Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
period of official intolerance that lasted, on and off, until the 20th century . Ironically,
though, confinement meant that Jewish cultural and religious identity survived intact.
MUSEO EBRAICO DI ROMA
SYNAGOGUE, MUSEUM
(Jewish Museum of Rome; 06 6840 0661;
www.museoebraico.roma.it
; Via Catalana; adult/reduced €10/7.50;
10am-6.15pm Sun-Thu, 10am-3.15pm Fri mid-Jun-mid-Sep, 10am-4pm Sun-Thu, 9am-1.15pm Fri mid-Sep-mid-Jun;
Lungotevere de' Cenci)
The historical, cultural and artistic heritage of Rome's Jewish com-
munity is chronicled in this small but engrossing museum. Housed in the city's
early-20th-century synagogue, Europe's second largest, it presents harrowing reminders of
the hardships experienced by the city's Jewry. Exhibits include copies of Pope Paul IV's
papal bull confining the Jews to the ghetto and relics from Nazi concentration camps.
PALAZZO CENCI
( Vicolo dei Cenci; closed to the public; Via Arenula, Via Arenula)
A real-life house of horrors,
Palazzo Cenci was the scene of one of the 16th century's most infamous crimes, the
murder of Francesco Cenci by his long-suffering daughter Beatrice and wife Lucrezia.
Shelley based his tragedy
The Cenci
on the family, and a famous portrait of Beatrice by
Guido Reni hangs in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica - Palazzo Barberini. It shows a
sweet-faced young girl with soft eyes and fair hair.
PALACE
FONTANA DELLE TARTARUGHE
( Piazza Mattei; Via Arenula, Via Arenula)
This playful much-loved 16th-century fountain de-
picts four boys gently hoisting tortoises up into a bowl of water. Now covered in scaffold-
ing, it's the subject of a romantic fairy tale which holds that it was created in a single night
in 1585.
The story goes that Taddeo Landini crafted it for the Duke of Mattei, who had gambled
his fortune away and was on the verge of losing his fiancée. On seeing the fountain, Mat-
tei's future father-in-law was so impressed that he relented and let Mattei marry his
daughter. The tortoises were added by Bernini in 1658.
MONUMENT
AREA ARCHEOLOGICA DEL
TEATRO DI MARCELLO E DEL
PORTICO D'OTTAVIA
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE
