Jewish Catacombs of Villa Torlonia

The Jewish Catacombs of Villa Torlonia cannot be visited: the Sovraintendenza capitolina says so plainly on the page dedicated to the villa, and there is no ticket to buy, neither online nor at the gate. The underground cemetery lies under the park at Via Nomentana 70, in the Nomentano district, under the area of the old stables. Above is a free public park of Roma Capitale. Below is an archaeological site of the State, for which the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma has published an access project.

What is down there matters more than its modest fame. Two catacombs born separate and later joined by galleries, more than 13,000 square meters of underground according to the Soprintendenza, arcosolium tombs, frescoed chambers with the menorah and plant motifs, inscriptions in Greek. It is a cemetery of the Jewish community of ancient Rome, and a radiocarbon study carried out by a team from Utrecht University places its first phases between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD.

The practical information given here matches the check of September 29, 2026 on the Villa Torlonia page of the Sovraintendenza capitolina, on the website of the Musei di Villa Torlonia, on the documents published by the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma and on the tourist portal of Roma Capitale. Until the access works are finished and the opening is announced by whoever has authority over the site, chances to get in remain exceptional. Be wary of anyone offering an ordinary entry to these catacombs today.

At a glance: address, hours, ticket

• Address: Via Nomentana 70, 00161 Rome, under the park of Villa Torlonia. The park also has entrances from Via Siracusa and Via Spallanzani.
• Status: catacombs not open to visitors according to the Sovraintendenza capitolina, no ordinary opening on the calendar.
• Authority: state archaeological site. The project for access from Via Spallanzani and for the former caretaker's lodge belongs to the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma.
• Ticket: none on sale. The park above the catacombs is free to enter.
• Park hours: from October 1 to March 31 from 7:00 to 19:30, from April 1 to September 30 from 7:00 to 20:30, closed January 1 and December 25.
• Information: Roma Capitale call center 060608, every day from 9:00 to 19:00.
• Getting there: Via Nomentana, served by Atac surface lines. The villa's operator does not publish the line numbers, which should be checked on the Atac website.

Where it is and what is really under the park

Villa Torlonia is the large 19th-century villa on Via Nomentana, bought by the City of Rome between 1977 and 1978 and a public park ever since. On the surface you see lawns, avenues, the Casino Nobile, the Casina delle Civette, the park's obelisks. Of the catacombs, though, almost nothing shows on the surface: no ruins, no facade, no monument sign. The Jewish cemetery lies under the stables sector, and the Soprintendenza's access project reaches it from Via Spallanzani side.

The villa has a layered history that helps explain why nobody suspected anything. According to the Sovraintendenza capitolina the estate began as an agricultural property of the Pamphilj, passed at the end of the 18th century to the banker Giovanni Torlonia, was transformed by Giuseppe Valadier between 1802 and 1806 and enlarged by Alessandro Torlonia starting in 1832. For more than a century, casinos, greenhouses, stables and avenues were built above a subsoil that held galleries nearly two millennia older.

The tourist portal of Roma Capitale describes a hypogeum of about 110 by 120 meters, arranged on several levels. It is not a single catacomb but two complexes with independent origins, joined later by connecting galleries. The eastern part, the upper one, is divided into three regions. The western part, lower, into two. It is an organization by sectors common to the great underground cemeteries of Rome, Christian and Jewish.

Anyone entering the park today walks literally above the galleries, but has no way of noticing. The document of the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma describes work in three areas: arranging the entrance with pedestrian paths and wooden fencing, arranging the exit with a staircase faced in tuff, and recovering the old caretaker's lodge as a bookshop and ticket office, with accessible restrooms and a ramp. These are the signs of a site getting ready, not of an open site.

A curiosity about the Jewish Catacombs of Villa Torlonia

The inscriptions were not enough to date these tombs. A team from Utrecht University led by Leonard V. Rutgers radiocarbon-dated fragments of wood left embedded in the stucco that had sealed the burials. Wood is organic matter, and carbon 14 makes it possible to estimate when it was cut. The result, published in 2006 in the journal BABESCH, places the construction of the first parts between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD.

