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Visits of Rome:
- Visit of Rome's Colosseum
- Visit the Roman Forum
- Visit Rome by night
- Rome shore excursion from Civitavecchia
- Visit Rome Vatican Museums
- Visit Rome Vatican's Sixtine Chapel
- Visit Rome's Trevi Fountain
- Visit Rome's Piazza Navona
- Visit Rome's Circus Maximus
- Visit Rome's Constantine Arch
- Visit Rome's Spanish Steps
- Visit St Peter Basilica in Rome
- Visit Rome's Trajan Forum
- Visit Rome Pantheon
- Visit the Mouth of Truth of Rome
- Visit St Mary above Minerva in Rome
- Private tour or big bus?
- Rome tourist information and advice
- Visit Venice Squares' Vittoriano in Rome
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The Capitol Hill
Before visiting the Roman Forum, you have to climb the famous Capitol steps designed by Michelangelo to have an idea of its extension and what it has been used for.
The Capitol Hill, in Latin Capitolium, derives from the latin expression caput (head) and it is the most famous among the hills of Rome. Today also called Capitoline Hill or Tarpeo mount, the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was on it, this last maximum divinity of the city.
It is formed by two high ground and a depression and it was called mountain of Saturn. Upon one of these heights the temple of the Triade Capitolina rose (Jupiter, Juno - Giunone - and Minerva) and objects precious and great wealths were guarded. On the other summit where rises now the church of the Aracoeli stood the fortress with the temple of Juno Moneta, where the mint was.
Among the two tops was the Intermontium, also called Asylum, which corresponded to the actual Capitol Square (Piazza del Campidoglio). Toward the Forum raised the Tabularium, center of the archives in ancient Rome still existing, and here according to the legend Romulus (Romolo) would have fixed his center.
Various temples of every age and nature accompanied the temple of the Triade Capitolina (Fortune, Faith, Mars Ultor, Venus Capitolina, the altars of the "gens Julia"), but of them today nothing doesn't remain almost.
After a long period of neglectitude, especially during the Middle Ages, the first great work of intervention and reorganization of the irregular agglomeration Capitoline was of Michelangelo. The move of the statue of Marcus Aurelius riding a horse (coming from Saint John Lateran - San Giovanni in Laterano - in 1547) and the creation of a pedestal, the two statues of the Nile and the Tiber at the Senatorial building (Palazzo Senatorio) from each side of the base of its double staircase (1544-1554), and finally the staircase of access to the Piazza (Cordonata) conceived by Michelangelo in 1536 but built only after his death in 1582.
On top of the Capitol hill you will really see how the history came and left its marks, century after century and if you have planned to stay few days in Rome the Capitoline must be visited during the daylight for its history, but also during your night tour because while illuminated its romanticism is unparalleled.
Guiding you through the highest of the seven hills of Rome deserves more than several minutes of your attention because the Capitol hill is also the seat of the local government of Rome, and it has the offices of its Major.
The ancient Rome tour is a comprehensive description of the remains of the Eternal City and of its glorious past, in an effort to make it to you as much as alive as possible, narrating the main events that made Rome the head of the mediterranean civilization.