Rione Monti: What to See in the Neighborhood Between the Colosseum and Santa Maria Maggiore

Rione Monti is Rome's rione I, the first on the official list and the largest of the 22: it takes up the strip of the city between the Colosseum and Santa Maria Maggiore, and includes portions of three of the seven hills, the Esquiline, the Viminal and part of the Quirinal. It's a rione that visitors almost always cross without noticing, because the big 19th and 20th century arteries (Via Cavour, Via Nazionale, Via dei Fori Imperiali) cut it in two and because mass tourism stops at the two monumental poles at its ends. Yet all it takes is stepping off the main routes to find yourself in a network of lanes, stairways, workshops and churches that preserve mosaics from the fifth and ninth centuries, intact medieval towers, Michelangelo's Moses, the large buried pavilion of Nero's house and the remains of the most imposing Trajanic complex in the city. In the pages that follow you'll find what to see in Monti, place by place, with the history that explains why those things are there, warnings about what is closed or can be visited only by reservation, and three itineraries to fit the stops together without wasting time.

What Rione Monti is and why it's called that

Monti is Rome's rione I and takes its name from the hills it occupies: the Esquiline, the Viminal and part of the Quirinal, which in the Middle Ages were referred to collectively as montes. It's the largest of the historic rioni and also the one that, proportionally, went through the most violent urban transformations between the 19th and 20th centuries. Anyone looking for the Rione Monti of the history books has to imagine it before those transformations: a stretch of vegetable gardens, vineyards, farmhouses and ruins that covered almost a third of the walled city and had very few inhabitants, all concentrated in the lower part, toward the Forums.

The name and the three hills

In medieval usage the term monti did not mean mountains but the semi-abandoned heights inside the Aurelian Walls, the ones that the cutting of the ancient aqueducts had made uninhabitable. With no running water at that elevation, the Roman population of the Middle Ages had withdrawn into the bend of the Tiber, where supply was possible, and the hills had become urban countryside. The rione keeps that condition in its name: it was the zone of the montes, that is the high, empty part of the city, as opposed to the low, full part. Repopulation came only with the restoration of the aqueducts in the modern age and then, on a massive scale, with the building boom of the capital after 1870.

From the Subura to the rione: 2,000 years of history in one neighborhood

The lower part of Rione Monti, the one backed up against the Imperial Forums, corresponds to the Subura, the most densely inhabited and most disreputable working-class neighborhood of ancient Rome. The name has lasted 2,000 years and in everyday Italian it still means a place of crime, a setting for wrongdoing and immorality: few Roman place names have had a comparable lexical fortune. Today Via della Suburra is a short, quiet street a few steps from Via Cavour, and the only way to understand what that neighborhood really was is to look at the wall that separated it from the Forums. The rione you see today is, moreover, the product of three great modern demolitions: Via Nazionale and Via Cavour, opened after 1870 to connect Termini station to the center, and Via dei Fori Imperiali, laid out between 1924 and 1936 over the Alessandrino neighborhood.

The ancient Subura: where it was and what it was like

The Subura stretched over the slopes of the Quirinal, the Viminal and the Esquiline, in the depression between the hills, and housed Rome's poor population in badly built multistory tenements, at very high density, with a permanent fire risk. Ancient sources describe it as a zone of taverns, brothels and trade of every kind. It was not a ghetto, though: Julius Caesar lived there in a family house until 63 BC, when his election as pontifex maximus led him to move to the public domus in the Forum, and the poet Martial mentions it as a place of residence. In ancient Rome rich and poor lived much more mixed together than you might imagine, and the upper part of the rione, along the vicus Patricius (largely the present Via Urbana), housed aristocratic residences.

San Pietro in Vincoli and Michelangelo's Moses

The Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli holds Michelangelo's Moses, about 2.35 meters tall, inside the funeral monument of Pope Julius II, and you reach it from the Colosseum in under 10 minutes on foot going up Salita dei Borgia or Via delle Sette Sale. It's the obligatory stop of any visit to Monti, and also the one most often dismissed in five minutes: it's worth staying longer, because the church tells at least three different stories layered on top of each other.