The consequence is more interesting than the technical datum. If the dating holds, the Jews of Rome were digging underground cemeteries before the city's Christians did the same, and so the idea that the catacomb is a Christian invention needs at least to be rethought. Not all sources follow this chronology, though: a 2024 article in the Italian Jewish press dates the complex to the 3rd century, a 2019 article in the international press places it between the 3rd and the 5th century. The sources do not agree, and the discussion remains open among specialists.

It is worth understanding the limits of the method too, which often get lost in summaries. Carbon 14 tells when the tree the wood came from died, not the day a tomb was sealed. If the wood was old or reused, the date comes out older than the real use. That is why scholars cross-check radiocarbon, style of the paintings, shape of the letters in the inscriptions and excavation technique. No single datum, by itself, settles the question.

One thing nobody tells you about the Jewish Catacombs of Villa Torlonia

The catacombs are closed for concrete reasons, not out of neglect. According to the available summaries, on top of the structural instability of some galleries there is the presence of dangerous gases in the subsoil, including radon, helium and carbon dioxide. Opening a hypogeum like this to the public means monitoring the air, consolidating the vaults, designing safe exit routes. The Soprintendenza's project, with a separate entrance and exit, should be read in this light too: two separate openings allow a one-way route and an extra escape route.

Then there is a detail that is rarely mentioned: not even the year of discovery is fixed with certainty. The tourist portal of Roma Capitale and a 2024 article in the Jewish press give the start of excavations as 1918, another source says 1919, the project sheet of the Soprintendenza Speciale writes that the complex was found in 1920. The most likely explanation is that these are different phases of the same find, which came to light by chance during work in the stables area and was then investigated in the following years.

There is another aspect that is little discussed: the human remains. According to a 2019 article in the international press, the conservation team spent about a year arranging the bones present in the galleries, and the Union of Italian Jewish Communities was consulted on questions of religious law. In Jewish tradition the respect owed to the dead does not expire with time, and a cemetery remains a cemetery even after almost 2,000 years. Any future opening will have to take this into account.

What the cemetery is like: galleries, arcosolia and paintings

The galleries are dug into tuff and hold thousands of burials: the most cited estimate speaks of 4,100 tombs, a 2019 article of about 3,800. The inscriptions counted are more than 100, and the Soprintendenza notes that they are in Greek, the everyday language of many Jews of imperial Rome. The simplest tombs are loculi cut into the walls, the more elaborate ones are arcosolia, niches topped by an arch, and cubicula, small chambers for a family.

The paintings are the reason archaeologists consider this site exceptional. In the cubicula appear the menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum of the Temple of Jerusalem, the shofar, the ram's horn blown on holidays, the etrog, the citron of the feast of Sukkot, and above all the aron, the cabinet that holds the Torah scrolls, depicted with particular care. Around them run plant motifs and geometric decorations, in a pictorial language that shares a lot with contemporary Roman funerary art.

This very mix makes the site valuable for understanding ancient Rome. The Jewish community lived inside the city, spoke Greek, used the techniques and craftsmen of its time, but chose its own unmistakable symbols for the tombs of its dead. Anyone who knows Christian catacombs like Priscilla or Domitilla would find here the same architectural forms with a completely different iconographic repertoire. It is a comparison that today can be made only in books and official images.

The difference shows above all in the subjects. In the published descriptions the repertoire concentrates on the objects of worship and the signs of the holidays, without the narrative cycles with figures and scenes found in many Christian catacombs. The tombs were sealed with slabs or with a layer of stucco, and only a small share carried an inscription: about 100 counted, out of thousands of burials. It is in that stucco that the wood fragments later used for dating were trapped.

