Rome has a hill built from an estimated 53 million broken oil jars, a palace of 110,500 square metres that Roma Capitale calls twenty times the size of the White House, and a bronze meridian line 45 metres long laid into a church floor. Its museums took 6.8 million visitors in 2024. A cannon has fired from the Janiculum at noon since 1846.
Every fact below is sourced twice over, to Roma Capitale's own records and to an independent reference, and we hedge exactly where our sources hedge. If you are planning a visit rather than settling an argument, start with our guide to things to do in Rome.
1. The Colosseum Covers 24,000 Square Metres
The Colosseum is 189 metres long and 156 metres wide, rising over 48 metres and covering some 24,000 square metres of ground.
Those numbers are easy to read past until you stand at the foot of it. The outer wall is a cliff of travertine, and the building still sets the scale of everything around it — the traffic bends around the block it occupies, and the metro station is named after it.
2. Nobody Knows How Many the Colosseum Held
Ancient seating figures are estimates, not counts: Roma Capitale puts the Colosseum at about 50,000 to 60,000 spectators, while other scholarship gives a range of 50,000 to 80,000.
You will see a single confident figure quoted almost everywhere, and it is worth knowing that nobody actually counted. The seating was tiered by rank and rebuilt more than once, so the honest answer is a range rather than a number.
3. A Roman Stadium Sleeps Under Piazza Navona
About 4.50 metres below Piazza Navona lies the Stadium of Domitian, dedicated in AD 86 as Rome's first permanent venue for competitive athletics; Roma Capitale calls it the first and only example of a masonry stadium.
The square above did not merely get built near the stadium — it got built inside it. Walk the long oval of Piazza Navona and you are walking the running track, with the buildings standing on the old banks of seating.
4. The Circus Maximus Ran 600 Metres End to End
The Circus Maximus measured 600 metres long by 140 metres wide, which Roma Capitale calls the largest building for public entertainment in antiquity.
As of 2026 it reads as a long grassy dip between two hills, and plenty of people cross it without realising what it is. The shape is the giveaway: that shallow valley is the arena floor, and the slopes on either side held the crowd.
5. Rome's Great Sewer Widens as It Runs
The Cloaca Maxima measures 2.7 metres high and 2.12 metres wide at the embankment and widens along its route to 3.30 metres high by 4.50 metres.
It is one of the oldest pieces of working infrastructure anywhere, and parts of it still carry water to the Tiber. The outlet is visible from the riverbank near the Forum Boarium, a stone arch that gets photographed by people who have no idea what it drains.
6. The Pantheon's Oculus Is 8.92 Metres Across
The Pantheon's oculus is 8.92 metres in diameter and remains the only natural light source inside the rotunda.
There is no glass in it. Rain falls straight through onto the marble floor, and on a bright day the disc of sunlight it throws travels slowly around the interior like the hand of a clock.
7. St Peter's Was Built With the Pantheon's Bronze
In 1625 Pope Urban VIII stripped the bronze from the Pantheon's portico to cast the baldachin in St Peter's and cannons for Castel Sant'Angelo.
Romans have never entirely forgiven the Barberini family for it. The building survived antiquity largely intact only to be quarried by a pope, and the bronze that once sheathed its porch now twists above the high altar across the river.
8. Rome Has an Egyptian Pyramid 36 Metres Tall
The Pyramid of Caius Cestius stands 36.40 metres high on a square base of about 30 metres a side, built as a tomb between 18 and 12 BC.
It is genuinely Egyptian in inspiration rather than in origin — a Roman magistrate's tomb built during the fashion for all things Egyptian that followed the conquest. It is now wedged into the city wall beside a metro stop named after it.
9. Rome Once Had at Least Three More Pyramids
Roma Capitale records that the Pyramid of Cestius was not Rome's only one: more stood where the twin churches of Piazza del Popolo now sit, and another along Via della Conciliazione.
The survivor lasted because it was built into the defensive wall and so became too useful to demolish. The others were quarried away for their stone, which is the ordinary fate of a Roman monument nobody had a reason to keep.
10. A 19-Kilometre Wall Still Rings Central Rome
The Aurelian Walls run about 19 kilometres, roughly 6 metres high and 3.5 metres thick, with a square tower set every thirty metres.
People meet them without noticing, because roads simply pass through the old gates. Long stretches survive in the open, and you can follow them for miles past apartment blocks that were built to respect a line drawn in the third century.
11. Rome Doubled the Height of Its Walls in Two Years
Under the emperors Honorius and Arcadius in 401-402 the height of the Aurelian Walls was doubled and the old patrol path replaced with covered corridors.
That is a striking amount of masonry to raise in two years, and it tells you how the mood in the city had changed. The wall stopped being a boundary marker and became a defence that people expected to have to use.
12. The Appian Way Became World Heritage in 2024
In 2024 the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, meeting in New Delhi, inscribed the Via Appia as a World Heritage site.
It was a long time coming for a road that has been famous since antiquity. As of 2026 it is among the newest additions to the list, and the designation covers the route itself rather than a single monument along it.