Saint Peter's chains

The basilica was founded in 432 at the wish of Licinia Eudoxia, daughter of the Eastern emperor Theodosius II and wife of Valentinian III, over an earlier Christian place of worship known as the titulus apostolorum, in the area of the Baths of Titus on the Esquiline. The dedication to the vincula, that is the chains, comes from the relic the church still keeps today under the high altar, in a bronze case. Tradition says that the chains with which Peter had been bound in Jerusalem were given to Eudoxia by Patriarch Juvenal, and that once brought to Rome they miraculously fused with those of his Roman imprisonment, kept at the Mamertine Prison. The fusing is of course a devotional tale and not a historical fact, but it explains the name of the basilica and the physical link between two places that are both in the rione.

The Moses and the tomb that was never built

The funeral monument of Julius II is Michelangelo's great professional failure and at the same time one of the masterpieces of European sculpture. The pope commissioned it in 1505, imagining a colossal multilevel mausoleum, dozens of statues, originally placed in Saint Peter's in the Vatican. The project was scaled down six times in 40 years, amid the patron's second thoughts, the pope's death in 1513, disputes with the heirs and other commissions that absorbed the sculptor. What you see today, completed in 1545, is an architectural wall with seven sculptures of which only some are entirely by Michelangelo's hand. The Moses is the only figure of the original project that has kept its force intact: it was meant to stand high up, seen from below and at an angle, and its present position a short distance from the viewer alters the intended proportions.

How to visit San Pietro in Vincoli

The church is a place of worship and admission is free, with the midday closure typical of Roman basilicas and visits suspended during services: exact hours vary over the year and are worth checking before you set out, because not all online sources give the same ones. Appropriate dress is required, with shoulders and knees covered. A coin-operated device lights the funeral monument: without artificial light, in the middle hours of an overcast day, the Moses is very hard to see. The complex also houses the Engineering faculty of the Sapienza, and the Renaissance cloister attributed to the circle of Giuliano da Sangallo is open only on special occasions.

Santa Maria Maggiore, the early Christian basilica that stayed intact

Santa Maria Maggiore is the only one of the four papal basilicas to have kept its original early Christian layout, built by Pope Sixtus III between 432 and 440 after the Council of Ephesus of 431, and its Romanesque bell tower, 75 meters high, is the tallest in Rome. It stands at the eastern end of Rione Monti, on the highest point of the Esquiline, and visually closes the axis of Via Cavour.

The fifth-century mosaics

The most important thing in the basilica isn't the Baroque decoration that strikes you at the entrance, but the fifth-century mosaic cycle that runs above the columns of the nave and on the triumphal arch. The nave panels tell stories from the Old Testament, those on the arch the childhood of Christ, and dating them to the time of Sixtus III makes them one of the oldest testimonies of monumental Christian iconography in Rome. They are small and high up, and without binoculars they are almost entirely lost: bringing a pair changes the visit completely. The apse mosaic is much later, the work of Iacopo Torriti at the end of the 13th century, with the coronation of the Virgin.

The burials: Bernini and Pope Francis

Gian Lorenzo Bernini is buried in the basilica, in the family tomb marked by a plain slab to the right of the high altar: the contrast between the modesty of the slab and the grandiloquence of the sculptor's Roman works is one of the details visitors remember most. Seven popes also rest there, among them Sixtus V, Clement VIII and Paul V. In April 2025 the basilica also received the tomb of Pope Francis, who had asked to be buried here, next to the Pauline Chapel, and not in the Vatican: the presence of the tomb has noticeably increased the flow of visitors and, on peak days, lengthens the entry times.

Santa Prassede and the Chapel of San Zenone

The Basilica of Santa Prassede holds the Chapel of San Zenone, one of the very rare Roman rooms of the ninth century entirely covered in Byzantine-style mosaics, and it stands less than 200 meters from Santa Maria Maggiore, on a side street almost nobody turns into. In terms of quality against crowds, it's the best-value visit in the whole rione.

The mosaics of the apse and the arch

The mosaic cycle covers the apse semi-dome, the apse arch and the triumphal arch, and can be dated to the same campaign of Paschal I. In the semi-dome Christ is flanked by the saints, and among the figures appears the pontiff himself with a square halo, the conventional sign that a person was still alive when the work was made: it's one of the quickest ways to date a Roman mosaic. The iconographic scheme openly takes up that of the great early Christian cycles of the fourth and fifth centuries, in a conscious recovery of the ancient that is typical of the so-called Carolingian renaissance in Rome.