The advice I give you for visiting the Jewish Catacombs of Villa Torlonia

The advice is simple: don't build a day around this visit, because as of September 29, 2026 there is no date on which to do it. Follow instead the channels of those with the standing to announce openings: the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma for the archaeological site, the Jewish Community of Rome and the Fondazione per i beni culturali ebraici in Italia for meetings and cultural initiatives, the call center 060608 for anything concerning the park. A real announcement goes through these channels.

In the meantime the history of ancient Jewish Rome can be met elsewhere. Among our pages you will find the Jewish catacombs of Vigna Randanini, the city's other underground Jewish cemetery, and the Jewish Museum of Rome under the Great Synagogue. Put the two visits together and you will have a richer picture than a quick descent under Villa Torlonia would give, even if it were possible tomorrow.

If an extraordinary opening comes one day, the conditions are set by whoever organizes it: number of people, duration, any restrictions on photographs. The common-sense rules of any underground space apply, that is closed shoes with a good sole, an extra layer even in summer, no bulky backpacks. And one rule of respect applies: it is a cemetery. Curiosity about the paintings must not make you forget that thousands of people of the Roman Jewish community were buried in the galleries.

If you go by Villa Torlonia anyway, choose the day carefully. On Monday the villa's museums are closed, so the park is the only thing you can visit, and the bunker requires a reservation made in advance. Check hours and availability at 060608 before setting out, especially on weekends. That way not getting down into the catacombs does not become a wasted day, and you will still have seen the sector of the park where the Soprintendenza's project places the future entrance.

Can you get in, and who decides on openings?

Today you cannot get in. The Villa Torlonia page of the Sovraintendenza capitolina, which manages the park for Roma Capitale, says the Jewish catacombs cannot be visited, and the city's tourist portal confirms that the site cannot be visited. The galleries are not part of the routes of the Musei di Villa Torlonia and do not appear in online ticketing. The archaeological subsoil is a state responsibility, while the park on the surface belongs to the city.

Watch the names, which confuse even Romans. The Sovraintendenza capitolina, with a v, is the office of Roma Capitale that manages villas, parks and municipal museums, Villa Torlonia included. The Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma, with a p, is the office of the Ministry of Culture that protects the city's state archaeological heritage. The catacombs fall under the second. Writing or calling the wrong office is the most common mistake of people looking for information on this site.

So there is no ticket to buy, and no organized tour that legally takes you inside on a regular basis, which is why you will find no sales links on this page. The official channel to keep an eye on is the website of the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma, which has published the project for arranging the access. For the park and the museums above the catacombs the authority is the page of the Sovraintendenza capitolina, together with the number 060608.

The Soprintendenza's project has an explicit title: external arrangement of the above-ground area, access from Via Spallanzani to the catacombs, restoration of the caretaker's lodge for use as a bookshop. The stated goal is to improve accessibility and usability of the site, making visitor access easier. The document does not give amounts, start and end dates of the works or an opening date, though. Until this information is published, any forecast on the opening is speculation.

If you have a study interest, as a researcher, a teacher or a cultural association, you will not find a published procedure for requesting access. The information is not published. The only authorized contact is the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma, through the contacts listed on its institutional website. Submit a reasoned request, with purpose, number of people and period, and be prepared for the answer to be no for safety reasons. No private intermediary can bypass this step.

A practical tip for the coming months: if you see a visit to the catacombs of Villa Torlonia announced on social media or on a travel site, look for the same announcement on the website of the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma or on the channels of the Jewish Community of Rome. If it is not there, treat it with suspicion. Openings of a site closed for safety are not improvised, and a real event always leaves a trace on the institutional channels of whoever is responsible for the place.

Recent history calls for caution. As early as March 2019 the international press reported that excavation and conservation had been completed, thanks also to private donors from abroad, and that the opening was waiting only for the bureaucratic process and more funds for the restoration. More than seven years have passed since. For June 5, 2024 the Jewish press announced a public meeting in the Sala Margana, promoted by Amicizia ebraico-cristiana di Roma, the Fondazione per i beni culturali ebraici in Italia and the Jewish Community of Rome, devoted to the excavations and their enhancement.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely cited

Almost everyone knows that Benito Mussolini lived at Villa Torlonia from 1925 to 1943, and the Sovraintendenza recalls that the air-raid shelters were built in those years. Less often is the other fact lined up with it: the villa of the head of government who in 1938 enacted the racial laws stood above a Jewish cemetery of the Roman era, already known for some years when he moved in. Il Post recalled it in 2023 when reporting on the law on the Shoah Museum.