13. The Appian Way Was Only 4.10 Metres Wide
Designed in 312 BC, the Appian Way carried traffic in both directions on a roadway only about 4.10 metres wide.
That is narrower than many modern side streets, and it carried an empire's armies south. Walking the surviving basalt paving, the ruts worn by cart wheels are still visible in the stone.
14. The Baths of Caracalla Ran for Three Centuries
Built between 212 and 216 AD, the Baths of Caracalla kept working until 537 AD, when the war-damaged aqueducts feeding them failed.
Baths on this scale were not really about washing. They were a public building with libraries, gardens and exercise grounds attached, and when the water stopped the whole social machine stopped with it.
15. The Baths of Diocletian Held 3,000 Bathers
Spread over 13 hectares and inaugurated between 305 and 306 AD, the Baths of Diocletian could hold up to 3,000 people at once.
The complex was so vast that Rome never really finished reusing it. A church, a museum, a planetarium and a railway terminus all occupy pieces of the footprint today.
16. Michelangelo Designed a Church at the Age of 86
Roma Capitale records that the cloister beside Santa Maria degli Angeli was designed by Michelangelo at the age of 86, the church itself set inside a Roman hall over 90 metres long.
He did not knock the baths down to build it. He worked inside the surviving Roman structure, which is why the church has the proportions of an imperial bathing hall rather than of a nave.
17. A 45-Metre Sundial Is Set Into a Church Floor
The Clementine Line, a bronze meridian inlaid in a marble band running about 45 metres across the floor of Santa Maria degli Angeli, was inaugurated in October 1702.
It is a working scientific instrument laid into a church floor. A pinhole high in the wall throws a spot of sunlight that crosses the line at local noon, and the markings let you read the date off the position.
18. Four Republican Temples Turned Up in a Demolition
The four Republican temples at Largo di Torre Argentina were found unexpectedly in 1926 during demolition work for new buildings, and excavated until 1928.
The city had planned offices for the site and got an archaeological park instead. The sunken square is now best known to visitors for the cat colony that lives among the temple platforms.
19. A Roman Statue's Foot Alone Measured Two Metres
The Basilica of Maxentius, begun in 308 and rising 35 metres high over a 100-metre hall, held a colossal statue whose foot alone measures 2 metres.
Just the north aisle survives, and it still towers over that end of the Forum. The scale of the vaulting is why Renaissance architects came here to study, and why the fragments of that statue draw a crowd in the Capitoline courtyard.
20. The Seven Halls Actually Has Nine Rooms
The cistern known since the Middle Ages as the Sette Sale, or Seven Halls, in fact has nine rooms, and stored up to 8 million litres of water for the Baths of Trajan.
The name has simply been wrong for centuries and nobody has bothered to correct it. Standing inside, the scale makes sense of the baths above: a complex that size needed a reservoir, not a tank.
21. A Secret Basilica Was Found Under a Railway
The underground Neo-Pythagorean Basilica at Porta Maggiore was found by accident in 1917 during construction of a railway line out of Rome.
It is one of the strangest rooms in the city — a subterranean hall of white stucco reliefs, built for a cult whose beliefs are still argued over. It was sealed and forgotten under a busy junction until the ground gave way.
22. Rome's Oldest Aqueduct Still Feeds the Trevi
Built in 19 BC under Agrippa, the Acqua Vergine is described by Roma Capitale as the only one of Rome's ancient aqueducts still in operation, still feeding the Trevi Fountain and the fountains of Piazza Navona.
That is the detail that changes how the fountains look. As of 2026 the water arriving at the Trevi is still coming down a channel laid out under Augustus, which is why it runs continuously rather than recirculating.
23. Trajan's Aqueduct Ran More Than 50 Kilometres
Built in 109 AD to supply Trastevere, the Aqua Traiana ran more than 50 kilometres from springs near Lake Bracciano, and in 1612 was renamed the Acqua Paola.
Trastevere sits on the wrong side of the river and was the last part of the city to get running water. The great white fountain on the Janiculum is the show-off end of that same channel.
24. The Last Ancient Aqueduct Arrived in 226 AD
The Aqua Alexandrina, built in 226 AD under Alexander Severus, was the last of the aqueducts built to supply ancient Rome.
After it, no more were added — the city had reached the limit of what it could feed. Long lines of its arches still stride across the eastern suburbs, marooned between apartment blocks.
25. The Trevi Fountain Started Charging in 2026
From 2 February 2026, tourists and non-residents entering the basin area closest to the Trevi Fountain must pay a ticket costing two euros.
Access stays free for residents, for young children and for people with disabilities and their carers. As of 2026 it is the city's answer to crowds that had made the lower steps almost impassable.
26. Bernini Unveiled the Four Rivers on 12 June 1651
Commissioned by Pope Innocent X, Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona was unveiled on 12 June 1651.
The four figures personify rivers from four continents, draped over a hollow travertine crag. The trick of the design is that the whole heavy pile appears to rest on almost nothing, with daylight passing straight through the rock beneath the obelisk.
