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Traveling from ancient ruins to modern renewal, this walk explores the evolution of Roman cuisine while venturing out to the lively, expressive neighborhood of Testaccio.

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Testaccio | The Future is Food

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Rome

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"I thought I knew everything when I came to Rome, but I soon found I had everything to learn."
- Edmonia Lewis

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Hi, this is Eric Millman, noted Italian scholar and American human.  If you’ve done some of our other tours, you may be familiar with me by now, but if not: thanks for joining us.  I’ve spent the last fifteen years or so studying Italian language and culture, with an eye mostly on cinema and cuisine.  This walk will try to focus mostly on the modern evolution of the latter.
One thing I love about Italy is one that also drives me nuts: its extremely rich history, especially in Rome, is a gift to the world.  But it can also be a total drag on progress.  For example, one site we’ll visit on this walk is the Porta San Paolo.  It’s beautiful, it’s ancient, and it has so many crucial, revealing stories to tell.  It’s also designed to keep people out, and in today’s world, that can be a huge pain when you’re just trying to drive to work.  You can’t bulldoze it, so what do you do?
That’s why it’s so important, I think, to spend some time outside of the old city center: we may not ever truly experience the “real Rome,” and we may not want to, but when the past is less of an obstruction, we can see more of a natural flow of life, both progression and regression.  
Though the neighborhoods of Testaccio and Ostiense can’t compete with the beauty of the city center, or even of Trastevere, just across the bridge, they feel far more alive.  For my money, food is the most immediate measure of a culture, and we’ll be in the best area of the city for eating.  We’ll start at the ancient ex-slaughterhouse on the cusp of the historical center, travel through the modern ex-slaughterhouse of Testaccio, and finish amidst the street art and fusion restaurants in the industrial area of Ostiense.  Hopefully on this journey toward the future, you’ll be able to learn a few things about Roman history not just through sight and sound, but through taste and smell as well.  Buon appetito, and buon proseguimento!

Before diving into Testaccio, we’ll start our walk in the 12th Rione, or subdivision, of Ripa, at the Forum Boarium, which effectively means Outdoor Space for Cattle (“boarium” is Latin for “bovine” while “forum” is Latin for “that which is outdoors,” so technically the Great Western Forum, where the Lakers used to play, is a total misnomer).

Here in this green little piazza sits a peculiar round structure called the “Temple of the Victor Hercules” which, dating to the 2nd Century B.C. and with 19 of its 20 original Corinthian columns smuggled here from Greece, is the oldest marble structure in all of Rome.

In Book VIII his Aeneid, Virgil cites this as originally the site of the great altar, or ara maxima, built to honor Hercules’ legendary slaying of the fire-breathing giant Cacus. Those who have done, or will do, our walk in Florence, will note that the same scene is immortalized in the infamous  Renaissance-era sculpture by Baccio Bandinelli now standing outside of the Palazzo Vecchio. 

But back to our story, which is a good example of Romans adopting Greek, or in this case even Etruscan mythology, and applying it to the foundational story of the city itself.  According to this version of that mythology, the telling of which began around the 6th century B.C., Cacus had not only been terrorizing the residents here, at the base of the Aventine Hill, but he then made the mistake of jacking Hercules’ oxen.  The cattle, which Hercules had himself robbed from another giant named Geryon, were super important to Hercules, representing the 10th of the 12 tasks he needed to accomplish in order to achieve forgiveness and, in turn, immortality from the gods, after having murdered his wife and kids in a stupor.  So inspired, Hercules is said to have strangled Cacus with a grip so tight that the giant’s eyes popped out of their sockets.  Aye, the Ancients were pretty metal.

Speaking of, it’s also worth noting that the ancient historian Titus Livius claims this as the site of the first Roman gladiator games in 264 B.C. Later, it would become the city’s main cattle market, given its strategic location next to Rome’s old docks on the Tiber River, bringing us full circle back to Hercules’ oxen.  

As for the ara maxima, let’s head across the street to a church that is far more famous to modern visitors.

16 Piazza della Bocca della Verità \|||// Hi, this is Eric Millman, noted Italian scholar and American human.  If you’ve done some of our other tours, you may be familiar with me by now, but if not: thanks for joining us.  I’ve spent the last fifteen years or so studying Italian language and culture, with an eye mostly on cinema and cuisine.  This walk will try to focus mostly on the modern evolution of the latter.
One thing I love about Italy is one that also drives me nuts: its extremely rich history, especially in Rome, is a gift to the world.  But it can also be a total drag on progress.  For example, one site we’ll visit on this walk is the Porta San Paolo.  It’s beautiful, it’s ancient, and it has so many crucial, revealing stories to tell.  It’s also designed to keep people out, and in today’s world, that can be a huge pain when you’re just trying to drive to work.  You can’t bulldoze it, so what do you do?
That’s why it’s so important, I think, to spend some time outside of the old city center: we may not ever truly experience the “real Rome,” and we may not want to, but when the past is less of an obstruction, we can see more of a natural flow of life, both progression and regression.  
Though the neighborhoods of Testaccio and Ostiense can’t compete with the beauty of the city center, or even of Trastevere, just across the bridge, they feel far more alive.  For my money, food is the most immediate measure of a culture, and we’ll be in the best area of the city for eating.  We’ll start at the ancient ex-slaughterhouse on the cusp of the historical center, travel through the modern ex-slaughterhouse of Testaccio, and finish amidst the street art and fusion restaurants in the industrial area of Ostiense.  Hopefully on this journey toward the future, you’ll be able to learn a few things about Roman history not just through sight and sound, but through taste and smell as well.  Buon appetito, and buon proseguimento!

Before diving into Testaccio, we’ll start our walk in the 12th Rione, or subdivision, of Ripa, at the Forum Boarium, which effectively means Outdoor Space for Cattle (“boarium” is Latin for “bovine” while “forum” is Latin for “that which is outdoors,” so technically the Great Western Forum, where the Lakers used to play, is a total misnomer).

Here in this green little piazza sits a peculiar round structure called the “Temple of the Victor Hercules” which, dating to the 2nd Century B.C. and with 19 of its 20 original Corinthian columns smuggled here from Greece, is the oldest marble structure in all of Rome.