There is also an economic detail reported by the international press: Mussolini reportedly paid the Torlonia a symbolic rent of one lira, a month according to some articles, a year according to other accounts. The sources do not agree, and the figure should be taken with the caution due to any datum reported by newspapers and not by a published contract. What is certain, and what the Sovraintendenza capitolina reports, is the length of his stay, from 1925 to 1943, and the construction of the air-raid shelters during the war.

Today the bunker and the shelters can be visited, with a guided tour and mandatory reservation since April 2024, while the catacombs remain closed. In our view the rush to the bunker is overrated: it makes the news, fills social media, but tells a story already told many times. The oldest and rarest piece of history at Villa Torlonia lies a few meters lower, and that is where attention and public pressure would be worth concentrating.

The right photo to take at the Jewish Catacombs of Villa Torlonia

The right photo, today, is not underground. The paintings of the cubicula are known through images released by the protection bodies and by scientific publications, and it is best to look for those, citing the source, instead of any stolen shot circulating online. In the park the most sensible shot is of the sector toward Via Spallanzani, where the Soprintendenza's project places the future entrance: a lawn under which archaeological research has been at work for more than a century.

The rules stay the usual ones: you photograph from the open areas of the park, without crossing fences, without entering work sites and without approaching hatches, grates or air vents. If you want an image that tells the contrast of the villa, line up the Casino Nobile, residence of the Torlonia and then of Mussolini, and the lawn above the Jewish cemetery. It is a photograph that shows nothing spectacular and says a lot, as long as you write the caption well.

Anyone who publishes images of the paintings taken from books or institutional sites should always give the author and the body that released them, and respect the terms of use. It is not pedantry: photos of closed spaces exist because someone had a permit, often for study reasons, and their circulation without a source feeds the wrong idea that those places are accessible. A correct caption says this too, that is, that the site cannot be visited today.

How do you get there from central Rome?

Villa Torlonia lies along Via Nomentana, the road that leaves the city at Porta Pia, in the Aurelian Walls, and heads northeast. From Porta Pia just follow the Nomentana outbound to reach the main entrance at Via Nomentana 70. The park has two other gates, on Via Siracusa and on Via Spallanzani, useful if you arrive from the neighborhood side and not from the consular road.

Via Nomentana is served by several Atac bus lines, but neither the Sovraintendenza capitolina nor the website of the Musei di Villa Torlonia publish numbers and stops: the right way to choose the line is Atac's route planner or the call center 060608. A practical note published by the Musei di Villa Torlonia concerns those thinking of arriving by bike: bicycles are not allowed inside the villa, so they have to be left outside the gates.

On accessibility the picture is only partly clear. The park's operator does not publish, in the pages consulted, a detailed accessible route. For the catacombs, the Soprintendenza's project provides a ramp and accessible restrooms in the building that will become a bookshop and ticket office, while it does not say how the descent into the galleries will be handled. The tourist portal of Roma Capitale refers to the Roma accessibile program and to 060608 for information on dedicated services.

Some important events that happened here in history

Between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, according to the radiocarbon study, the first galleries were dug. Use continues for centuries: some sources date the complex to the 3rd century, others give use up to the 5th. Then the cemetery was abandoned and forgotten. When between 1802 and 1806 Giuseppe Valadier transformed the estate for the banker Giovanni Torlonia, nobody knew what lay under the lawns.

Between 1918 and 1920, depending on the sources, work in the stables area opened the first breach. Excavations continued until 1930. In the meantime, from 1925, Mussolini lived in the villa, where he stayed until 1943 and had the air-raid shelters built. In 1973 and 1974 a new excavation campaign, led by Father Umberto M. Fasola, resumed the study of the galleries. Between 1977 and 1978 the City acquired the villa and opened it to the public as a park.