27. The Boat Fountain Was Named for Tiber Barges
The Barcaccia at the foot of the Spanish Steps, built between 1626 and 1629 by Pietro Bernini, takes its name from the boats once used at the nearby river port of Ripetta.
It sits low, almost sunk into the paving, because the water pressure at that spot was too weak for anything that sprayed upward. The architect turned a limitation into a half-swamped stone boat.
28. The Spanish Steps Are Not Spanish
The Spanish Steps were built between 1723 and 1726 under Pope Innocent XIII, to the design of the Roman architect Francesco De Santis, as a meeting place for all citizens.
The name comes from the Spanish embassy that stood on the square, not from Spanish money or Spanish builders. The staircase was a Roman commission carried out by a Roman architect, and it has been a place to sit ever since.
29. Rome's Cathedral Is Not St Peter's
The cathedral of Rome is the Archbasilica of St John Lateran, known by definition as the mother of all the churches in the world, not St Peter's in the Vatican.
A cathedral is wherever the local bishop has his seat, and the Bishop of Rome's seat is at the Lateran. St Peter's is a papal basilica, which is a different thing entirely, however much larger the crowds there are.
30. San Clemente Stacks Three Buildings in One
At San Clemente a 12th-century basilica stands over a 4th-century church, which in turn sits on 1st-century Roman buildings that include a temple of Mithras.
Going down through it is the clearest lesson in how Rome works that the city offers. Each level was not demolished but filled in and built over, so you descend through centuries a staircase at a time, ending beside running water.
31. A Crypt Is Decorated With 4,000 Friars' Bones
Beneath Santa Maria della Concezione, five chapels are decorated with the skulls and bones of 4,000 Capuchin friars, arranged into rosettes, stars and chandeliers.
It was not made to shock. The friars intended it as a meditation on mortality, and a sign at the end tells visitors that what they are now, the visitor will one day be.
32. Rome Stages a Snowfall Every 5 August
Every year on 5 August, Santa Maria Maggiore commemorates the legend of a summer snowfall on the Esquiline by releasing white petals from the summit of the basilica.
As of 2026 the ceremony still draws a crowd into the square at the hottest point of the Roman year. The petals drift down over the heads of people standing in genuine heat, which is much of the effect.
33. A Cannon Has Fired at Noon Since 1846
A cannon fires once at noon from the Janiculum every day, a time signal instituted by Pope Pius IX in 1846 to stop Rome's church bells disagreeing.
As of 2026 it still goes off, and it still startles anyone who has wandered up for the view without knowing. Before the Janiculum the gun was fired from Castel Sant'Angelo and then from Monte Mario.
34. A Roman Shopping Complex Rose Over Six Levels
Trajan's Markets climb the slope of the Quirinal on six levels, rediscovered between 1926 and 1934 and opened in 2007 as the first museum of ancient architecture.
Calling it a shopping centre oversells the resemblance, but the comparison is not silly: rows of small rooms opening off streets and terraces, stacked up a hillside and served by staircases.
35. Nero Built a Palace After Burning Rome
After the fire of 64 AD destroyed much of central Rome, Nero began the Domus Aurea, a vast landscaped palace complex on the Oppian Hill.
His successors buried it deliberately, using the shell as foundations for the Baths of Trajan. That is why it survives: Renaissance artists lowered themselves through holes in the ceiling to copy the painted decoration underground.
36. Rome's First Gladiator Fight Was at a Cattle Market
The Forum Boarium, Rome's ancient cattle market, was the site of the city's first gladiatorial contest in 264 BC, staged as a funeral gift for the dead.
Gladiatorial combat began as a funeral rite rather than as entertainment, and it began in a livestock market rather than an arena. The amphitheatres came centuries later, once the custom had outgrown its origins.
37. A Church Was Built on Top of Three Temples
San Nicola in Carcere, built in 1128, stands directly on three Republican temples, the largest of them measuring about 30 by 15 metres beneath the church.
The columns of the old temples are still embedded in the outside walls, half swallowed by the later masonry. As of 2026 you can go down beneath the floor and walk between the temple foundations.
38. A Fortress Began Life as an Emperor's Tomb
Castel Sant'Angelo was begun in 135 AD as a mausoleum for the emperor Hadrian and his family, and completed in 139, a year after his death.
It has since been a fortress, a prison, a papal refuge and a museum. The covered passage running to the Vatican was built so a pope could reach it without crossing open ground, and it was used in earnest more than once.
39. Ten Marble Angels Guard One Roman Bridge
Between 1667 and 1669 Pope Clement IX had ten marble angels placed along the ancient Ponte Elio, which has been called Ponte Sant'Angelo ever since.
Each angel carries an instrument of the Passion, so crossing the bridge walks you through the story in order. The versions on the bridge are copies; two that Bernini carved himself were kept indoors.
40. The Mouth of Truth Was Probably a Drain Cover
Roma Capitale describes the Bocca della Verita in the porch of Santa Maria in Cosmedin as probably an ancient hatch, famous for the belief that it bites the hand of a liar.