The Chapel of San Zenone

The chapel, opening off the right aisle, was commissioned by Paschal I as a tomb for his mother Theodora, who appears in the mosaics with the square halo of the living. It's a square room a few meters on each side, entirely lined with gold tesserae: vault, lunettes, walls, entrance arch. The incoming light brings it to life differently depending on the hour, and anyone who enters from the dimly lit nave has the same reaction medieval Romans must have had, so much so that they called it the garden of paradise. Here too there is a coin-operated device for the lighting, and without it half the mosaics stay invisible.

Santa Pudenziana and the oldest mosaic in the rione

The Basilica of Santa Pudenziana, on Via Urbana, holds an apse mosaic datable to around 390 that shows Christ enthroned among the apostles, and it is one of the oldest monumental depictions of Christ as teacher in Christian art. You recognize it by the fact that the entrance is several meters below the current street level, at the foot of a stairway: the house of the senator Pudens lies about nine meters below the level of the church. Today Santa Pudenziana is the national church of the Filipino community, and admission is free during the hours it is open for worship.

The apse mosaic and its troubled history

The mosaic shows Christ seated on a throne with an open book bearing the inscription Dominus conservator ecclesiae Pudentianae, surrounded by the apostles (10 remain today) and by two allegorical female figures, with the jeweled cross and the four living creatures of the Apocalypse against the background of an architectural landscape that alludes to the heavenly Jerusalem. The composition derives from imperial iconography: Christ is depicted as an emperor presiding over the assembly, and this shift, which took place within a few decades after the end of the persecutions, is one of the most important visual facts of late antiquity. The mosaic has undergone heavy remakings and mutilations over the centuries, in particular with the works of the late 16th century that cut its edges: what you see isn't intact and has to be read with that warning.

San Martino ai Monti: one basilica, two names

The Basilica of Santi Silvestro e Martino ai Monti is one church, not two: the official name cites both patron saints, while common Roman usage has shortened it to San Martino ai Monti. Anyone looking for the two churches separately won't find them, because it's the same building, entrusted for centuries to the Carmelites, in Piazza San Martino ai Monti. Inside, the left aisle keeps the landscapes of Gaspard Dughet, painted between 1635 and 1640, and the two paintings by Filippo Gagliardi that document the interior of St. John Lateran before Borromini and that of the Vatican basilica in the 17th century.

The Domus Aurea and the Colle Oppio park

The Domus Aurea can be visited only by reservation and only on some days of the week: the official site of the Colosseum Archaeological Park lists booking of the visit on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It isn't a monument you find open as you pass by: anyone who arrives on the Colle Oppio without having booked finds the gate closed. Prices and availability should be checked on the official channel, because they vary and because the visits have limited places. The monument also coexists with a permanent work site waterproofing the vaults, started after collapses caused by seepage, among them a significant one in 2010: the visit route changes over time.

What it is, and what you see of it

The Domus Aurea was the palace Nero had built after the great fire of 64, designed by the architects Severus and Celer, occupying a vast area straddling the Palatine, the Esquiline and the Caelian, with an artificial lake in the valley where the Colosseum was later built. Estimates of its overall extent vary enormously among scholars, from a few dozen to over 200 hectares, and have to be taken for what they are: reconstructive hypotheses about a complex that was never finished, because Nero died in 68 with the works under way. What you visit today is only the Esquiline pavilion, on the Colle Oppio, a block of about 300 meters by 190 that housed a residential and representative section.

Why it survived: the damnatio and the Baths of Trajan

The paradox of the Domus Aurea is that it was saved precisely because it was condemned. After Nero's death and the damnatio memoriae, the Flavians gave back to the city the areas he had occupied: Vespasian drained the lake to build the amphitheater there, and Trajan had the rooms of the Esquiline pavilion filled with earth and debris so he could build his monumental baths over them, inaugurated in 109. The fill sealed the rooms, protected the painted plaster from damp and light and handed it down intact to the Renaissance. Without that fill, nothing of the Neronian frescoes would be left.