In 2006 the radiocarbon dating study came out. In 2019 the international press reported that the conservation work was finished and that the opening awaited the bureaucratic process. On October 18, 2023 Parliament definitively approved the law on the Shoah Museum to be built in the area of Villa Torlonia. For June 5, 2024 a public meeting on the excavations from 1918 to today was announced. In 2026 the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma made public the project for access from Via Spallanzani.

There is a date that does not concern the subsoil directly but weighs on the whole area. On October 16, 1943, a few months after Mussolini had left the villa, the roundup of the Ghetto took place in Rome, with the arrest and deportation of Roman Jews, entire families included. Parliament approved the law on the Shoah Museum a few days after the 80th anniversary of that date, as Il Post recalled. The ancient cemetery and the memory of the 20th century, here, touch.

Who has passed through the Jewish Catacombs of Villa Torlonia

First of all, the Jews of ancient Rome who buried their dead here for generations, writing on the slabs in Greek and painting on the walls the symbols of their faith. Their names survive in the inscriptions, and they are the true protagonists of the site. Then the workers and archaeologists of the excavations begun at the end of World War I, continued until 1930 while above their heads the villa changed inhabitants and function.

In the 1970s came Father Umberto M. Fasola, who directed the 1973 and 1974 excavation campaign. More recently the research team of Utrecht University led by Leonard V. Rutgers, author of the radiocarbon study. For conservation, the 2019 press names the Israeli restorer Amir Genach and his team, at work for about a year also on arranging the human remains, with the Soprintendenza represented by the archaeologist Daniela Rossi.

For June 2024 the Jewish press announced a public meeting on the site, with the archaeologist Elsa Laurenzi on the excavations, the art historian Micaela Vitale on the inscriptions and Claudio Procaccia, for the Jewish Community of Rome, on the enhancement of the heritage. And above the galleries, for 18 years, lived Mussolini with his family. No source consulted documents any visits of his to the subsoil, and for this reason we do not speak of it as a fact.

How old are they? Documents, hypotheses and common ideas

What the documents say: the Jewish complex under Villa Torlonia exists, has more than 13,000 square meters of galleries, is made up of two catacombs later joined, and holds paintings with Jewish symbols and inscriptions in Greek. The radiocarbon study published in 2006 places the first phases between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. Other sources indicate use between the 3rd and the 5th century. The two indications can coexist if the use was long.

What is hypothesized: that the model of the collective underground cemetery passed from the Jews to the Christians of Rome, or that the two communities developed similar solutions in the same geological setting and with the same workmen. It is a subject debated in the specialist literature, and the dating of Villa Torlonia is one of the arguments. Here honesty requires not choosing a thesis as if it were a fact, because the scholars themselves have not reached a shared conclusion.

What is a common idea, and a wrong one: that the catacombs were hideouts for the persecuted or places for secret meetings. It is an image born around the Christian catacombs and then extended to all of them, but the catacombs were cemeteries, often known and tolerated. The story of a secret cemetery under Mussolini's villa should also be taken with measure: the galleries had already been found when the dictator moved in, and there is no secret to reveal.

The Jewish catacombs on the map of underground Rome

Rome has dozens of underground cemeteries, almost all Christian, and many can be visited regularly. Among our pages you will find the general guide to the catacombs of Rome and the one on Underground Rome, with the open sites and the ways to visit. On the Appian Way and around are San Callisto, San Sebastiano and Pretestato, on Via Salaria Priscilla.

The Jewish catacombs are few and almost all hard to reach. To understand the funerary context of ancient Rome you also need the hypogea and columbaria: the Hypogeum of the Aurelii, the columbaria of Vigna Codini, the columbarium of Pomponius Hylas, the hypogeum of Via Dino Compagni. They are different places by era and community, but together they tell how Rome buried its dead.