In Book VIII his Aeneid, Virgil cites this as originally the site of the great altar, or ara maxima, built to honor Hercules’ legendary slaying of the fire-breathing giant Cacus. Those who have done, or will do, our walk in Florence, will note that the same scene is immortalized in the infamous  Renaissance-era sculpture by Baccio Bandinelli now standing outside of the Palazzo Vecchio. 

But back to our story, which is a good example of Romans adopting Greek, or in this case even Etruscan mythology, and applying it to the foundational story of the city itself.  According to this version of that mythology, the telling of which began around the 6th century B.C., Cacus had not only been terrorizing the residents here, at the base of the Aventine Hill, but he then made the mistake of jacking Hercules’ oxen.  The cattle, which Hercules had himself robbed from another giant named Geryon, were super important to Hercules, representing the 10th of the 12 tasks he needed to accomplish in order to achieve forgiveness and, in turn, immortality from the gods, after having murdered his wife and kids in a stupor.  So inspired, Hercules is said to have strangled Cacus with a grip so tight that the giant’s eyes popped out of their sockets.  Aye, the Ancients were pretty metal.

Speaking of, it’s also worth noting that the ancient historian Titus Livius claims this as the site of the first Roman gladiator games in 264 B.C. Later, it would become the city’s main cattle market, given its strategic location next to Rome’s old docks on the Tiber River, bringing us full circle back to Hercules’ oxen.  

As for the ara maxima, let’s head across the street to a church that is far more famous to modern visitors.

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Hercules' Forum Boarium

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18 Piazza della Bocca della Verità \|||// 

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St. Valentine + the Mouth of Truth

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It might not look like much now, but the vast, empty space before you where several dogs are likely pooping is the Circus Maximus.  Though the only Circus Maximus I had known for much of my life was the now-defunct theater in Vegas where Lou Rawls opened for Judy Garland in 1967, this one is also of some historical value.

The founding of this place isn’t entirely clear, given how long ago it was, but the oldest story credits its construction to Romulus, the city’s founder and first king of the Roman Kingdom well before it would become a Republic, and then an Empire.  After seeing to the murder of his twin, Remus, Romulus had established his namesake city in the middle of the 8th-century BC, but had only a bunch of savage white dudes with which to populate it.  Looking to the future, Romulus came up with a plan to import the first round of mothers.

According to that Ancient historian, Titus Livicus, Romulus organized a huge festival here to attract people from the neighboring regions, like the Sabines, to celebrate the god of harvest and grain with all sorts of games, competitions, and booze.  Once the people were good and drunk, Romulus signaled for his men to go into the crowd and steal a bunch of women, who they figured they would need if they wanted the city to see a next generation. 

Though Livicus, as well as Cicero, claim that Romulus afforded the women certain property rights and civil liberties, the abduction was obviously a pretty brutal move, and led to a string of wars, but these only served to further cement Romulus’ reign over the region.  It also inspired a great deal of great art, including Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Women, which -- hey, whaddya know -- we visit at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence.

At its peak, the Circus Maximus would hold an astounding 250,000 people.  Considering that the Colosseum, built many centuries later, could only hold 50,000, this was and is the largest stadium ever built; even at its peak, a third of Rome’s population could find a seat here.

Alas, flooding from the Tiber River was an issue, and the last chariot race would be held by 549 A.D, after which the structures would be transferred or buried under some 9 meters of mud, Even after excavations in the 1970s and 1980s revealed some of the old seating areas, they were reburied to keep them safe.

Today, it’s little more than a dog park and the site of your occasional concert, with Duran Duran and Bruce Springsteen playing extremely relevant shows on this hallowed ground.  Now, we just need to get the great Wayne Newton out here, Mr. Vegas himself, to bring things full circle.

Unless you feel like staging your own foot race in the Circus, let’s cut over to that narrow, slightly inclined street, always watching for traffic, as we make our way up the Aventine Hill.

5 Via della Greca \|||// It might not look like much now, but the vast, empty space before you where several dogs are likely pooping is the Circus Maximus.  Though the only Circus Maximus I had known for much of my life was the now-defunct theater in Vegas where Lou Rawls opened for Judy Garland in 1967, this one is also of some historical value.

The founding of this place isn’t entirely clear, given how long ago it was, but the oldest story credits its construction to Romulus, the city’s founder and first king of the Roman Kingdom well before it would become a Republic, and then an Empire.  After seeing to the murder of his twin, Remus, Romulus had established his namesake city in the middle of the 8th-century BC, but had only a bunch of savage white dudes with which to populate it.  Looking to the future, Romulus came up with a plan to import the first round of mothers.

According to that Ancient historian, Titus Livicus, Romulus organized a huge festival here to attract people from the neighboring regions, like the Sabines, to celebrate the god of harvest and grain with all sorts of games, competitions, and booze.  Once the people were good and drunk, Romulus signaled for his men to go into the crowd and steal a bunch of women, who they figured they would need if they wanted the city to see a next generation. 

Though Livicus, as well as Cicero, claim that Romulus afforded the women certain property rights and civil liberties, the abduction was obviously a pretty brutal move, and led to a string of wars, but these only served to further cement Romulus’ reign over the region.  It also inspired a great deal of great art, including Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Women, which -- hey, whaddya know -- we visit at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence.

At its peak, the Circus Maximus would hold an astounding 250,000 people.  Considering that the Colosseum, built many centuries later, could only hold 50,000, this was and is the largest stadium ever built; even at its peak, a third of Rome’s population could find a seat here.

Alas, flooding from the Tiber River was an issue, and the last chariot race would be held by 549 A.D, after which the structures would be transferred or buried under some 9 meters of mud, Even after excavations in the 1970s and 1980s revealed some of the old seating areas, they were reburied to keep them safe.

Today, it’s little more than a dog park and the site of your occasional concert, with Duran Duran and Bruce Springsteen playing extremely relevant shows on this hallowed ground.  Now, we just need to get the great Wayne Newton out here, Mr. Vegas himself, to bring things full circle.

Unless you feel like staging your own foot race in the Circus, let’s cut over to that narrow, slightly inclined street, always watching for traffic, as we make our way up the Aventine Hill.

