Further information

Rome

Ever since its mythical foundation by Romulus in 753 BC, history has passed through Rome, leaving evidence from all ages and even now, as excavations go on, there are always new discoveries.
From the time of the Punic wars, that gave it its supremacy in the Mediterranean area, to the Imperial age, that, with Augustus’s peace, encouraged town-planning and social welfare, the city got resources to conquer the whole world that was known at the time.
Later, after the dissolution of the Roman empire, Rome became the centre of Christianity and, after various ups and downs, it became the capital city of the Italian Reign in 1870. The history of the XX century has seen Rome falling to pieces and rebuilding itself, destroyed by bombings and ready to restore its artistic and architectural treasures.
Today, Rome has grown around a “policentric” old town, full of sights and surrounded by the ancient defensive walls. Someone says that “one life is not enough” to visit it. Ever since its early times, the city has been surrounded by walls, the so-called Servian walls, created a public forum, the Roman Forum, built the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Campidoglio hill, and the Fortuna Virilis temple in the Forum Boarium.
The course of the first republic, when Rome dominated the Mediterranean and was the queen of the East, is marked by the construction of wonderful temples, aqueducts and large roads, thermal baths and amphitheatres. The Ara Pacis, the Pantheon, the Domus Aurea, the Coliseum, the great Emperors’ forums, including the magnificent Trajan’s Forum with its spiral-frieze column, the Basilica Ulpia, Trajan’s Market all date back to the Imperial age.
During the Middle Ages, with the growth of Christian communities and the establishment of the power of the Pope, Rome became the central pole of the Christian world, as testified by the construction of several wonderful basilicas. Renaissance and Baroque mark the golden age for arts, protected and supported by the different popes. It is due to popes such as Sixtus IV and Julius II Della Rovere, Paul III Farnese, Urban VIII Barberini, Innocent X Pamphili, that the greatest artist of the XV, XVI and XVII century worked in Rome, creating the architecture, sculpture and painting masterpieces that made the city unique.