The grotesques: how a buried palace changed European art

In the 15th century the accidental fall of a young Roman into a cavity of the Colle Oppio led to the discovery of the frescoed rooms. Artists such as Raphael, Pinturicchio, Giovanni da Udine and others had themselves lowered into the grotte to copy the decorations, leaving their own signatures on the walls, still legible. From those copies came the ornamental repertoire still called grottesche, with hybrid figures, candelabra, scrolls and false pergolas, which spread from the Vatican Loggias across all of Europe in the 16th century. It's one of the rare occasions on which you can point to the exact material spot where a continental artistic language was born.

The visit: what to really expect

The visit takes place in a group, with a guide, inside underground rooms where the temperature stays low and constant even in August and the humidity is high: you need a sweatshirt even in midsummer, and closed shoes. The Colosseum Archaeological Park has added to the archaeological route an experience with immersive reconstructions that shows how the rooms must have looked with their original coverings. Anyone who suffers from claustrophobia or has mobility difficulties should think carefully: the corridors are narrow and the floors uneven. The Domus Aurea ticket is separate from that of the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine: they are separate routes of the same archaeological park.

The Colle Oppio park

Above the Domus Aurea stretches the Colle Oppio park, laid out in the 1930s, which is both a neighborhood garden and an open-air archaeological area: the great walls of the Baths of Trajan emerge there, the exedras, the remains of the Sette Sale, the enormous cistern that fed the baths complex. It's also the spot from which you get one of the best views of the Colosseum, especially at sunset, when the light comes in low from the side of the Forums. In summer the park hosts events and evening gatherings, like the evenings of The Sanctuary Eco Retreat at Colle Oppio, which turn the garden into a space for musical programming. Nearby, at the foot of the hill, is also the Ludus Magnus, the gladiators' barracks linked to the amphitheater by an underground passage.

Trajan's Markets, the Forums and the archaeological front

Trajan's Markets have housed the Museum of the Imperial Forums since 2007 and are the only Roman monumental complex where you walk inside the ancient rooms on several levels, from the level of the Forums up to the top of the hill. They stand on Via Quattro Novembre, on the side of Monti that faces Trajan's Forum.

They weren't markets

The name is a modern convention that created a misunderstanding hard to kill. The brick stamps place the construction largely under Trajan, at the start of the second century, with a probable attribution to Apollodorus of Damascus and perhaps the start of the excavation work already in the Domitianic age. But the complex wasn't a shopping center: it was a multifunctional structure, probably tied to the administration of the Imperial Forums, and the tabernae, that is the vaulted rooms opening onto the corridors that look so much like shops, are a standard architectural element of Roman building, not proof of a commercial function. Its main technical purpose was to contain the cut into the flank of the Quirinal made necessary by the construction of Trajan's Forum.

The leaning tower of Rome

Above the complex rises the Torre delle Milizie, a 13th century tower built by making use of the ancient structures, known as the leaning tower of Rome for its visible tilt, a consequence of ground settling and of a 14th century earthquake. Together with the Torre dei Conti and the Torre dei Capocci it forms the trio of medieval towers that define the historic skyline of the rione. You can see it very well from the Forums walkway and from the Vittoriano, and its tilted profile is one of the landmarks that help you get your bearings in this part of the city.

Around it: the front of the Forums

On the Monti side, the walk along Via dei Fori Imperiali links in a few minutes the Colosseum, the Arch of Constantine, the Roman Forum and the Capitoline Hill with the Palazzo dei Conservatori. On the opposite side of Piazza Venezia, a few steps away, you can visit the Domus Romane di Palazzo Valentini, while the Mamertine Prison opens at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, on the border between Monti and Campitelli. Anyone with time can add the National Museum of Palazzo Venezia or the Brasini Wing of the Vittoriano Complex, both within walking distance.

The towers of Monti: Capocci, Graziani and the Torre dei Conti

Rione Monti keeps two of the most imposing medieval noble towers in Rome, the Torre dei Capocci in Piazza San Martino ai Monti and the Torre dei Conti in Largo Corrado Ricci, as well as the nearby Torre dei Graziani. They are what remains of a forest of towers that in the 13th century numbered hundreds in Rome, almost all of them pulled down or lopped in the following centuries.