If you want to widen your view, among our pages you also find the catacombs of Commodilla, the catacombs of Santa Tecla, the catacombs of Generosa and the mausoleum of Sant'Elena with the catacombs of Saints Marcellinus and Peter. For an underground of a completely different kind, tied to the cults of ancient Rome, there is the underground basilica of Porta Maggiore. Here too openings are often limited, and it is best to always check the visiting conditions before leaving.

On the same Via Nomentana, a few kilometers beyond the Walls, there is a second underground hub of great importance: the basilica of Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura with its catacombs, and next to it the mausoleum of Santa Costanza. Reading Villa Torlonia and Sant'Agnese together means seeing, on the same consular road, the two great religious funerary traditions of the ancient city, the Jewish and the Christian.

What does the Shoah Museum have to do with it?

The link is one of place, not of route. On October 18, 2023 the Chamber definitively approved the law establishing in Rome a museum dedicated to the extermination of the Jews of Europe, entrusted to the Fondazione Museo della Shoah, active since 2008. Il Post reports the state funding: €4 million in 2023, 3 in 2024, 3.05 in 2025, then €50,000 a year from 2026. The place indicated is the area of Villa Torlonia, in the Nomentano district.

The project has a long history. According to the international press the area was identified as early as 2005, and the idea of the museum had been proposed in 2007 without finding funds. In September 2021 a Roman broadcaster reported the start of the construction site next to Villa Torlonia, with two connected buildings, one of them conceived as a black box with the names of the deportees. The later events of the site should be followed on the official sources of Roma Capitale and of the Foundation.

According to the same 2021 report, the project included underground floors, administrative offices, a library, a study center, a cafeteria, open spaces, underground parking and a pedestrian route dedicated to the Righteous, the people who saved Jews during the persecution. The schedule at the time indicated about three years of work. These are project data reported by the press, not a progress report: anyone who wants to know where the museum stands today must look for recent, official communications.

As far as the official sources consulted show, no body has announced a joint visiting route between the future museum and the catacombs. They are two different projects, with different parties. Yet the proximity weighs: in the same stretch of the city live side by side the cemetery of the Jews of ancient Rome, the house of the dictator of the racial laws and the place chosen to remember the Shoah. For those who want a complete memory route, the page on the places of memory in Rome is the starting point.

A note on tone, for those visiting this part of the city with an interest in Jewish history. Places of memory call for different behavior from an ordinary attraction: low voices, no posed photos, attention to ceremonies and commemorations under way. The same goes for an ancient cemetery, even when you cannot see it. The park of Villa Torlonia remains a public garden, with children and dogs, and nobody asks for silence, but knowing what is underneath changes the way you look at it.

When is it closed and what not to expect?

The catacombs are always closed, in every season, until further notice. The park above them opens every day of the year except January 1 and December 25, with long hours from April to September and shorter from October to March. The Casino Nobile, the Casina delle Civette and the Casino dei Principi are open Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 to 19:00, with last entry at 18:00, and are closed on Monday, May 1 and December 25.

Don't expect a sign marking the entrance to the catacombs, a panel with the paintings or a grate to look in through. Don't expect the museum staff to be able to take you down either: the archaeological subsoil is not their responsibility. Anyone who arrives at Villa Torlonia convinced they will see the catacombs because they found them listed on some travel site is disappointed. Better to know beforehand and use the morning for the villa, the museums and the bunker, which is by reservation.

The bunker, reopened in April 2024, is visited with a guided route and a multimedia display on the years when the villa was Mussolini's residence, always with mandatory reservation. The website of the Musei di Villa Torlonia publishes rates and visit times for the bunker, period by period, with full price at €12 and reduced at €6 in the calendar from September to December 2026: before leaving it's best to check there or call 060608 for up-to-date availability and costs, especially on weekends and school holiday periods, when places run out sooner.

