Tourist Information
Visiting Hours
Last admission: 9:00 PM
On Monday, August 31, September 14 and 28, October 12 and 26, November 9 and 23, and December 7 and 21, for maintenance or public order reasons, the fountain will open at 2:00 PM.
Entrance Tickets
The €2 ticket allows access to the Trevi Fountain's inner perimeter during the above-mentioned hours.
It can be purchased online or on-site, with debit or credit cards only.
Free
Tickets are free for Rome residents (ID required), children under 6, disabled visitors and one companion, MIC Card holders, and tour guides.
The fountain remains free for everyone after visiting hours.
History and description
It is the largest and, certainly, the best-known fountain in Rome and the monument most photographed by tourists from all over the world, after the Colosseum.
The history of the fountain is closely connected to that of the Vergine Aqueduct, the aqueduct that Marco Vipsanio Agrippa brought to Rome in 19 BC. to bring water from the Salone basin, on the Via Collatina, to its thermal baths in Campo Marzio. The only aqueduct still in operation after two thousand years and which today supplies the fountains of the historic center such as the three fountains in Piazza Navona or the fountain in front of the Pantheon.
It was precisely in today's Piazza di Trevi that Agrippa positioned one of the minor fountains of the aqueduct, consisting of three collection tanks, placed side by side and against a building. They remained like this until 1453 when they were replaced by a single large basin and, in 1640 Pope Urban VIII decided to replace the large basin with a grandiose fountain, commissioning the architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who he significantly expanded the square, demolishing some huts, and rotated the fountain orthogonally so as to orient it like today's. Both died before it was completed and it was necessary to wait more than a century because Pope Clement XII had the fountain replaced with another monumental one completed by Giuseppe Pannini and inaugurated on 22 May 1762.
Vicus Caprarius - The City of Water
Between 1999 and 2001, during the renovation of a former cinema adjacent to the fountain, came to light, nine meters deep, a building complex from the imperial age, with the remains of an insula, the typical house of late republican and imperial Rome, and one of the 18 cisterns present along the urban stretch of the Vergine aqueduct.
Piazza Navona
First the stadium and then the square..
The most beautiful baroque square in Rome which occupies exactly the arena of the ancient Stadium of Domitian, of which it has perfectly preserved its elongated rectangular shape, with one of the shorter sides curved.
The Stadium was built by Domitian around 85 AD. to serve in the Greek athletic games which included running, boxing, discus and javelin throwing. And the name of the square originates from the Latin “in agonis” (in Agone/in Nagone) which in Latin means “games”.
The stadium was 265 meters long and 106 meters wide (the arena measured approximately 240 x 65 metres), the auditorium was made up of two orders of arches on travertine pillars and could hold up to 30,000 spectators. Two of the three main entrances opened in the center of the two long sides, with the third opening onto the curved side which, in today's square, is closed by a modern building, beneath which the corresponding travertine arch is visible at the third entrance to the old stadium.
In the Middle Ages, houses were built on the terraces which were then transformed into palaces starting from 1400 while the square was used for centuries as a market and, periodically, used for games and public celebrations.
The obelisk which is now in the center of the square (16.38 m high and, with the fountain, over 30 metres) was built by the emperor Domitian, in 311 Maxentius had it moved to the circus of his villa on Via Appia Antica. It was only in 1651 that Pope Innocent
The Fountain of the Four Rivers is one of the most beautiful and famous monuments of Baroque Rome and represents the four great rivers known at the time, the Ganges, the Nile, the Danube and the Rio della Plata, with as many giant statues . The Nile has a veiled head because its sources were unknown at the time, even if for the people, however, it expressed Bernini's contempt for the nearby church of S.Agnese in Agone, designed by his rival Borromini, while the arm raised, to head protection, in the figure of the Rio de la Plata, expressed the artist's ironic fear that the church might collapse.
Piazza Navona, however, remains famous in the memory of the Romans for the festivals and water games that were held there until 1870 when, with Rome the capital of Italy, the square was paved with "cobblestones". For almost two centuries, every weekend in August, the drains of the three fountains were closed, allowing the water to overflow and the square, which at the time was concave, was flooded, transforming it into the "Lake of Piazza Navona" and everyone, nobles and poor people, they enjoyed themselves by crossing the square on horseback or in a carriage, the former, or splashing around in it or pushing their handcarts into the water, the latter.
