunone Moneta and rebuilt at the beginning of the 14th century. The imposing interior holds a wealth of works of art. The magnificent prospect of nearby Piazza del Campidoglio is the work of Michelangelo - at the back, the Palazzo Senatorio, at the sides the Palazzo dei Conservatori and the Palazzo Nuovo, which houses the collections of the Capitoline Museums. Down Via San Pietro in Carcere, to the left of Palazzo Senatorio, is the church of Saints Luca and Martina and the Carcere Mamertino (Mamertine Prison). Not far from here is the entrance to the archeological zone of the Roman Forum and the Palatine. The most noteworthy ruins include the "Basilica Aemilia", the Curia (where the Roman Senate met), the arch of Settimius Severus, the temples of Saturn, Concorde and Vespasian, the Rostri (the orators' speaking platform), the column of Phocas, the Basilica Iulia, the temples of Caesar, Castor and Pollux, Vesta, Antoninus and Faustina and the Divine Romolus, the Basilica of Maxentius and the arch of Titus.
CURIOUS FACTS
It is believed that in Nero's time Saints Peter and Paul were imprisoned in the Carcere Mamertino at the foot of the Campidoglio, and that after nine months they managed to escape with the help of their prison guards, converted in the meantime to Christianity. An inscription on a column inside commemorates this conversion, and mentions a spring that gushed miraculously from the rock in that very spot, to allow Peter and Paul to baptize their guards, Processus and Martinianus. In 1726 this site was consecrated as San Pietro in Carcere.