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Circus Maximus

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It mightn’t be as famous or as glamorous-looking as many churches in this city, but you’re actually looking at the oldest basilica in Rome that retains its original design.  Even the windows above and throughout, made of selenite crystal instead of glass, date back to the 5th century, barely forty years after Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 391 AD.

Head into the church, and then quickly exit to your left and look behind you at the exterior of the cypress doors: you’re looking at basically the oldest wooden doors in the world, and, in the case of the small panel at the top, far left, the first public representation of Christ’s crucifixion.  The illiterate masses could look at these cartoon-like panels, as was customary for all churches, to learn of Christ’s story just before being converted to Christianity.

Take your time in the church, noting how simple in ornamentation it is to the other, younger churches may have seen throughout Europe; note also the twenty-four well-preserved columns, which are repurposed from the pre-Christian Temple of Juno Regina that had been here since 396 BC.

Once you’ve had enough of the church, head back outside and look directly to your left.  You should see a friendly-looking face embedded in the wall: that’s the Fontana del Mascherone, dating to 1589 and transferred here from its original place in the Campo Vaccino, or Vaccine Field.  Of course “vaccine” in this case predates COVID, referring instead to the fact that the first form of inoculation was derived from cowpox (cow is “vacca” in Latin and Italian).  The Campo, then, was nothing but a grazing field.  It just happened to be that, in the 1500s, this grazing field was located amidst the ruins of the Roman Forum.

Now, just past that fountain is a lovely orange garden that will afford you one of the best views in the city, one that will include most immediately the cupola of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Vatican City, straight ahead, and the white, typewriter-looking building to your far right, the National Monument for Vittorio Emmauele II.  Don’t worry, we discuss that in greater detail on another of our walks.

This is what I’d call a shortcut view, potentially sparing you a bit of time: I don’t want to rush you, but once you’re ready to continue down the Aventine Hill toward our next stop, look for a long line snaking out from a green door on your right.  There, if you’re willing to wait, you can peer through a keyhole that utilizes shrubbery from the Knights of Malta’s private garden to perfectly frame St. Peter’s: between the Order of Malta, Vatican City, and Italy, that’s one country and two autonomous regions for the price of one.  At the orange garden, though, you’ve enjoyed that view without having to wait in line, or press your face to a dirty door.  

Let’s start heading back down the hill as we leave the rione of Ripa and finally head to Testaccio proper.

1 Piazza Pietro D'Illiria \|||// It mightn’t be as famous or as glamorous-looking as many churches in this city, but you’re actually looking at the oldest basilica in Rome that retains its original design.  Even the windows above and throughout, made of selenite crystal instead of glass, date back to the 5th century, barely forty years after Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 391 AD.

Head into the church, and then quickly exit to your left and look behind you at the exterior of the cypress doors: you’re looking at basically the oldest wooden doors in the world, and, in the case of the small panel at the top, far left, the first public representation of Christ’s crucifixion.  The illiterate masses could look at these cartoon-like panels, as was customary for all churches, to learn of Christ’s story just before being converted to Christianity.

Take your time in the church, noting how simple in ornamentation it is to the other, younger churches may have seen throughout Europe; note also the twenty-four well-preserved columns, which are repurposed from the pre-Christian Temple of Juno Regina that had been here since 396 BC.

Once you’ve had enough of the church, head back outside and look directly to your left.  You should see a friendly-looking face embedded in the wall: that’s the Fontana del Mascherone, dating to 1589 and transferred here from its original place in the Campo Vaccino, or Vaccine Field.  Of course “vaccine” in this case predates COVID, referring instead to the fact that the first form of inoculation was derived from cowpox (cow is “vacca” in Latin and Italian).  The Campo, then, was nothing but a grazing field.  It just happened to be that, in the 1500s, this grazing field was located amidst the ruins of the Roman Forum.

Now, just past that fountain is a lovely orange garden that will afford you one of the best views in the city, one that will include most immediately the cupola of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Vatican City, straight ahead, and the white, typewriter-looking building to your far right, the National Monument for Vittorio Emmauele II.  Don’t worry, we discuss that in greater detail on another of our walks.

This is what I’d call a shortcut view, potentially sparing you a bit of time: I don’t want to rush you, but once you’re ready to continue down the Aventine Hill toward our next stop, look for a long line snaking out from a green door on your right.  There, if you’re willing to wait, you can peer through a keyhole that utilizes shrubbery from the Knights of Malta’s private garden to perfectly frame St. Peter’s: between the Order of Malta, Vatican City, and Italy, that’s one country and two autonomous regions for the price of one.  At the orange garden, though, you’ve enjoyed that view without having to wait in line, or press your face to a dirty door.  

Let’s start heading back down the hill as we leave the rione of Ripa and finally head to Testaccio proper.

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Gateway of Three Nations

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Descending upon the surprisingly residential Via di Porta Lavernale to the leafy Via Marmorata, then crossing to the sidewalk on the right, you might catch sight of a pyramidal thing in the distance.  Pay that no mind for now: we’ll come back to it.  Instead, as if appearing from thin air, the trees will part and you find the grand Porta San Paolo on your left.  Hey, look at that thing!  

This guy may look young, but holy moly, the Porta San Paolo is actually well over 1,700 years old.  Man, if doors could talk.  Originally named the Porta Ostiense, guarding the road that leads directly to the ancient port town of Ostia, the Porta San Paolo has consistently proven itself superior to any enemy to Rome. 

In fact, it seems the only time it failed the city was shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire, when in 549AD the Ostrogoths tried to claim Italy from the Byzantines, who had taken it from the Goths in 547 after the Goths had sacked the city from the Byzantines in 546.  By 549, the Byzantine emperor Justinian was stretched thin from all of these battles, and the men at the gate were tired and underpaid, so when Totila, King of the Goths, led his men to this gate, the Byzatines had a tough choice to make: either surrender, and get paid by Totila, or defend the empire that stiffed them and get slaughtered in the process.  Unfortunately for Totila, the King wasn’t content in stopping at Rome, and done got himself killed by the Byzantines in Umbria, just south of Florence.

