If you’re planning to be in Rome between 25-31 May, you’ll want to start perusing the lengthy list of “unknown” archaeological sites and monuments that are going to be open to the public during that week as part of the Roma Nascosta or Hidden Rome week. Organized by the Comune di Roma and a cultural organization called Zetema, the goal is that of allowing the public to visit inaccessible monuments – particularly those that are underground.
Among the sites that can be seen in this extraordinary week are the Underground Basilica at Porta Maggiore, the Catacombs of Saints Marcellinus & Peter, the Ludus Magnus, Monte Testaccio, the Mithraeum at Palazzo Barberini, and many more.
Whether you’re a life-long Rome resident looking to cross a few of those hard-to-visit sites off your list or a first-time tourist who wants to have an extraordinary experience, this is going to be a great week.
So click on over to the Comune di Roma website and download the program of events (for you non-Italian speakers, it’s called the Depliant Roma Nascosta). There’s also a program of videos and lectures (Le Conferenze) that might be of interest. You’ll need to make reservations for the site visits and numbers are limited, so get started now.
We spotted this in the Jewish Ghetto just a few days ago. It’s a stencil on a wall that shows the map of Rome’s historic center with a red line around the edge, marking the path of the Aurelian Wall, a defense wall built in the third century AD to protect Rome from invaders. Below, in both Italian and English, is a caption that reads, “You are 2445 steps from the Aurelian Wall.”
Like the Aurelian wall, the serpentine course of the Tiber River is painted red. What are the red crosses? We’re not sure, though we’ve got some theories going — the most persuasive of which is the idea that the red crosses mark the sites of similar stencils that document the walking distance to the wall from other sites in the city. We haven’t gone out on a scavanger hunt for those other yet (too darn hot in the Eterna for walkabouts), but we did find one other example quite by accident and its location corresponds with the position of a cross on the map.
The red 12/21 number above the left side of the map seems to suggest that this is the 12th of 21 such stencils. There’s also a big red dot just near the Tiber Island. What does it represent? We have a theory about that too, but we’ll keep it to ourselves until we’ve done a bit more research.
We don’t know whose project this is or why they’re so busily documenting the distance to the Aurelian Wall, but we like it, like it, yes we do.
