Explore Rome

Trajan's Column is a marble column completed in AD 113 to mark the emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars, about 35 metres tall with its pedestal. A carved frieze some 190 metres long winds 23 times around the shaft, and a bronze statue of Saint Peter has stood on top since 1587. It rises in Trajan's Forum, seen from the surrounding streets.

The Church of the Gesù on Piazza del Gesù is the mother church of the Jesuit order, begun in 1568 to designs by Vignola, with a façade by Giacomo della Porta, and consecrated in 1584. Its wide single nave and Giovanni Battista Gaulli's ceiling fresco, the Triumph of the Name of Jesus, became a model for Jesuit churches; it holds the tomb of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.

Sant'Ignazio is the Jesuit church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola in the Campo Marzio, built between 1626 and 1650 as the church of the Roman College. Its nave ceiling, painted by Andrea Pozzo around 1685, shows the saint received into heaven in steep illusionistic perspective, and a flat painted canvas by Pozzo over the crossing imitates a dome.

The Arch of Constantine is a triumphal arch between the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill, dedicated in AD 315 to mark Constantine's victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. It is 21 metres high, the largest Roman triumphal arch, and much of its sculpture was taken from earlier monuments to Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius.

The Circus Maximus is the site of ancient Rome's largest chariot-racing stadium, in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine hills. About 621 metres long, it held more than 150,000 spectators; today the track is a long grassy park, with excavated seating and a medieval tower at its curved eastern end and the Palatine ruins above.

San Pietro in Vincoli is a basilica on the Oppian Hill near the Colosseum, rebuilt in 432–440 to house the chains said to have bound Saint Peter, which are kept in a reliquary below the high altar. It also holds Michelangelo's statue of Moses, the central figure of the tomb of Pope Julius II.

Piazza Navona is a long oval square that keeps the outline of the Stadium of Domitian, built in the 1st century AD. Its Baroque form dates from the 17th century: Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers stands in the centre, with a fountain at each end, and Borromini's church of Sant'Agnese in Agone faces it from the west side.

Sant'Agnese in Agone is a Baroque church on Piazza Navona, begun in 1652 on the site where, by tradition, Saint Agnes was martyred in the ancient Stadium of Domitian. Started by Girolamo and Carlo Rainaldi and continued by Francesco Borromini, who designed the concave facade, it has a dome between two bell towers and a crypt shown on guided visits.

Santa Maria Maggiore is one of the four papal basilicas of Rome and the city's largest church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, built under Pope Sixtus III in the 5th century. Its nave and triumphal arch keep 5th-century mosaics, the 14th-century bell tower rises about 75 m, and Pope Francis was buried in a side aisle in 2025.

The Spanish Steps are a stairway of 135 steps, built in the 1720s to designs by Francesco de Sanctis, that climbs from Piazza di Spagna to the church of Trinità dei Monti. At their foot stands the Fontana della Barcaccia, a boat-shaped fountain of 1627–1629; since 2019 a city rule forbids sitting on the steps.

Piazza del Popolo is a large oval square just inside the Porta del Popolo, the northern gate in Rome's Aurelian Walls where the Via Flaminia entered the city. Giuseppe Valadier gave it its present form in 1811–1822; an Egyptian obelisk stands at the centre, and the twin churches of Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto face it from the south.

The Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome and the seat of the pope as its bishop. Founded in 324, it is the oldest of Rome's four major papal basilicas; Francesco Borromini remodelled the interior in the 1640s, and Alessandro Galilei completed the main facade with its colossal statues in 1735. A cloister and a baptistery adjoin it.

Villa Borghese is an 80-hectare landscape park on the Pincian Hill, laid out from 1606 for Cardinal Scipione Borghese and reshaped in later centuries. Its avenues lead past the Galleria Borghese, fountains and the Giardino del Lago, where the Temple of Aesculapius stands on an island and rowing boats can be hired.

St. Peter's Square is the plaza in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, laid out by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1656–1667. Two curved colonnades, four columns deep, enclose an ancient Egyptian obelisk raised here in 1586 and two granite fountains; the Pope holds general audiences and blessings in the square.

St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City was built between 1506 and 1626 over the traditional burial place of Saint Peter. Bramante, Michelangelo and Carlo Maderno shaped the design; Michelangelo's dome rises over the papal altar and Bernini's bronze baldachin, and Bernini also framed the square with its colonnades. Michelangelo's Pietà stands in the first chapel on the right.

The Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls is one of Rome's four papal major basilicas, founded under Constantine over the traditional grave of the Apostle Paul on the Via Ostiense. After a fire in 1823 it was rebuilt on the old plan; inside are Arnolfo di Cambio's ciborium of 1285 and a frieze of mosaic portraits of the popes.