Not insignificantly, a mere 1,384 years later, after Mussolini had been arrested, a new crop of barbarians were at the gate.  Just two days after the interim Fascist government had signed an Armistice with the Allies, and as the Allies were landing in Italy, the Germans pounced on Rome, driving Italian defenses to this spot at the edge of the city limits.  Despite a fierce battle here on September 8th, 1943 waged by the 21st Infantry Division Grenadiers of Sardegna, Socialist resistance fighters, and others, the Nazis managed to kill 597 Italians, and claimed Rome alongside its remaining Fascists.  

Within two days, the Fascists were deporting Rome’s Jews to Concentration Camps, and the city remained under rule of terror for nine full months.  

Meanwhile, the Canadian, American, British, and Italian partisans waged battle at the beach of Anzio, an hour just south of here.  Finally, after a brutal 136 days of coastal fighting, on June 5th, 1944, the Allies finally made it successfully to Rome and declared it an Open City, effectively ending the Fascist stranglehold.  

That is, of course, at least until 1960, when the new Prime Minister Tambroni had thrown in his lot with a neo-Fascist group called the MSI. In response, thousands of students organized at the Porta San Paolo and were met by clubs and tear gas.  After two hours of violence, leading to the death of one officer and untold injuries to the resistance, the cops ceded ground and, not two weeks later, the Prime Minister was forced to resign.

Man, if the Porta San Paolo could talk, you know what I think it’d say?  Fascists suck and war is a stupid.  OK, now about that pyramid.

 \|||// Descending upon the surprisingly residential Via di Porta Lavernale to the leafy Via Marmorata, then crossing to the sidewalk on the right, you might catch sight of a pyramidal thing in the distance.  Pay that no mind for now: we’ll come back to it.  Instead, as if appearing from thin air, the trees will part and you find the grand Porta San Paolo on your left.  Hey, look at that thing!  

This guy may look young, but holy moly, the Porta San Paolo is actually well over 1,700 years old.  Man, if doors could talk.  Originally named the Porta Ostiense, guarding the road that leads directly to the ancient port town of Ostia, the Porta San Paolo has consistently proven itself superior to any enemy to Rome. 

In fact, it seems the only time it failed the city was shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire, when in 549AD the Ostrogoths tried to claim Italy from the Byzantines, who had taken it from the Goths in 547 after the Goths had sacked the city from the Byzantines in 546.  By 549, the Byzantine emperor Justinian was stretched thin from all of these battles, and the men at the gate were tired and underpaid, so when Totila, King of the Goths, led his men to this gate, the Byzatines had a tough choice to make: either surrender, and get paid by Totila, or defend the empire that stiffed them and get slaughtered in the process.  Unfortunately for Totila, the King wasn’t content in stopping at Rome, and done got himself killed by the Byzantines in Umbria, just south of Florence.

Not insignificantly, a mere 1,384 years later, after Mussolini had been arrested, a new crop of barbarians were at the gate.  Just two days after the interim Fascist government had signed an Armistice with the Allies, and as the Allies were landing in Italy, the Germans pounced on Rome, driving Italian defenses to this spot at the edge of the city limits.  Despite a fierce battle here on September 8th, 1943 waged by the 21st Infantry Division Grenadiers of Sardegna, Socialist resistance fighters, and others, the Nazis managed to kill 597 Italians, and claimed Rome alongside its remaining Fascists.  

Within two days, the Fascists were deporting Rome’s Jews to Concentration Camps, and the city remained under rule of terror for nine full months.  

Meanwhile, the Canadian, American, British, and Italian partisans waged battle at the beach of Anzio, an hour just south of here.  Finally, after a brutal 136 days of coastal fighting, on June 5th, 1944, the Allies finally made it successfully to Rome and declared it an Open City, effectively ending the Fascist stranglehold.  

That is, of course, at least until 1960, when the new Prime Minister Tambroni had thrown in his lot with a neo-Fascist group called the MSI. In response, thousands of students organized at the Porta San Paolo and were met by clubs and tear gas.  After two hours of violence, leading to the death of one officer and untold injuries to the resistance, the cops ceded ground and, not two weeks later, the Prime Minister was forced to resign.

Man, if the Porta San Paolo could talk, you know what I think it’d say?  Fascists suck and war is a stupid.  OK, now about that pyramid.

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The Fascists of Porta San Paolo

5PortaSanPaoloScored.mp3

Glimmering as it does in nearly-pristine white marble, upon first seeing this pyramid years ago I had assumed it was built during a recent wave of Italy’s obsession with Egypt, like the 18th century freezer found in Florence’s Cascine Park.  The truth is, this guy here is actually well over 2,000 years old, built just over a decade after the Romans conquered Egypt, and Antony and Cleopatra were led to suicide.  Thankfully, when the Aurelian Walls were built in the 3rd century AD to protect the city, this tomb was contained within them, ensuring its preservation.

Though long believed to be the tomb of Remus, it was actually built for a Roman fan of Egyptology named Cestius.  Almost nothing is known of Cestius other than his father’s name and his political party, as inscribed quite illegibly on the pyramid’s face.  Really, though, what was it about Cestius that deserves our discussion of him now, two millenia later, other than the fact that he was rich enough to build this absurd structure for himself?  

Thomas Hardy, author of Jude the Obscure, wondered the same question back in 1887, when he wrote the poem Rome: At the Pyramid of Cestius near the Graves of Shelley and Keats.  He notes that however Cestius was in life, good or evil, in death he now does, “a kindlier thing/In beckoning pilgrim feet/With marble finger high/To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street/Those matchless singers lie.”  Let’s turn just to the left, toward the cemetery, and ponder the dead for a moment.

3 Via Raffaele Persichetti \|||// Glimmering as it does in nearly-pristine white marble, upon first seeing this pyramid years ago I had assumed it was built during a recent wave of Italy’s obsession with Egypt, like the 18th century freezer found in Florence’s Cascine Park.  The truth is, this guy here is actually well over 2,000 years old, built just over a decade after the Romans conquered Egypt, and Antony and Cleopatra were led to suicide.  Thankfully, when the Aurelian Walls were built in the 3rd century AD to protect the city, this tomb was contained within them, ensuring its preservation.

Though long believed to be the tomb of Remus, it was actually built for a Roman fan of Egyptology named Cestius.  Almost nothing is known of Cestius other than his father’s name and his political party, as inscribed quite illegibly on the pyramid’s face.  Really, though, what was it about Cestius that deserves our discussion of him now, two millenia later, other than the fact that he was rich enough to build this absurd structure for himself?  