Historians are not certain what it was for, and the drain-cover theory is a hypothesis rather than a settled fact. The queue outside the porch is largely the work of one film, and it moves faster than it looks.
41. A Roman Bell Has Rung Since 1289
The Romanesque bell tower of Santa Maria in Cosmedin rises 34.20 metres over seven floors of mullioned windows and still holds a bell dating from 1289.
Plenty of people queue at the porch for the stone mask and never go inside, which is their loss. The interior keeps its medieval choir enclosure and a Cosmatesque floor of inlaid marble.
42. Rome's First Church to Mary Sits in Trastevere
Roma Capitale calls Santa Maria in Trastevere probably the first official place of Christian worship in Rome, and it is traditionally counted among the oldest churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
As of 2026 the claim is still argued, with Santa Maria Maggiore the usual rival. What is not in dispute is the gold apse mosaic, best seen in the late afternoon when the facade opposite throws light back into it.
43. Rome's Oldest Basilica Keeps Its Original Plan
Santa Sabina on the Aventine is the oldest surviving basilica in Rome to preserve its original colonnaded rectangular plan, apse and architectural style.
As of 2026 it remains startlingly plain by Roman standards, and that is the point: this is what a church looked like before the Baroque arrived. The nave is lit by windows of thin selenite rather than stained glass.
44. A Wooden Door Carries the First Crucifixion Scene
The cypress wood doors of Santa Sabina, carved in AD 430 to 432, include what is widely held to be the first publicly displayed depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus.
The panel is small and set high, and it is easy to walk past. It is easy to forget that the image had to be invented by someone, and that for centuries it was not the obvious way to represent the story.
45. Michelangelo's Moses Guards a Pope Who Moved
San Pietro in Vincoli has housed Michelangelo's Moses since 1545; the colossal statue was sculpted in 1513 for the funeral monument of Pope Julius II.
The tomb was meant to be far grander and swallowed decades of the sculptor's life before being cut down to what stands here. The horns on the head come from a mistranslation of the Hebrew for rays of light.
46. Rome Has Exactly One Gothic Church
Santa Maria sopra Minerva, rebuilt in Gothic style in the 13th century, is the only surviving example of original Gothic church architecture in Rome.
As of 2026 it is still the exception that proves how thoroughly the Baroque redecorated this city. The vaulted blue ceiling with its gold stars is a 19th-century restoration, but the bones underneath are genuinely medieval.
47. Two Caravaggios Hang in One Side Chapel
The Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo holds two Caravaggio masterpieces, commissioned in September 1600 by the papal treasurer Tiberio Cerasi.
They hang in the side chapel where they were installed, lit on a coin meter rather than in a gallery. Seeing them in the dark of a working church is closer to how they were meant to be met.
48. A Fourth-Century Dome Spans 22.5 Metres
The Mausoleum of Santa Costanza, built in the early 4th century, is covered by a dome 22.50 metres in diameter carried on twelve pairs of granite columns.
The vault mosaics of the surrounding ambulatory are full of vines, birds and grape harvests borrowed straight from Roman decoration.
49. One Catacomb Runs for 20 Kilometres
The Catacombs of San Callisto, in use from the end of the 2nd century AD, form a network of galleries on several levels extending for about 20 kilometres.
The tunnels were cut into soft volcanic rock that hardens on contact with air, which is why they hold their shape. Bodies were laid in shelves cut into the walls rather than buried in the floor.
50. Another Catacomb Holds 15,000 Bodies
The Catacombs of Domitilla spread out over 17 kilometres on four levels and hold approximately 15,000 bodies underground.
They are unusual for having asemi-underground basilica built into them, so the visit ends in a church rather than a corridor. The frescoes in the older sections mix Christian scenes with ordinary Roman decorative motifs.
51. Trappist Monks Still Distil a Roman Liqueur
In 1868 the Trappist monks of Tre Fontane Abbey planted a eucalyptus wood, from which a liqueur is still distilled today.
As of 2026 the monks still sell it at the gate, along with chocolate. The abbey sits in a wooded hollow well outside the tourist circuit, which is much of its appeal.
52. 6.8 Million People Visited the Vatican Museums
In 2024 the Vatican Museums were visited by 6.8 million people, making them among the most visited museum complexes anywhere.
As of 2026 almost all of those visitors are walking toward one room. The route to the Sistine Chapel runs through galleries of maps, tapestries and classical sculpture that visitors tend to cross at speed on their way to the ceiling.
53. Gardens Cover About Half of Vatican City
The Vatican Gardens cover approximately 23 hectares, about half the surface of Vatican City, and have been the pope's retreat since 1279.
You cannot wander in; access is by booked tour only, which keeps them quiet. They contain a working heliport, a radio station and a replica of the grotto at Lourdes.
54. Thirteen Colossal Statues Crown St Peter's
The facade of St Peter's Basilica runs 115 metres long and is crowned by an attic bearing thirteen colossal statues.
The statues read as ordinary rooftop figures from the square and are enormous close up, which is the trick the whole facade plays. Distances here are designed to flatten, and the building is consistently larger than it looks.