Torre dei Capocci and Torre dei Graziani

The Torre dei Capocci rises in Piazza di San Martino ai Monti, on the Esquiline, with a square plan, seven floors and an overall height of 36 meters, crowned by a crenellated terrace. It was built in the medieval age by the Arcioni family and then passed to the Capocci, of Viterbo origin, who adapted it as a fortified citadel by adding outer living quarters, demolished in the 19th century restorations. Next to it stands the lower Torre dei Graziani: the pair of towers side by side, with the basilica behind them, is one of the most photographed views in the rione. The towers can't be visited inside and are seen from the square.

The Torre dei Conti and the collapse of November 3, 2025

The Torre dei Conti, built at the start of the 13th century by the Conti di Segni family over ancient structures and already lopped in past centuries after earthquakes, suffered a partial collapse on November 3, 2025, during a renovation work site. Over a period of about 90 minutes two separate failures occurred, with serious damage to the internal structure. A Romanian worker who remained under the rubble lost his life and another worker was injured. After the event the tower, about 29 meters high today, shows visible structural damage and is closed to the public, with temporary works, scaffolding and reinforcements installed to make it safe.

What to expect in Largo Corrado Ricci

In the months after the collapse the area around the tower was closed off, with heavy consequences for traffic between Via Cavour and Via dei Fori Imperiali, and the situation of roads and fences changed several times during 2026, with gradual partial reopenings of Largo Corrado Ricci while a safety perimeter was kept right around the monument. The information available doesn't allow me to describe the exact layout at this moment with certainty: anyone planning to pass that way should check the notices of the Sovrintendenza Capitolina and of the Polizia Locale before setting out, and allow for pedestrian detours. In any case the tower can't be visited, and is seen only from outside and from a distance.

Squares and streets: the pedestrian heart of Monti

The pedestrian core of Rione Monti tightens around Piazza della Madonna dei Monti, and from there branches off into Via Urbana, Via dei Serpenti, Via del Boschetto, Via Leonina and Via Panisperna: it's an area you cross on foot in a quarter of an hour and that takes at least an afternoon if you really want to look at it. The rione is uphill, and the vertical links (first of all Salita dei Borgia, which climbs from Via Cavour toward San Pietro in Vincoli passing under an arch) are part of the identity of the place: anyone who has trouble walking must bear this in mind, because between the level of the Forums and that of Santa Maria Maggiore there are several dozen meters of difference in elevation.

Piazza della Madonna dei Monti

The square is the rione's living room, with a fountain in the middle and the church of Santa Maria ai Monti, called precisely Madonna dei Monti, on the long side. The church was built at the end of the 16th century to a design by Giacomo della Porta, at the wish of Gregory XIII, as a sanctuary meant to house a miraculous image of the Virgin with Child: a fresco found in April 1579 in a wall, around which an intense popular devotion immediately grew. In the left transept is buried Benedict Joseph Labre, the French pilgrim who died near the church in 1783 and was later canonized, who has remained the reference saint of that corner of Rome. The fountain in the middle of the square, of late 16th century design, is traditionally ascribed to the circle of Giacomo della Porta, although the attribution isn't unanimous in the sources.

Via Urbana and the vicus Patricius

Via Urbana largely follows the course of the vicus Patricius, one of the main streets of ancient Rome in this area, the one along which were lined the aristocratic residences that gave the street its name. Today it's a narrow street, on a slight rise, with workshops and venues, and Santa Pudenziana faces onto it. It's the best way to understand how the Roman street layout survives under the modern city: the street isn't ancient in its materials, but it is in its course, and the fact that it isn't as straight as the nearby 19th century arteries is precisely the sign of its origin.

Via del Boschetto and Via dei Serpenti

Via del Boschetto and Via dei Serpenti are the two streets Romans associate immediately with the rione: the first is the street of craft workshops, independent clothing shops and bookstores, the second is the axis that runs down from Via Nazionale toward Via Cavour crossing the whole neighborhood. The name Boschetto recalls the gardens that occupied the area before 19th century urbanization. The name Serpenti derives, according to the most widespread explanation, from an image with snakes that decorated a house in the area, but here too the origin is traditional and not documented with certainty. They are best walked in the late afternoon, when the shops are open and vehicle traffic is at a minimum.