Thomas Hardy, author of Jude the Obscure, wondered the same question back in 1887, when he wrote the poem Rome: At the Pyramid of Cestius near the Graves of Shelley and Keats.  He notes that however Cestius was in life, good or evil, in death he now does, “a kindlier thing/In beckoning pilgrim feet/With marble finger high/To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street/Those matchless singers lie.”  Let’s turn just to the left, toward the cemetery, and ponder the dead for a moment.

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Pyramid of Caio Cestio

6PiramideScored.mp3

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There are worse ways to value Cestius’ enduring memory than by paying a visit to those “matchless singers” in the Non-Catholic Cemetery located just behind the Aurelian Walls.  As weird as it might be to drop five euro to visit a cemetery, few things were more romantic to that breed of poet. I will say, despite this cramped angle, surrounded by traffic, it is a tranquil, surreal place.  

Just after meeting with Pope Pius IX, Oscar Wilde ironically called this, the lone place where non-Catholics could be buried, the “holiest place in Rome.”  He had a point.  

Shelley, while musing over  the grave of his beloved Keats’, wrote, “The cemetery is an open space among the ruins/Covered in winter with violets and daisies/It might make one in love with death/To think that one should be buried in so sweet a place.”

If you do go inside (and I’ll note that we’ll pass the entrance en route to the next stop), look in the northeastern-most part of the cemetery, amongst the stray cats bathing in the shadow of the pyramid.  Here, you’ll find the famous gravestone of Keats, that “Young English Poet” whose name was “writ in water.” Try to spare a bit of time to wander, ponder, and maybe even pay a visit to the under-appreciated tomb of the great Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, while you’re at it.  

If you don’t have the time or the money, not to worry: just keep going southwest down the Via Caio Cestio until you hit a big boulevard called Via Nicola Zabaglia.  Turn right and keep an eye out for a sad, overgrown field immediately to your right: that’s the old stadium of A.S. Roma, who played soccer here from 1929 to 1952.  From there we’ll hit the namesake site of Testaccio.

5 Via Raffaele Persichetti \|||// There are worse ways to value Cestius’ enduring memory than by paying a visit to those “matchless singers” in the Non-Catholic Cemetery located just behind the Aurelian Walls.  As weird as it might be to drop five euro to visit a cemetery, few things were more romantic to that breed of poet. I will say, despite this cramped angle, surrounded by traffic, it is a tranquil, surreal place.  

Just after meeting with Pope Pius IX, Oscar Wilde ironically called this, the lone place where non-Catholics could be buried, the “holiest place in Rome.”  He had a point.  

Shelley, while musing over  the grave of his beloved Keats’, wrote, “The cemetery is an open space among the ruins/Covered in winter with violets and daisies/It might make one in love with death/To think that one should be buried in so sweet a place.”

If you do go inside (and I’ll note that we’ll pass the entrance en route to the next stop), look in the northeastern-most part of the cemetery, amongst the stray cats bathing in the shadow of the pyramid.  Here, you’ll find the famous gravestone of Keats, that “Young English Poet” whose name was “writ in water.” Try to spare a bit of time to wander, ponder, and maybe even pay a visit to the under-appreciated tomb of the great Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, while you’re at it.  

If you don’t have the time or the money, not to worry: just keep going southwest down the Via Caio Cestio until you hit a big boulevard called Via Nicola Zabaglia.  Turn right and keep an eye out for a sad, overgrown field immediately to your right: that’s the old stadium of A.S. Roma, who played soccer here from 1929 to 1952.  From there we’ll hit the namesake site of Testaccio.

7grave1.jpg

The Matchless Singers of the Non-Catholic Cemetery

7CemeteryScored.mp3

7John_Keats'_Grave.JPG

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As one of Rome’s poorest cities up until very recently, Testaccio is hardly known for its beauty, elegance, or tranquility; if anything, it can be rather harsh.  Despite all of this, you should be able to spot a lovely verdant hill rising up on your left, the symbol and namesake of the neighborhood itself.  See if you can cross the street to get a closer look, before turning left on Via Galvani.

As you’ll see in a second, in spite of all appearances, this hill is anything but natural.  Given that this area had  been the center of Rome’s culinary trade, from where we started the walk until where we are now, it’s inevitable that we would talk about olive oil.  And, as you should be able to see through the fence in front of you, this hill is made entirely of olive oil jars.  No cement, no clumps of dirt, but simply a bunch of jars, or amphorae, smashed and stacked neatly atop one another.

Called Monte dei Cocci, or Monte Testaccio, meaning Mountain of Shards in Italian and Latin, respectively, this is the site where for 250 years Ancient Romans carefully stacked some 25 million discarded oil amphorae that had been imported here from the vast reach of the Roman Empire, as detailed on quality control stamps found on the shards themselves.

Romans stopped using this as a landfill by the Middle Ages, instead using it for a variety of jousts and processions, including an annual reenactment of the Way of the Cross whose terminus is now marked with an iron cross placed at the top of the hill in 1914.  Wine merchants even burrowed caves into the side of the hill before Pope Benedict XIV banned such destruction in the 1740s.  It was only in the 1930s that the working class started to actually live here, largely working as butchers and greengrocers.  

As consolation, you’ll now find a wide range of elegant restaurants and infernal discos built into the cellars.  At one such restaurant, quite recently pickled with wine, I honored the memory of these butchers with a nice dinner that included an insalata di zampi (a tepid salad made of cow tendons and feet) and Rome’s most glorious ingredient, illegal in Italy until 2015, the pajata (veal  intestines still filled with mother’s milk). 

No doubt you’re now hungry!  Let’s head another block down Via Galvani to the New Testaccio Market, a white metal structure which you’ll see on your right.

24 Rampa Heinrich Dressel \|||// As one of Rome’s poorest cities up until very recently, Testaccio is hardly known for its beauty, elegance, or tranquility; if anything, it can be rather harsh.  Despite all of this, you should be able to spot a lovely verdant hill rising up on your left, the symbol and namesake of the neighborhood itself.  See if you can cross the street to get a closer look, before turning left on Via Galvani.