55. Michelangelo Never Saw His Dome Finished
The dome of St Peter's was designed by Michelangelo but completed by Giacomo della Porta and Domenico Fontana in 1588 to 1589, long after his death.
The finished profile is steeper than his model, a change made for structural reasons that also gave Rome the silhouette it is known by. You can climb between the inner and outer shells to the lantern.
56. The World's Oldest Public Museum Opened in 1471
The Capitoline Museums trace their origin to 1471, when Pope Sixtus IV gave the people of Rome a collection of ancient bronzes, and are widely described as the oldest public museums in the world.
As of 2026 the founding gift is still on display, including the bronze she-wolf that became the city's emblem. The collection was public from the start, which is what the claim rests on.
57. Roman Statues Share a Room With Diesel Engines
Centrale Montemartini, Rome's first electrical power station, is now a museum where ancient Roman sculpture stands among the original turbines and diesel engines.
The pairing was meant to be temporary and proved too good to undo. White marble gods stand against black machinery, and each makes the other look stranger than it would alone.
58. The Quirinale Is 20 Times the Size of the White House
At 110,500 square metres the Quirinale is described by Roma Capitale as the sixth largest palace in the world, twenty times larger than the White House.
As of 2026 it is the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic, having previously housed popes and then kings. The changing of the guard in the square outside is free to watch.
59. A Head of State Gardens on Four Hectares
The gardens of the Quirinale, laid out in the 16th century, cover about 4 hectares of geometric flowerbeds, hedges and grove behind the Italian president's official residence.
They sit on top of the highest of the seven hills, hidden behind a long blank wall that gives nothing away. They open to the public only on a handful of days each year.
60. France Rents a Renaissance Palace for 99 Years
Palazzo Farnese, one of Rome's great High Renaissance palaces, was granted to the French government in 1936 for 99 years and serves as the French Embassy in Italy.
As of 2026 that lease still has years to run. Michelangelo had a hand in the upper facade and the cornice, and the Carracci ceiling inside is a painted room that generations of artists came to study.
61. Rome's Foreign Ministry Has 1,300 Rooms
The Palazzo della Farnesina holds 1,300 rooms across nine floors and has housed the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1959.
It was begun as a headquarters for the Fascist party and finished as a ministry, which is a fairly Roman outcome. It also holds a large collection of modern Italian art, visitable by appointment.
62. 150 Million Travellers Pass Through Termini
Roma Termini covers 225,000 square metres and handles around 850 trains a day, carrying 150 million travellers a year.
As of 2026 the concourse carries that traffic all day without ever quite emptying. The great cantilevered canopy over the concourse was a post-war design, and a stretch of Republican-era city wall stands preserved just outside the front doors.
63. Rome's Station Was Built for a City of 180,000
When Termini was built in 1867 it seemed far too large for a papal capital of just over 180,000 inhabitants; the present station was finally inaugurated on 20 December 1950.
As of 2026 the city it was built for no longer exists. Rome was still a walled town of gardens and vineyards when the first station went up, and the building was obsolete within a generation.
64. Rome's Ghetto Came 39 Years After Venice's
The Jewish Quarter of Rome was created in 1555 by order of Pope Paul IV, thirty-nine years after the ghetto of Venice of 1516, which Roma Capitale names as the older of the two.
Rome's Jewish community itself is far older than the ghetto that confined it, with a continuous presence in the city since antiquity. The quarter was finally opened for good when papal rule over the city ended.
65. Rome's Great Synagogue Opened in 1904
The Tempio Maggiore, Rome's Great Synagogue, was inaugurated in 1904, thirty-four years after the ghetto was permanently closed.
Its squared-off aluminium dome was designed to be unmistakable from a distance, and it is the one dome on the skyline that is not a church. The building houses the Jewish Museum of Rome.
66. Rome Has Six Statues That Talk Back
Six of Rome's ancient sculptures served as talking statues, the Congregation of Wits, carrying anonymous satirical verses posted at night to be read by passers-by the following morning.
It was the closest thing the papal city had to a free press. The verses were pinned up in the dark, copied by whoever passed at dawn, and removed by officials who could never establish who had written them.
67. Only One of Rome's Talking Statues Is a Woman
Madama Lucrezia, a colossal Roman marble bust about 3 metres high near Palazzo Venezia, is the only female member of Rome's Congregation of Wits.
She is probably a fragment of a statue of Isis, reused and renamed. Of all the talking statues she is the easiest to walk past, tucked into a corner of the piazza with no label to explain her.
68. A Statue and Its Fountain Were Reunited in 1957
The Babuino was part of a fountain from 1576, and after centuries apart the statue and its basin were reunited as a working fountain in 1957.
The name is an insult that stuck: Romans thought the reclining figure so ugly it looked like a baboon, and the street was renamed after it. The wall beside it still attracts graffiti, which is arguably continuity.
69. Borromini Faked a Corridor Four Times Its Length
The illusionistic colonnade in the secret garden of Palazzo Spada, created in 1653 by Francesco Borromini for Cardinal Bernardino Spada, is Rome's most spectacular Baroque trick of perspective.