Via Leonina and the Monti market

Via Leonina links Piazza della Madonna dei Monti to Via Cavour and is the street where, between 2009 and 2022, the Mercato Monti was held, an urban market of vintage, crafts and design in an indoor space along the street. Since September 2022 the market's official channels no longer announce editions: before coming specifically for it, write to the organizers. Anyone looking instead for a real food market, with the stalls of the communities who live in the area, will find the Nuovo Mercato Esquilino a short distance away, which is a completely different experience and just as instructive.

Via Panisperna and the boys of Via Panisperna

The group of the boys of Via Panisperna worked in the 1930s at the Royal Institute of Physics of the University of Rome, which until 1935 was based at number 90 Via Panisperna, in Rione Monti, and its main discovery in 1934 was the property of slow neutrons. It's the most important scientific episode ever to take place within the boundaries of the rione, and it left very few visible traces on the spot. The group broke up in 1938, when the Fascist racial laws and the approach of war pushed Fermi, Segrè, Rasetti and Pontecorvo to leave Italy, while Majorana had disappeared the same year in circumstances never cleared up.

Who they were

The group formed around Enrico Fermi, who in 1926 had obtained the first Italian chair of theoretical physics, and consolidated from 1929. Its members were Edoardo Amaldi, Franco Rasetti, Emilio Segrè, Bruno Pontecorvo, the chemist Oscar D’Agostino and Ettore Majorana, with the decisive role of Orso Mario Corbino in obtaining premises, funds and institutional protection for the group. It was a very young group, with internal nicknames and a very informal organization of work, and in a few years it brought Italian physics to the level of the best European centers, starting from a condition of almost total marginality.

Slow neutrons

The 1934 discovery concerns the effect of hydrogenous substances, in particular water and paraffin, in slowing neutrons and enormously increasing their effectiveness in producing artificial radioactivity in the targets they hit. It's the principle on which the moderator of a nuclear reactor is based, and it earned Fermi the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938, four years later. The goldfish pond in the institute's garden, used as a water screen in some of the decisive experiments, has entered the canonical account of the story as an almost legendary detail, and in fact it is part of the protagonists' memoirs.

What you see today on Via Panisperna

Of the Royal Institute of Physics the buildings remain in the area of Via Panisperna, which do not constitute a museum open on a regular basis with fixed hours: access depends on exhibitions, conferences and extraordinary openings, while on the spot there are commemorative plaques. The simplest way to visit the street remains walking it, from the upper part toward Santa Maria Maggiore, bearing in mind that a fundamental physics discovery was made in a neighborhood building, with homemade equipment and without funding comparable to that of competing laboratories.

Via Nazionale and the Palazzo delle Esposizioni

The Palazzo delle Esposizioni was designed by Pio Piacentini and inaugurated on January 21, 1883 on Via Nazionale, and since 1998 it has been run by the Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, owned by Roma Capitale. It's the main exhibition space of the rione and one of the largest multipurpose cultural centers in the center of Rome, on a street opened after 1870 to give the new capital a representative axis between Termini and the historic center.

The palace: what's inside

The building, of neoclassical layout, was conceived as an open space converging toward the center, with iron and glass roofs that connected the interior with the gardens toward the Quirinal. Today it houses more than 3,000 square meters of exhibition space on several levels, a 136-seat movie theater, an 88-seat auditorium, a multipurpose forum, a bookstore, a cafe and a restaurant. Its recent history is one of long closures for restoration: between 1981 and 1989 with the intervention of Costantino Dardi, and then between 2003 and 2007 for the structural and systems overhaul, which also rebuilt the original glass greenhouse.

Programming, hours and tickets

The Palazzo delle Esposizioni runs on a calendar of temporary exhibitions that changes several times a year, alongside film series, talks and activities for schools. It has no permanent collection: what you see depends entirely on what's on, and this means that hours, prices and closing days vary from exhibition to exhibition. Before going, check the program on the institution's website. The same goes for the Scuderie del Quirinale, the other exhibition venue run by the same special agency, which is a few minutes on foot going up toward the hill.