Also not to be underestimated are the closures of the Serra Moresca, which the Musei di Villa Torlonia keep closed in July and August and open with different hours between summer and winter, and of the Torre Moresca, closed on the first Sunday of the month. These are details that matter if you are organizing a visit to the villa with children or a group, and that the website of the Musei di Villa Torlonia updates with the seasonal changes.

Eating in the area

The Nomentano is a residential district, away from the densest tourist flows, and this protects against many traps of the center. A few rules apply anyway. Be wary of places with a laminated photo menu in four languages, of those with someone at the door inviting you in, of kitchens open nonstop from morning to late at night, of dishes with no written price. In Rome these are signs of a kitchen designed for people who pass through once and never come back.

The Romans of the neighborhood eat where the menu changes with the season, where the price is readable before you sit down and where the menu inside is the same as the one displayed outside. No snobbery: it is a matter of the ratio between what you pay and what arrives on the plate. If you want precise addresses, between the villa and the nearby areas, you will find the list of addresses on Google Maps kept by the editorial team and updated regularly.

A detail about hours helps avoid disappointment. Roman kitchens serve lunch more or less between 12:30 and 14:30 and dinner from 19:30 on, and outside these windows finding a real trattoria open is hard. If you plan the visit to the villa's museums in the morning, it's best to leave around lunchtime and return to the park in the afternoon, taking advantage of the long gate hours, instead of looking for a quick meal in mid-afternoon.

What to combine in a day

The most obvious choice is the villa itself. The Casino Nobile houses the villa's museum and works of the Scuola Romana, the Casina delle Civette a collection of artistic stained glass, the Casino dei Principi temporary exhibitions and the archive of the Scuola Romana. The bunker requires a reservation. Leaving from the west side of the district, the Coppedè district offers one of the most singular architectural walks of 20th-century Rome.

If you want an itinerary dedicated to Jewish Rome you can start in the morning from the Jewish Ghetto of Rome, with the Jewish Museum and the Synagogue, and arrive in the afternoon at Villa Torlonia for the park and the museums. Alternatively, to stay on the theme of underground Jewish cemeteries, it's best to find out about the visiting arrangements for the catacombs of Vigna Randanini, before putting anything else in the program.

Along the Nomentana, heading out, Sant'Agnese and Santa Costanza complete the picture of ancient burials. To the north, Villa Ada offers a large park for the afternoon. In the district you also find Villa Massimo, seat of the German Academy. And farther south, past the university city of Sapienza, you reach San Lorenzo fuori le Mura and the Verano.

For those building a route on the memory of the 20th century, the day can be completed with the Casa della Memoria e della Storia and, on another outing, with the Mausoleum of the Fosse Ardeatine. These are visits that call for time and reflection, and should not be squeezed into an already full day. If instead you are looking for other free places in the city, you will find ideas on the page about Free Rome, Villa Torlonia park included.

Walking back toward the center along the Nomentana you reach Porta Pia, Michelangelo's gate in the Aurelian Walls tied to the capture of Rome on September 20, 1870, one of the best-known openings of the circuit built in the 3rd century and today one of the neighborhood's landmarks. It is a way to close the day by moving from ancient Rome under Villa Torlonia to Rome the capital of Italy, with a walk that needs no transport and takes little time.

Frequently asked questions

Can you visit the Jewish Catacombs of Villa Torlonia?

No. As of the check on September 29, 2026 the Sovraintendenza capitolina states that the Jewish catacombs cannot be visited, and the tourist portal of Roma Capitale confirms that the site is not open. There are no tickets on sale and no ordinary visits. The Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma has published a project for access from Via Spallanzani and a bookshop and ticket office building, but with no opening date. For updates it's best to follow the official channels of the Soprintendenza and 060608.

Where exactly are they?

Under the park of Villa Torlonia, at Via Nomentana 70, 00161 Rome, in the Nomentano district. The cemetery lies under the area of the villa's old stables, and the Soprintendenza's project places the future access on Via Spallanzani side. On the surface there are no visible remains and no dedicated signage. The park is accessible from the entrances on Via Nomentana, Via Siracusa and Via Spallanzani at the hours published by the Sovraintendenza capitolina.