The corridor looks far longer than it is because the floor rises, the columns shrink and the walls converge. The statue at the far end that appears life-sized is a fraction of human height.
70. A Sovereign Order Has Held Roman Ground Since 1869
The Villa Magistrale of the Sovereign Order of Malta on the Aventine has enjoyed the right of extraterritoriality since 1869.
As of 2026 the queue outside is for the keyhole in its green door, which frames the dome of St Peter's down an avenue of clipped hedges. The alignment is deliberate and was designed into the garden.
71. Piranesi Built Exactly One Building
In 1765 Giovanni Battista Piranesi designed the square and entrance of the Priory on the Aventine, the celebrated engraver's only realised work of architecture.
The man who spent his life drawing imaginary prisons and ruined temples built exactly one thing, and this is it. The square is crowded with carved obelisks, trophies and emblems, more engraving than architecture.
72. Nearly 4,000 Non-Catholics Rest by the Pyramid
The Non-Catholic Cemetery beside the Pyramid of Cestius has been in use since about 1716 and now holds almost 4,000 burials of many nationalities and faiths.
As of 2026 it is still an active burial ground and still full of cats. Keats and Shelley are both here, and the cypresses and the pyramid behind them make it one of the quietest corners in the city.
73. Keats Died in a Room by the Spanish Steps
John Keats died aged twenty-five on 23 February 1821 in the house at the foot of the Spanish Steps, now the Keats-Shelley House, a museum since 1909.
He had come to Rome for the climate, on medical advice, and lived a few months. His room looks out over the steps, which were then as now the busiest place in the neighbourhood.
74. One Architect Invented a Whole Roman Quarter
Quartiere Coppede is a complex of 26 small palaces and 17 detached villini built between 1915 and 1927 to designs by the eclectic architect Gino Coppede.
It belongs to no style at all — Assyrian, medieval, Baroque and Art Nouveau motifs are piled onto the same facades. A wrought iron chandelier hangs from the arch over the entrance, which is not something Rome does anywhere else.
75. Rome's Royal Bunker Has 1,200-Kilo Doors
The royal air-raid shelter under Villa Ada, built around 1940 to 1942 for the House of Savoy, runs to more than 200 square metres underground behind two doors weighing about 1,200 kilograms each.
It was built for the exclusive use of the royal family, a short drive from the palace. As of 2026 it is open to visitors after decades of abandonment.
76. Rome's Largest Park Covers 184 Hectares
Villa Doria Pamphilj covers 184 hectares, making it the largest of Rome's landscaped public parks; the city acquired parts of it in 1965 and 1971.
As of 2026 it is big enough to lose the city entirely — pine woods, meadows and an aqueduct running through the middle. Romans use it as a running track and a picnic ground rather than as a monument.
77. Villa Borghese Is Only Rome's Third Largest Park
Villa Borghese covers 80 hectares, which makes it only the third-largest public park in Rome, behind Villa Doria Pamphilj and Villa Ada; the Italian state bought it in 1903.
As of 2026 it is still the one most visitors mean when they say the park, because it sits directly above the Spanish Steps. Its size is deceptive: the formal gardens near the entrance are a small part of it.
78. A Papal Herb Garden Became 12 Hectares of Plants
Rome's Botanical Garden settled at Villa Corsini in 1883 and now covers 12 hectares, with over 300 monumental trees of more than 130 species.
As of 2026 it climbs the slope of the Janiculum behind Trastevere, so the top of the garden is a viewpoint as well as a collection. The bamboo grove and the Japanese garden are the parts people remember.
79. An Etruscan City Rival Sits Inside Rome's Limits
Veio Regional Park covers 15,000 hectares north of Rome with 99 kilometres of paths, on ground once held by the Etruscan city that fought Rome for three centuries.
Veii was Rome's great early rival and was eventually destroyed by it. As of 2026 the park protects tombs, cut ravines and waterfalls within the city's own northern boundary.
80. Rome's Highest Hill Is Not One of the Seven
Monte Mario rises 139 metres and is the highest hill in Rome, yet it is not counted among the city's legendary seven hills.
As of 2026 the traditional seven remain the ones inside the ancient boundary, and Monte Mario sits outside it. The terrace at the top opens out over the whole city.
81. Rome Has Its Own Stretch of Coastline
The territory of Roma Capitale reaches the Tyrrhenian Sea, with the Roman Coast Reserve running along 3.5 kilometres of seafront and the Castel Fusano park covering more than 1,000 hectares.
Rome is not usually thought of as a coastal city, but its municipal boundary takes in beaches, dunes and a pine forest. Romans go there in summer on the same transit ticket that gets them across town.
82. A Roman Hill Is Made of 53 Million Broken Jars
Monte Testaccio is an artificial hill built entirely from a Roman dump of oil amphorae, containing the remains of an estimated 53 million vessels.
Olive oil arrived in jars that could not be reused because the oil soaked into the clay and turned rancid. So the empties were broken, stacked in careful layers and left, until the rubbish became landscape.