Around Via Nazionale

Behind Via Nazionale, going up toward the Quirinal, in a few minutes you come to the Quirinal Palace with the obelisk in the square, Bernini's church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale and Borromini's San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, one next to the other like an open-air manual of Baroque architecture, as well as San Silvestro al Quirinale. Continuing toward Piazza Barberini you reach Palazzo Barberini, home of the National Gallery of Ancient Art, and the Barberini Mithraeum. Toward Termini, instead, you meet the Baths of Diocletian with the Octagonal Hall and Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, which holds the frescoes of the Villa of Livia. Also within a walk are the National Museum of Musical Instruments, the National Central Library and the historic theaters of the area, from the Teatro Brancaccio with the adjoining Palazzo Brancaccio to the Teatro Ambra Jovinelli and the Teatro Quirino.

Three itineraries for visiting Monti

You can walk across Monti from one end to the other in about half an hour, but the stops worth making are many and spread over two different levels: it's best to choose a route and follow it, instead of zigzagging among the climbs.

Half a day: the best in three hours

You start at the Colosseum, go up Salita dei Borgia to San Pietro in Vincoli for the Moses, continue along Via delle Sette Sale and come down to Piazza della Madonna dei Monti, then Via Urbana to Santa Pudenziana and from there to Santa Maria Maggiore. Three hours is enough if you don't go inside everything: allow 40 minutes for San Pietro in Vincoli and the same for Santa Maria Maggiore, the rest is walking and short stops. Anyone who wants to add Santa Prassede, which is 200 meters from Santa Maria Maggiore, should allow 20 minutes more, and it's one of the most worthwhile additions possible.

Full day: archaeology and mosaics

The full day starts at Trajan's Markets and the Museum of the Imperial Forums just after opening, continues along the front of the Forums to the Colosseum, goes up to the Colle Oppio for the Domus Aurea in the early afternoon (only if booked, and only on the days when visits take place), comes down to San Pietro in Vincoli and ends with the quartet of Santa Pudenziana, San Martino ai Monti, Santa Prassede and Santa Maria Maggiore. It's a dense program: if the Domus Aurea can't be booked on the chosen day, the time freed up is well used by adding the Basilica of San Clemente and the Santi Quattro Coronati, just outside the rione toward the Caelian.

What to see just outside the rione

Monti borders some of the densest archaeological and monumental zones in Rome, and widening the radius a little multiplies the possibilities. Toward the Caelian are Santo Stefano Rotondo, the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the Roman Houses of the Caelian. Toward the Lateran are the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, the Holy Stairs, the Lateran obelisk and Holy Cross in Jerusalem. Toward the Esquiline are the Auditorium of Maecenas, the Esquiline obelisk, the Porta Alchemica in Piazza Vittorio and the underground basilica of Porta Maggiore. Toward the center are the Crypta Balbi, the Circus Maximus and the Trevi Fountain.

Practical tips for visiting Rione Monti

Rione Monti is served by three subway stops (Cavour and Colosseo on Line B, Termini as the interchange hub) and is visited entirely on foot: none of the stops described is more than 20 minutes' walk from any of the others, and a car is useless because almost the whole historic core is a limited traffic zone.

How to get there and get around

The most convenient stop for the pedestrian heart is Cavour, on Line B, which comes out halfway along Via Cavour a couple of steps from Salita dei Borgia. For the Forums and Trajan's Markets the stop is Colosseo, again on Line B, or the buses that run along Via dei Fori Imperiali and Piazza Venezia. For Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Prassede the reference is Termini, seven or eight minutes on foot, or the surface lines that pass along Via Cavour and Via Merulana. For Via Nazionale and the Palazzo delle Esposizioni you use the buses that run along the street, or you arrive on foot from Repubblica or from Termini in about 10 minutes.

Accessibility

The rione has significant changes in elevation and sampietrini cobblestone paving, which make getting around by wheelchair or stroller tiring. The major basilicas have accessible entrances or ramps, but some minor churches have steps at the entrance and the underground routes are generally not accessible. The Domus Aurea in particular involves an underground route with uneven floors and narrow rooms, and anyone with mobility limitations should inquire in advance with the Colosseum Archaeological Park about the actual condition of the route at that time. For anyone who has difficulty getting around, the least demanding itinerary is the one that stays on the high level, among Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Prassede and San Martino ai Monti, avoiding the climbs from the Forums valley.