As you’ll see in a second, in spite of all appearances, this hill is anything but natural.  Given that this area had  been the center of Rome’s culinary trade, from where we started the walk until where we are now, it’s inevitable that we would talk about olive oil.  And, as you should be able to see through the fence in front of you, this hill is made entirely of olive oil jars.  No cement, no clumps of dirt, but simply a bunch of jars, or amphorae, smashed and stacked neatly atop one another.

Called Monte dei Cocci, or Monte Testaccio, meaning Mountain of Shards in Italian and Latin, respectively, this is the site where for 250 years Ancient Romans carefully stacked some 25 million discarded oil amphorae that had been imported here from the vast reach of the Roman Empire, as detailed on quality control stamps found on the shards themselves.

Romans stopped using this as a landfill by the Middle Ages, instead using it for a variety of jousts and processions, including an annual reenactment of the Way of the Cross whose terminus is now marked with an iron cross placed at the top of the hill in 1914.  Wine merchants even burrowed caves into the side of the hill before Pope Benedict XIV banned such destruction in the 1740s.  It was only in the 1930s that the working class started to actually live here, largely working as butchers and greengrocers.  

As consolation, you’ll now find a wide range of elegant restaurants and infernal discos built into the cellars.  At one such restaurant, quite recently pickled with wine, I honored the memory of these butchers with a nice dinner that included an insalata di zampi (a tepid salad made of cow tendons and feet) and Rome’s most glorious ingredient, illegal in Italy until 2015, the pajata (veal  intestines still filled with mother’s milk). 

No doubt you’re now hungry!  Let’s head another block down Via Galvani to the New Testaccio Market, a white metal structure which you’ll see on your right.

8testaccio.jpg

Monte Testaccio 

8MonteTestaccioScored.mp3

8testaccio2.jpg

If you are like me -- that is, mostly a vegetarian but obsessed with animal guts -- then you are in your spot, the true beating heart of eating hearts.  Give a stroll around the stalls as I try to give some historical context for what you have before you.

Though previously located four blocks east and two blocks north of here in the tranquil Piazza Testaccio, the New Testaccio Market opened only in 2012, and is now hailed as the epicenter for epicureans in Rome.  

I usually brace myself for overpriced disappointment at such places, as at Florence’s Mercato Centrale, Bologna’s Mercato di Mezzo, or even Mexico City’s Mercado de Roma, markets that feel a bit too developed, a bit too clean, like food courts for the Instagram set.  The Testaccio Market, though, is a bit more my speed, thanks mostly to the tradition of the quinto quarto that stinks up the joint.

Going way back through the years, Italians very seldomly ate meat at all; the Anglo-Saxons were the hunters, while the Italics were, generally-speaking, more given to gardening.  For a while the gentry on this peninsula considered eating beef and game to be barbaric; if anything, they preferred light fowl (I’m not even a fan of prog-rock, but when discussing old Roman cuisine, I always think of King Crimson’s Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, which describes a dish that the old emperors very likely ate).

Anyway, this tradition would change by the Medieval Period, as knights made their way to the upper classes and brawn became en vogue.  From this point on, the meat of an animal would be split by class: the primo quarto, or first quarter, was the most prized muscle and would go to the richest.  The secondo quarto to clerics, the terzo to the merchants, the quarto quarto to the military, and the quinto quarto to the poor, including those working for leftovers at the slaughterhouse, and the Jews living in the Ghetto.  It’s said that it was from a Jewish tradition that Romans learned to stew these cheap cow innards until they no longer reeked of poo, a tradition that has been carried on by the lower classes of Testaccio in modern times.

Apart from the pajata, which is my personal favorite -- the milk curdled in the calf’s intestines is like a sweet, tender ricotta -- you have plenty to seek out here.  Of course, you can start with one of Rome’s four traditional pastas: either the carbonara (a sauce based on cured pig cheek, pecorino cheese, and raw eggs); the amatriciana (actually from the town of Amatrice and made with tomato puree instead of eggs); gricia (largely the same, with neither tomato nor egg), or cacio e pepe (gricia without pig cheek).  There are certainly some clean-looking places offering these for a pretty good price, here, and each is a delicious gut bomb for the cold days.  Vegetarians and vegans are probably better off leaving Rome, though there are deep-fried Jewish artichokes; pescatarians might enjoy puntarelle, a caesar-proximal salad made with bitter Catalonian chicory stems, vinegar, and anchovies,   

If you do want to venture more meaty, grab yourself a cold beer or a cheap red wine and start with -- in order of intensity -- the coda alla vaccinara (oxtail braised in tomato); abbacchio a scottadita (roast lamb to burn your fingers on); trippa alla romana (the cow’s second stomach stewed in tomato and mint, then topped with pecorino); picchiapò (stew made from leftover, reboiled beef bits); rignoncini (kidneys stewed in onions), or, finally, the legendary, rich, unmissable coratella, which is a rich stew typically made with artichokes and the heart, liver, lungs, spleen, trachea, or whatever is left of, usually, a lamb or rabbit.  Of course, the deeper I go into the world of Roman offal, the more I find something I hadn’t realized you could eat, so why not explore a bit?

Or maybe you’re not hungry.  Whenever you’re ready, let’s go take a stroll through the regal, 19th century gates up on your left.

93 Via Galvani \|||// If you are like me -- that is, mostly a vegetarian but obsessed with animal guts -- then you are in your spot, the true beating heart of eating hearts.  Give a stroll around the stalls as I try to give some historical context for what you have before you.

Though previously located four blocks east and two blocks north of here in the tranquil Piazza Testaccio, the New Testaccio Market opened only in 2012, and is now hailed as the epicenter for epicureans in Rome.  

I usually brace myself for overpriced disappointment at such places, as at Florence’s Mercato Centrale, Bologna’s Mercato di Mezzo, or even Mexico City’s Mercado de Roma, markets that feel a bit too developed, a bit too clean, like food courts for the Instagram set.  The Testaccio Market, though, is a bit more my speed, thanks mostly to the tradition of the quinto quarto that stinks up the joint.

Going way back through the years, Italians very seldomly ate meat at all; the Anglo-Saxons were the hunters, while the Italics were, generally-speaking, more given to gardening.  For a while the gentry on this peninsula considered eating beef and game to be barbaric; if anything, they preferred light fowl (I’m not even a fan of prog-rock, but when discussing old Roman cuisine, I always think of King Crimson’s Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, which describes a dish that the old emperors very likely ate).