After 1870, with the construction of the central humpback sidewalk, the square became connected making the creation of the "lake" impossible but the animation of the square is reborn during the Christmas period with the feast of the Epiphany when Piazza Navona fills up of stalls, toys, "Hags" and "Santa Clauses", as if not wanting to abandon the play and joy that have accompanied it for centuries.
Piazza Navona Underground - The Archaeological Area of ??the Stadium of Domitian
The remains of the ancient Stadium of Domitian are located beneath Piazza Navona, approximately 4.50 meters below street level, in an area between Piazza Navona, Piazza di Tor Sanguigna, and Via di Tor Sanguigna. You can visit the Curva area (Normal Tour) or the Tribuna area, recently opened to the public for the first time (Exclusive Tour).
Opening Hours: The area is open daily from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, last admission at 6:20 pm
Castel Sant'Angelo
Tourist Information
Opening Hours
Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00 am to 7:30 pm, last admission at 6:30 pm
Closed: Mondays, December 25th, and January 1st
Tickets
Tickets can be purchased online or on-site. Tickets are personal, and visitors must show their personal ticket and
an original ID at the entrance.
Free
Admission is free for children under 18, tour guides, and disabled visitors, along with one family member or other accompanying person.
Admission will be free for everyone on the first Sunday of the month. In this case, all visitors (individuals and groups) will queue together to collect their free, non-personalized ticket at the entrance.
Entry Ticket + Audio Guide App
Mausoleum, fortress, castle... and museum
From funerary monument to fortress, from terrible prison to splendid Renaissance residence, to becoming the museum of today.
Built around 123 AD. by Emperor Hadrian as an imperial tomb for himself and his successors, Castel Sant'Angelo accompanies the fate and history of Rome for almost two thousand years.
The Antonine and Severe emperors up to Caracalla were buried here, before the Mausoleum was "transformed" into an advanced bastion of the Aurelian Walls and used as a fortress to defend the city from the north. Then incorporated into the Vatican walls built by Pope Leo IV, Castel Sant'Angelo became an impregnable stronghold for almost five centuries and in 1527 Pope Clement VII took refuge there to escape the landsknechts during the sack of Rome.
It was then in the nineteenth century that the castle began to be used exclusively as a political prison. In the cells of Castel Sant'Angelo, among others, Benvenuto Cellini, Beatrice Cenci and Giordano Bruno were held prisoner.
The Mole Adriana consisted of a large square base measuring 89 meters per side and a height of 15 metres, from which rose a cylindrical construction approximately 20 meters high (inside which there was the burial chamber), covered in marble, crowned by statues and covered by an earthen mound with cypresses, which was surmounted by a large bronze quadriga driven by a colossal Hadrian.
It was in 403, when the Western emperor Honorius included it in the Aurelian Walls, that the building lost its function as a tomb and was referred to for the first time with the name of castellum. Due to the wars, the columns and statues that adorned the mausoleum disappeared, including the quadriga and the statue of Hadrian, the building became the cornerstone of a fortified citadel, with towers, battlements and loopholes, with two doors, one towards the bridge , the other towards S.Pietro and the Mole became the Castle forever.
Entrance times: Castel Sant'Angelo is open every day, except Monday, from 9.00 to 19.30. It is closed on December 25th, January 1st and May 1st.
Passetto di Borgo
The Passetto di Borgo is the elevated section of the Vatican Walls that runs from the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican, starting behind the colonnade of St. Peter's Square, to Castel Sant'Angelo.
Built to control the Borgo area below and quell any riots, it was later used to transport prisoners to the dungeons of Castel Sant'Angelo whose presence in the feared papal prisons was not to be made known. Above all, it served as an escape route that allowed the Pope to quickly reach the safe walls of the Castle during periods of great importance for Rome and the Church, such as the invasion of Rome by Charles VIII of France in 1494 or the Sack of Rome by the Landsknechts in 1527.
Tourist Information
The Passetto di Borgo is open to visitors under the following conditions.
The Passetto is closed on the first Sunday of the month