When were they discovered?

The sources do not agree on the year. The tourist portal of Roma Capitale and a 2024 article give the start of excavations as 1918, other sources speak of 1919, the project sheet of the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma writes 1920. All of them link the find to work in the villa's stables area. Excavations continued until 1930 and resumed in 1973 and 1974 with a campaign directed by Father Umberto M. Fasola.

Why are they closed to the public?

The available summaries point to the instability of some galleries and the presence in the subsoil of dangerous gases, such as radon, helium and carbon dioxide. An opening therefore requires consolidation, air monitoring and a route with separate entrance and exit, which is exactly what the Soprintendenza's project provides. On top of this come administrative timelines: as early as 2019 the press reported conservation work completed and an opening awaiting the bureaucratic process and more funds.

What do the paintings represent?

In the frescoed cubicula appear symbols of Jewish tradition: the menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum, the shofar, the ram's horn, the etrog, the citron of the feast of Sukkot, and the aron, the cabinet that holds the Torah scrolls. Around them are plant motifs and geometric decorations. The inscriptions, more than 100, are in Greek, the everyday language of many Jews of imperial Rome. Official images remain the only way to see them today.

Is there a connection with Mussolini's bunker?

No official source consulted indicates a physical connection between the villa's air-raid shelters and the Jewish galleries. They are two subsoils of different eras and responsibilities: the bunker is visited by mandatory reservation on the routes of the Musei di Villa Torlonia, the catacombs remain closed. The link is historical: Mussolini lived in the villa from 1925 to 1943, when the Jewish cemetery had already been discovered under the stables area.

Are there other Jewish catacombs you can visit in Rome?

The Jewish cemetery of Vigna Randanini is the city's other known underground Jewish complex, and has a dedicated page on the site with information on access. Visiting conditions should always be checked before leaving, because there too it is not a museum with continuous hours. For the Jewish history of Rome in a more accessible form, the Jewish Museum of Rome, under the Tempio Maggiore, remains the reference stop, with hours and tickets published.

Who runs the catacombs and who runs the park?

The park of Villa Torlonia and its museums belong to Roma Capitale and come under the Sovraintendenza capitolina, with information at the call center 060608. The underground archaeological site is a state responsibility: the project for arranging the access from Via Spallanzani and the building intended for the bookshop and ticket office was published by the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma. For any request about the catacombs the contact is therefore the Soprintendenza, not the staff of the villa's museums.

Will the Shoah Museum be built above the catacombs?

The law approved on October 18, 2023 names the area of Villa Torlonia as the seat of the Shoah Museum, entrusted to the Fondazione Museo della Shoah, and in 2021 the Roman press reported the start of the construction site next to the villa on the Nomentana. The official sources consulted do not link the museum to the catacombs and do not provide for a joint visiting route. They are two distinct projects, with distinct parties, that share the same stretch of the city.

Who wrote this and on what sources

The text comes from the editorial team of Tour Leader Pro, the Rome-based outfit that designs itineraries, visits and cultural events between Rome and Lazio. Rates, hours and reservation methods reported here come from the official sources cited in the text as of the date given at the start: the closure status of the catacombs, the hours of the park and the museums, the access project of the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma. Tell us what you find changed.

Organizing a day on Jewish Rome, for yourself or for a group, means fitting together places with very different rules: museums with ticket offices, synagogues with hours tied to the religious calendar, archaeological sites closed or open only on extraordinary occasions. For people organizing group trips, a useful resource for setting up visits and reservations sensibly is Tour Leader Pro, with materials designed for those who organize trips and reservations.

Villa Torlonia is a convenient stop also for those staying in Rome several days who want to alternate the historic center, 20th-century neighborhoods and less-traveled archaeological sites. Lining up the Nomentana, the Coppedè, Sant'Agnese and maybe an outing toward the Castelli or the Sabina takes a little planning of transport and hours. For a broader picture of the trip, a useful resource for building a multi-day itinerary is Italy Planner.