83. Rome's Rubbish Heap Stands 35 Metres High
The pottery mound of Monte Testaccio stands 35 metres high with a circumference of nearly a kilometre, and was probably considerably higher in ancient times.
The shards are still visible where the surface has worn through, and the stamps on them record where the oil came from. Bars and clubs are now cut into the base of the hill.
84. The Pincio Is a Hill Rome Does Not Count
The Pincian Hill lay outside the boundaries of ancient Rome and was never counted among the seven hills, though it sits inside the Aurelian Walls built between 270 and 273.
Its terrace above Piazza del Popolo is the classic sunset viewpoint, and the water clock in the gardens below is driven by a mechanism designed by a Dominican friar.
85. Sixty Marble Athletes Ring a Roman Stadium
The Stadio dei Marmi at the Foro Italico is surrounded by 60 white marble statues of sportsmen, each one donated by a different Italian city.
The effect is deliberately overwhelming and the politics behind it are unmistakable. It remains in everyday use as a running track, which makes the ring of marble athletes feel less like a monument.
86. Rome's Olympic Stadium Opened as the Hundred Thousand
Rebuilt after Rome was chosen for the 1960 Summer Olympics, the Olympic Stadium was inaugurated in 1953 under the name Stadio dei Centomila, the Stadium of the Hundred Thousand.
As of 2026 it is shared by the city's two football clubs and hosts the national side. The name promised a capacity that later rebuilds quietly reduced.
87. A Roman Column Credits the Wrong Emperor
The Column of Marcus Aurelius stands 100 Roman feet high, about thirty metres, built from 28 cylindrical blocks of Carrara marble, but its base inscription wrongly credits Antoninus Pius.
The mistake is old enough to have generated a second name: the monument is still sometimes called the Antonine Column. A spiral staircase runs up inside the shaft, lit by narrow slots.
88. One Carved Frieze Spirals Upward 21 Times
The relief frieze on the Column of Marcus Aurelius runs approximately 112 metres and spirals upward 21 times, telling the story of his campaigns from the bottom up.
The carving is deeper and more dramatic than on Trajan's Column, which it copies, because the sculptors were working for a viewer standing far below. Almost nobody who passes it in the square looks up.
89. Bramante Built a Tiny Temple That Changed Europe
The Tempietto in the cloister of San Pietro in Montorio, designed by Donato Bramante around 1502, is a martyrium marking the site traditionally held to be where St Peter was crucified.
It is tiny, and it changed European architecture. Its circular plan and dome became the model that architects returned to for centuries, including the men who later built St Peter's itself.
90. Rome Built a New River Port in 193 BC
In 193 BC the censors established the Emporium, a new river port south of the Aventine, and in 174 BC it was paved with stone and given ladders down to the Tiber.
This was where the city's imports landed, which is why the hill of broken oil jars grew up directly behind it. Stretches of the quay are still visible below the modern embankment.
91. A Roman Basilica Was Built on Jerusalem Soil
Santa Croce in Gerusalemme was founded around 325 to house relics of the Passion brought from the Holy Land by the Empress Helena, and tradition holds that soil from Jerusalem lies beneath its floor.
The basilica was built into an existing imperial hall rather than raised from scratch. The relics are kept in a modern chapel at the end of a long corridor, away from the main body of the church.
92. Constantine's Daughter Built Her Own Mausoleum
The Basilica of Sant'Agnese outside the Walls was built in 324 at the wish of Constantine's daughter, over the cemetery and catacombs holding the saint's remains.
The church is entered by descending a long marble staircase, so you arrive below ground level rather than above it. The catacombs run underneath and can be visited from inside.
93. Rome's River Island Is Shaped Like a Ship
Tiber Island is boat-shaped, approximately 270 metres long and 67 metres wide, and has been linked to both banks by bridges since antiquity.
The resemblance to a ship was encouraged: the island was faced in stone to sharpen the prow. It has been associated with healing since a temple to Aesculapius stood here, and a hospital occupies much of it still.
94. Rome's Prettiest Square Was an Execution Ground
For centuries Piazza del Popolo was a site of public executions, the last of which took place in 1826.
The square that now reads as a grand entrance to Rome was for a long time a place people were brought to die. A plaque on the barracks records the two Carbonari guillotined there.
95. An Egyptian Obelisk Older Than Rome Stands Downtown
The Flaminio Obelisk in Piazza del Popolo stands 24 metres tall, or 36.50 metres with its base and cross, and is probably either the oldest or second oldest of Rome's ancient obelisks.
As of 2026 its age is still argued. It was cut in Egypt long before Rome mattered, shipped here under Augustus, set up in the Circus Maximus, and moved again to this square. Its age is argued because the rival claimant is nearby.
96. Piazza Navona Still Has the Shape of a Racetrack
Piazza Navona sits on the 1st-century Stadium of Domitian and still follows the elongated oval of the running track beneath it.
The buildings around the square stand on the foundations of the seating, which is why the frontages curve. Nothing about the shape is a design choice made in the Baroque; it was inherited.