Frequently asked questions about Rione Monti

What is there to see in Rione Monti in one day?

In one day in Rione Monti you can see San Pietro in Vincoli with Michelangelo's Moses, Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Prassede with the Chapel of San Zenone, Santa Pudenziana, San Martino ai Monti and Trajan's Markets with the Museum of the Imperial Forums. Adding the Domus Aurea, which can be visited only by reservation and on limited days, makes the program full and requires an early start in the morning.

Why is Rione Monti called that?

Rione Monti is called that because it includes three of the seven hills of Rome, the Esquiline, the Viminal and part of the Quirinal, which in the Middle Ages were referred to collectively as montes. The term did not mean mountains but the heights left almost uninhabited after the cutting of the ancient aqueducts, when the Roman population had concentrated in the bend of the Tiber. The rione's coat of arms in fact shows three silver mountains on a red field.

Where is Michelangelo's Moses?

Michelangelo's Moses is in the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli, in Rione Monti, inside the funeral monument of Pope Julius II, and the statue is about 2.35 meters tall. You reach the church from the Colosseum in under 10 minutes on foot going up Salita dei Borgia. Admission is free and a coin-operated device lights the monument, without which the sculpture is very hard to see.

How do you visit the Domus Aurea?

The Domus Aurea can be visited only by reservation and on limited days of the week: the Colosseum Archaeological Park lists booking of visits on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The ticket is separate from that of the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine. The visit takes place in underground rooms that are cold and damp even in summer, with limited places: prices and availability should be checked on the official channel before planning the day.

Can you visit the Torre dei Conti?

The Torre dei Conti can't be visited: after the partial collapse of November 3, 2025, which happened during a renovation work site and cost a worker his life, the tower shows serious structural damage and is closed to the public, with scaffolding and safety works. The layout of roads and fences in Largo Corrado Ricci changed several times in 2026: it's best to check the notices of the Sovrintendenza Capitolina before passing through that area.

How much does it cost to enter the churches of Rione Monti?

Entering the churches of Rione Monti is free: San Pietro in Vincoli, Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Prassede, Santa Pudenziana and San Martino ai Monti are places of worship with free access during opening hours. Some separate routes do charge, like the museum, the loggia and the archaeological area of Santa Maria Maggiore: the prices and hours of those routes should be checked with the basilica, because they are run separately.

Who were the boys of Via Panisperna?

The boys of Via Panisperna were the group of physicists gathered around Enrico Fermi at the Royal Institute of Physics of the University of Rome, which until 1935 was based at number 90 Via Panisperna, in Rione Monti. Its members included Amaldi, Rasetti, Segrè, Pontecorvo, D’Agostino and Majorana. In 1934 they discovered the property of slow neutrons, research for which Fermi received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938.

Is Rione Monti suitable for children?

Rione Monti is suitable for children in the pedestrian part around Piazza della Madonna dei Monti and in the Colle Oppio park, where there is room to run and the view of the Colosseum always works. Long visits to basilicas tire the youngest, while Trajan's Markets are a hit because you walk inside the ancient buildings on several levels. The Domus Aurea, with its narrow underground rooms, is less suitable below a certain age.

What is the best time of day to visit Monti?

The best time to visit Rione Monti is early morning for the basilicas, which almost all close in the middle of the day between noon and 15:00 or 16:00, and late afternoon for the pedestrian network and the Colle Oppio park. In summer the open-air archaeological areas, with no shade, are impractical in the middle hours: moving the Forums and Colle Oppio to the start or end of the day improves the visit a lot.

One last piece of advice for anyone planning the visit

Monti rewards anyone who gives up the list and chooses density: better three churches looked at calmly, with coins for the lights in your pocket and half an hour for each, than eight stops rushed through. The rione has the rare luck of holding together, within a radius of one kilometer, fourth-century mosaics, a masterpiece by Michelangelo, a buried imperial palace, intact medieval towers and a neighborhood where people still live: it's a concentration that exists in very few other places in Rome, and it's best consumed slowly.

Anyone building a wider Roman itinerary, combining the stops of Monti with the Colosseum, the Forums and the Caelian, may find useful planning and group management tools on Tour Leader Pro, while for a general picture of transport, connections and destinations in Lazio, Italy Planner is a good resource.