Anyway, this tradition would change by the Medieval Period, as knights made their way to the upper classes and brawn became en vogue.  From this point on, the meat of an animal would be split by class: the primo quarto, or first quarter, was the most prized muscle and would go to the richest.  The secondo quarto to clerics, the terzo to the merchants, the quarto quarto to the military, and the quinto quarto to the poor, including those working for leftovers at the slaughterhouse, and the Jews living in the Ghetto.  It’s said that it was from a Jewish tradition that Romans learned to stew these cheap cow innards until they no longer reeked of poo, a tradition that has been carried on by the lower classes of Testaccio in modern times.

Apart from the pajata, which is my personal favorite -- the milk curdled in the calf’s intestines is like a sweet, tender ricotta -- you have plenty to seek out here.  Of course, you can start with one of Rome’s four traditional pastas: either the carbonara (a sauce based on cured pig cheek, pecorino cheese, and raw eggs); the amatriciana (actually from the town of Amatrice and made with tomato puree instead of eggs); gricia (largely the same, with neither tomato nor egg), or cacio e pepe (gricia without pig cheek).  There are certainly some clean-looking places offering these for a pretty good price, here, and each is a delicious gut bomb for the cold days.  Vegetarians and vegans are probably better off leaving Rome, though there are deep-fried Jewish artichokes; pescatarians might enjoy puntarelle, a caesar-proximal salad made with bitter Catalonian chicory stems, vinegar, and anchovies,   

If you do want to venture more meaty, grab yourself a cold beer or a cheap red wine and start with -- in order of intensity -- the coda alla vaccinara (oxtail braised in tomato); abbacchio a scottadita (roast lamb to burn your fingers on); trippa alla romana (the cow’s second stomach stewed in tomato and mint, then topped with pecorino); picchiapò (stew made from leftover, reboiled beef bits); rignoncini (kidneys stewed in onions), or, finally, the legendary, rich, unmissable coratella, which is a rich stew typically made with artichokes and the heart, liver, lungs, spleen, trachea, or whatever is left of, usually, a lamb or rabbit.  Of course, the deeper I go into the world of Roman offal, the more I find something I hadn’t realized you could eat, so why not explore a bit?

Or maybe you’re not hungry.  Whenever you’re ready, let’s go take a stroll through the regal, 19th century gates up on your left.

10mercato.JPG

City of Meat

9MercatoTestaccioScored.mp3

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Now that your innards are hopefully stuffed with innards, we face the place where much of that meat might have been procured starting in the year 1890.  Yes, it was here at the literally-named Mattatoio, just seven years after my Dodgers were first founded in Brooklyn, that the city’s slaughterhouse was transferred, a site where butchery could sprawl out safely in the suburbs to satiate the enormous demands of a growing population.  

Feel free to wander around, from the entry gate, down to the river, and looping to the left, toward the wild jungle of street art you’ll find in the complex next door.  

As you can see immediately, the place was enormous, over six acres in total, and was actually quite sanitary for its time, with specialized pavilions to avoid interspecies contamination, and an onsite lab to perform microbial analyses.

As Rome continued to grow into the insane, overwhelming metropolis it is today, even six acres devoted exclusively to meat murder proved too small, and the slaughterhouse was decommissioned in 1975.  

Now, the pacifists amongst you will be happy to note that after laying abandoned for several years, the space was reclaimed for noble causes.  Today, it boasts so much, including: the architecture school for Roma Tre University, half of Rome’s Museum of Contemporary Art, a cooperative (and occasionally free) music academy for students who rejected traditional training, and the birthplace of Italy’s largest LGBTQ festival called, appropriately enough, Muccassassina (Killer Cow).  Just south, where the livestock was once held, is a lovely convention center where I once spent a whole weekend guzzling natural wine and schmoozing with its producers, as well as a squat-turned-cultural center called the Casa della Pace.  

In sum, I brought you here partially out of guilt for advocating all that meat-eating, partially to put it on your radar in the event that there is something going on here tonight, and, at the bare minimum, because for all the nice graffiti and anarchic, post-industrial spirit, I think it sums up the neighborhood pretty well.

Let’s head back to Monte Testaccio and make a right on the Via Nicola Zabaglia as we say farewell to the rione, and continue our progression toward the Rome of the future.

4 Piazza Orazio Giustiniani \|||// Now that your innards are hopefully stuffed with innards, we face the place where much of that meat might have been procured starting in the year 1890.  Yes, it was here at the literally-named Mattatoio, just seven years after my Dodgers were first founded in Brooklyn, that the city’s slaughterhouse was transferred, a site where butchery could sprawl out safely in the suburbs to satiate the enormous demands of a growing population.  

Feel free to wander around, from the entry gate, down to the river, and looping to the left, toward the wild jungle of street art you’ll find in the complex next door.  

As you can see immediately, the place was enormous, over six acres in total, and was actually quite sanitary for its time, with specialized pavilions to avoid interspecies contamination, and an onsite lab to perform microbial analyses.

As Rome continued to grow into the insane, overwhelming metropolis it is today, even six acres devoted exclusively to meat murder proved too small, and the slaughterhouse was decommissioned in 1975.  

Now, the pacifists amongst you will be happy to note that after laying abandoned for several years, the space was reclaimed for noble causes.  Today, it boasts so much, including: the architecture school for Roma Tre University, half of Rome’s Museum of Contemporary Art, a cooperative (and occasionally free) music academy for students who rejected traditional training, and the birthplace of Italy’s largest LGBTQ festival called, appropriately enough, Muccassassina (Killer Cow).  Just south, where the livestock was once held, is a lovely convention center where I once spent a whole weekend guzzling natural wine and schmoozing with its producers, as well as a squat-turned-cultural center called the Casa della Pace.  

In sum, I brought you here partially out of guilt for advocating all that meat-eating, partially to put it on your radar in the event that there is something going on here tonight, and, at the bare minimum, because for all the nice graffiti and anarchic, post-industrial spirit, I think it sums up the neighborhood pretty well.

Let’s head back to Monte Testaccio and make a right on the Via Nicola Zabaglia as we say farewell to the rione, and continue our progression toward the Rome of the future.