97. Bernini's Obelisk Was Salvaged From a Racetrack
The granite obelisk of Domitian crowning Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers was recovered from the Circus of Maxentius on the Appian Way and re-erected in Piazza Navona.
Rome has reused obelisks for as long as it has had them, moving them from circus to square as fashion and popes required. This one was lying broken in pieces outside the walls before Bernini claimed it.
98. A Florentine Won the Trevi Contest and Lost It
Pope Clement XII launched a competition for the Trevi Fountain in which Nicola Salvi initially lost to the Florentine Alessandro Galilei, but Roman outcry handed Salvi the commission anyway.
The protest was straightforwardly parochial: Romans did not want a Florentine designing the city's grandest fountain. Salvi did not live to see it finished.
99. An Obelisk Was Shipped to Rome in 357 AD
The gigantic obelisk that once stood on the spina of the Circus Maximus, now on the Lateran hill, was brought to Rome by Constantius II in 357 AD.
It was already ancient when it arrived, cut in Egypt centuries before Rome had an empire to move it with. Moving it required a purpose-built ship and a canal.
100. Etruscan Kings Drained the Swamp Rome Sits On
The marshy Velabrum between the Palatine and the Capitoline was reclaimed by the Etruscan kings in the 6th century BC, who built the Cloaca Maxima to drain it.
Rome's monumental centre is built on drained swamp, and the drain came first. Without it the Forum would have been a floodplain, and the city would have grown somewhere else.
101. Rome Banned Gladiator Games in 438
In 438 the emperor Valentinian III abolished gladiatorial games, repeating an earlier ban, and the Colosseum entered a long decline.
Bans of this kind had to be issued more than once, which tells you how popular the games remained. Animal hunts in the arena continued well after the gladiators had gone.
102. One Museum Holds Rome's Greatest Ancient Haul
The National Roman Museum was established in 1889 to house antiquities unearthed as Rome became the Italian capital, and its collection is spread across four separate sites.
As of 2026 those sites include a Renaissance palace, a former convent and the Baths of Diocletian themselves. One ticket covers all of them, which almost nobody realises.
Where to Go Next in Rome
Facts are one thing; a plan is another. If this page has left you wanting to stand in front of some of it, our guide to things to do in Rome covers the sites themselves — what to book ahead, what to skip and what is genuinely worth the queue. For the rest of the country, start at our Italy travel guide.
How We Checked These Facts
Every claim on this page carries at least two sources in different registers: an official record — Roma Capitale's own monument pages, the basilicas' and museums' own sites — paired with an independent reference work. We record the date we read each source and re-fetch them, so a page that moves or changes gets caught rather than quietly ageing. Where a source hedges, we hedge with it: you will see "about", "probably" and stated ranges rather than a single confident number, because ancient capacities and disputed origins genuinely are estimates. Where two of our own pages disagreed, we corrected them rather than picking the more flattering figure.
FAQ: Interesting Facts About Rome
Is there really an Egyptian pyramid in Rome?
Yes. The Pyramid of Caius Cestius stands 36.40 metres high on a square base of about 30 metres a side, built as a tomb between 18 and 12 BC. It is Roman work in an Egyptian style, built during the fashion that followed the conquest of Egypt, and it survives because it was later built into the city wall.
Which church is Rome's cathedral?
The Archbasilica of St John Lateran, not St Peter's. A cathedral is the seat of the local bishop, and the Bishop of Rome's seat is at the Lateran, which Roma Capitale describes as the mother of all the churches in the world. St Peter's is a papal basilica, which is a different category.
Do you have to pay to see the Trevi Fountain?
To stand in the basin area closest to the monument, yes. From 2 February 2026, tourists and non-residents must pay a ticket costing two euros. Access remains free for residents, for young children and for people with disabilities and their carers, and the square itself is still open.
Why does a cannon fire over Rome at noon?
It is a time signal. A cannon fires once at noon from the Janiculum every day, a practice instituted by Pope Pius IX in 1846 to stop the city's church bells disagreeing about the hour. Before it moved to the Janiculum the gun was fired from Castel Sant'Angelo and then from Monte Mario.
What is Monte Testaccio actually made of?
Broken pottery. Monte Testaccio is an artificial hill built from a Roman dump of oil amphorae, containing the remains of an estimated 53 million vessels. Oil soaked into the clay and turned rancid, so the jars could not be reused; they were smashed, stacked in layers and left until the rubbish became a hill.
How many people did the Colosseum really hold?
Nobody counted, so every figure you see is an estimate. Roma Capitale puts it at about 50,000 to 60,000 spectators, while other scholarship gives a range of 50,000 to 80,000. The seating was tiered by rank and altered more than once, which is why an honest answer is a range rather than a single number.
Is Monte Mario one of Rome's seven hills?
No, despite being the highest. Monte Mario rises 139 metres and is the highest hill in Rome, but the traditional seven are the ones inside the ancient boundary, and Monte Mario sits outside it. The Pincian Hill is in the same position: inside the later Aurelian Walls, but never counted among the seven.