9mattatoia3.jpg

Il Mattatoio

10MattatoioScored.mp3

9mattatoia.jpg

As you walk under the overpass, into what will turn into Via delle Conce, you should notice a certain evolution of the street art from the seemingly primordial scrawlings of the Città dell’Altra Economia into the refined work of the Porto Fluviale and throughout the neighborhood of Ostiense.

Since we’re now officially outside of the old city walls, we’re no longer in a rione, but rather in a quartiere: in fact, it’s one of Rome’s very first quartieri, established in 1907 by the British-born, anti-clerical mayor named Ernesto Nathan, who made it his goal to transform Rome, however incrementally, into a modern, industrial city.  It’s Ostiense, I think, with its mammoth gazometro dominating the skyline like a skeletal Colosseum, that once personified industrialization perhaps more than any other area in Rome, and it is even uglier than Testaccio.

In recent years, though, the neighborhood has taken on a lot more color.  Thanks to murals like the one in front of you, by the Bolognese artist Blu, with his “thousand faces” adorning a former air force building-turned squat, the neighborhood has not only taken on a personality, but a pathway that uses aesthetics to transform the blight.  

At your back, just opposite Blu’s “Mille Volte”, you’ll see “Hunting Pollution” by Milanese artist Federico “Hyena Cruz” Massa, with teal waves surrounding an endangered heron with a fish in its beak.  Though it kind of looks like something you’d find in a Capri Sun ad, Cruz’ mural utilizes a special paint called Airlite that claims to convert airborne pollutants into inert salts, which in turn provides a protective coating that helps reflect the sun’s heat, reducing the need for air conditioning by 29%.  Now, I’m no scientist, and I’m definitely not sure as to how they reached that percentage, but it sounds good to me!

For urban planners throughout Italy, and in Rome above all, progress can be almost impossible.  How can you compete with layer upon layer of historical testimony to one of the most sprawling, accomplished empires in human history?  When met with those who opposed Ernesto Nathan’s dream of modernizing Rome, the mayor took umbrage, reportedly quipping, “You talk gentlemen, as if Rome were a corpse. Rome is not a corpse, and I must decline to embalm her.”  I suspect that Mussolini, for all of his brazen destruction of the city’s architecture, which we discuss at length in our other tours here, would have sided with the mayor (apart from the fact that the mayor was Jewish).

Either way, I think Testaccio, and to a greater extent Ostiense, show off a relatively new side of Rome, one freed from the constraints of the past.  In leaving you here, I encourage you to explore the murals, bars, and restaurants on offer under the Gazometro, on Via Ostiense, and beyond, many of which will present a new kind of Roman cuisine, one that pushes past the storied history of meat and meat guts, instead offering pescatarian, vegetarian, and even vegan options.  Gasp!  

Well, you’ve now traveled from the bullpens of the ancients to the sushi bars of the Instagram crowd.  Even if Rome was once the center of the world by some measure, its cuisine was, and still is very much its own thing.  

While you’ll have plenty of opportunity to discover throughout the city what makes Roman cuisine unique, for better or worse, it’s here where you’ll be able to find food for today’s diet, free from the constraints of the past.  Buon appetito.

10 Via del Porto Fluviale \|||// As you walk under the overpass, into what will turn into Via delle Conce, you should notice a certain evolution of the street art from the seemingly primordial scrawlings of the Città dell’Altra Economia into the refined work of the Porto Fluviale and throughout the neighborhood of Ostiense.

Since we’re now officially outside of the old city walls, we’re no longer in a rione, but rather in a quartiere: in fact, it’s one of Rome’s very first quartieri, established in 1907 by the British-born, anti-clerical mayor named Ernesto Nathan, who made it his goal to transform Rome, however incrementally, into a modern, industrial city.  It’s Ostiense, I think, with its mammoth gazometro dominating the skyline like a skeletal Colosseum, that once personified industrialization perhaps more than any other area in Rome, and it is even uglier than Testaccio.

In recent years, though, the neighborhood has taken on a lot more color.  Thanks to murals like the one in front of you, by the Bolognese artist Blu, with his “thousand faces” adorning a former air force building-turned squat, the neighborhood has not only taken on a personality, but a pathway that uses aesthetics to transform the blight.  

At your back, just opposite Blu’s “Mille Volte”, you’ll see “Hunting Pollution” by Milanese artist Federico “Hyena Cruz” Massa, with teal waves surrounding an endangered heron with a fish in its beak.  Though it kind of looks like something you’d find in a Capri Sun ad, Cruz’ mural utilizes a special paint called Airlite that claims to convert airborne pollutants into inert salts, which in turn provides a protective coating that helps reflect the sun’s heat, reducing the need for air conditioning by 29%.  Now, I’m no scientist, and I’m definitely not sure as to how they reached that percentage, but it sounds good to me!

For urban planners throughout Italy, and in Rome above all, progress can be almost impossible.  How can you compete with layer upon layer of historical testimony to one of the most sprawling, accomplished empires in human history?  When met with those who opposed Ernesto Nathan’s dream of modernizing Rome, the mayor took umbrage, reportedly quipping, “You talk gentlemen, as if Rome were a corpse. Rome is not a corpse, and I must decline to embalm her.”  I suspect that Mussolini, for all of his brazen destruction of the city’s architecture, which we discuss at length in our other tours here, would have sided with the mayor (apart from the fact that the mayor was Jewish).

Either way, I think Testaccio, and to a greater extent Ostiense, show off a relatively new side of Rome, one freed from the constraints of the past.  In leaving you here, I encourage you to explore the murals, bars, and restaurants on offer under the Gazometro, on Via Ostiense, and beyond, many of which will present a new kind of Roman cuisine, one that pushes past the storied history of meat and meat guts, instead offering pescatarian, vegetarian, and even vegan options.  Gasp!  

Well, you’ve now traveled from the bullpens of the ancients to the sushi bars of the Instagram crowd.  Even if Rome was once the center of the world by some measure, its cuisine was, and still is very much its own thing.  

While you’ll have plenty of opportunity to discover throughout the city what makes Roman cuisine unique, for better or worse, it’s here where you’ll be able to find food for today’s diet, free from the constraints of the past.  Buon appetito.

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