Discover Trastevere

Trastevere is the largest rione in Rome. Its name is the oldest thing about it: from the Latin trans Tiberim, the name of the ancient Augustan regio, meaning beyond the Tiber — beyond, that is, from the point of view of the city's beating heart, which had grown up on the other bank.

The city describes it as the place where people come to find the Rome of former times: tangled lanes, characteristic squares, trattorie and osterie cooking the traditional Roman recipes, craft workshops and small family-run shops still in business, and one of the most photographed quarters in Rome.

It is also one of the most famous places of the capital's nightlife, taking in every evening the young people who come for the bars and the small squares — above all piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, the quarter's main square, and piazza Trilussa.

And there is the catch, because the quarter's openings run close to the inverse of when people come. Villa Farnesina — where Raphael and his school painted the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche and the nymph Galatea — is open Monday to Saturday 9.00 to 14.00 and closed on Sundays, apart from an extraordinary opening on the second Sunday of the month. The Museo di Roma in Trastevere and Palazzo Corsini are both closed on Mondays. The Botanical Garden, uniquely, opens every day, Sundays and public holidays included.

The rione reaches further than the nightlife does. Its boundaries run up to the Aurelian and Gianicolense walls, which puts the Gianicolo inside it — and with it the double view over the historic centre and the dome of St Peter's, Bramante's Tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio, and the cannon that fires a blank every day at 12 exactly, as it has since 1904.

At its centre stands the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, which the city calls probably the first official place of Christian worship in Rome — a hedged claim, and the hedge is the point. Beside it, a fountain among the oldest of Rome's monumental fountains, restored in 1659 by Bernini for a pope who had just increased the water supply to a quarter where it had been very scarce.

The fabric is narrow, continuous and unplanned, and that is the architecture. The city's own term for it is vicoli intricati — tangled lanes — opening at intervals into characteristic squares. There is no axis, no intended approach and no façade that the quarter was built to present.

The squares are the composition, and they were made by what faced them. Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere is dominated by the basilica it is named after, with the seventeenth-century Palazzo San Callisto, property of the Holy See, along the adjacent side and the fountain in the middle. Piazza Trilussa was given its shape in 1898, when a salvaged fountain was set above street level on fifteen steps, on the axis of ponte Sisto and in deliberate visual connection with the Acqua Paola display on the Gianicolo above.

The basilica is the one interior built as architecture rather than accumulated. Three naves divided by twenty-two ancient granite columns of varying diameter, with Ionic and Corinthian capitals probably taken from the Baths of Caracalla — a plan assembled from spoil and legible as such. The square-based bell tower is 12th-century; the portico was remodelled in 1702 by Carlo Fontana; the coffered ceiling follows Domenichino's design of 1617.

Villa Farnesina is the opposite case and the quarter's one piece of design. Built to Baldassarre Peruzzi's plan between 1505 and 1520, the city calls it one of the noblest and most harmonious achievements of the Italian Renaissance; its entrance is from the rear façade, the principal front being the one with two lateral projecting wings, and what characterises both building and decoration is the close bond between villa and garden, each the ideal continuation of the other.

And the rione does not stop at the flat ground. Its boundaries run up to the Mura Aurelie and Mura Gianicolensi, so the quarter includes the hill, the walls and Bramante's Tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio — a circular building of 1502–1509 whose polychrome cosmatesque floor conceals the crypt and the slab over the hole said to have been left by Saint Peter's cross.

It was built on the far bank, which is the whole explanation. The ancient Augustan regio was trans Tiberim — beyond the Tiber from the city's beating heart, which had developed on the other side. A quarter that grows across a river from the centre grows by accretion along its lanes, not outward from a forum.

The crossings came first, in the Republic. The ponte Fabricio was built in 62 BC and the ponte Cestio in 46 BC, reaching the Isola Tiberina from the Ghetto side and the Trastevere side respectively — the island's geological basis being a compact bank of tufa like the nearby Capitoline, on which the current's sands settled.

The constraint that shaped daily life here was water, and it was not solved until the 17th century. The piazza Santa Maria fountain stands where one already stood in the time of Augustus, and is documented in Pietro del Massaio's map of 1471 in substantially its present form; but the supply was in truth very scarce throughout the whole quarter until 1659, when Alexander VII increased the flow and sent Bernini to restore the basin. Before that, Paul V's Fontana dell'Acqua Paola of 1613 had been built expressly to supply the rioni of Trastevere, Borgo, Regola and Ponte.

The 19th century rebuilt the edge and broke things doing it. When the Tiber embankments were undertaken in 1870 after a disastrous flood, the Acqua Paola fountain was dismantled and almost half its pieces broke or were scattered among the municipal stores; the architect Vescovali rebuilt it in piazza Trilussa in 1898 from only what little remained. The lungoteveri those works created are now the rione's river boundary.

Two of the quarter's institutions were made by gift rather than construction. The Botanical Garden reached its definitive home at Villa Corsini in 1883, the State having bought the property from Tommaso Corsini; the same year, selling the palace to the Kingdom of Italy, Corsini donated all the works inside it, which is why the collection survives intact. Villa Farnesina passed to the Italian State in 1927 and became the representative seat of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 1944.

What does the name mean? It is from the Latin trans Tiberim, the ancient Augustan regio, meaning beyond the Tiber relative to the heart of the city on the other bank.

How big is the rione? Trastevere is the largest rione in Rome. Its boundaries run from the lungoteveri up to the Aurelian and Gianicolense walls, which puts the Gianicolo inside it.

Is there anything that happens at a set time? Yes. Below the Gianicolo Belvedere, three soldiers fire a blank cannon shot every day at 12 exactly — since 1904, and started by Pius IX on 1 December 1847 so the city would have one signal of the official hour.

What is open on a Monday? The Botanical Garden (open every day) and Villa Farnesina (9.00–14.00). Closed: the Museo di Roma in Trastevere and Palazzo Corsini.

What is open on a Sunday? The Botanical Garden and the Museo di Roma in Trastevere (10.00–20.00). Villa Farnesina is closed on Sundays — except the second Sunday of the month, 9.00–17.00.

How much is Villa Farnesina? EUR 12 full, EUR 10 reduced for students, over-65s and agreement holders. Free for children up to 10, licensed tourist guides, accredited journalists, and visitors with a disability accompanied by a companion.

How much is the Botanical Garden? The garden publishes its amounts only on its home page, so we do not quote them here — check it before you go. What it does state on its FAQ: reduced for children 6 to 11, people 65 and over, and members of John Cabot University, the Touring Club Italiano or the Fondo Ambiente Italiano; free for children 0 to 5, disabled visitors and their companion, and Sapienza staff and students. A guided visit adds EUR 4 a head on a full ticket and EUR 2 on a reduced one.

Is the Botanical Garden free on the first Sunday of the month? No. Many of Rome's state museums are; this one is not. The garden's own answer is that the ticket is always payable.

When is Porta Portese? No opening days or hours are published by the city or by the market itself. The city describes it as a genuine Sunday ritual for Romans, so Sunday morning is the window — but nobody publishes an hour.

Is Santa Maria in Trastevere the oldest church in Rome? The careful claim, and the city's own, is that it was probably the first official place of Christian worship in Rome. By legend it was built at the order of Callixtus I in the 3rd century and finished by Saint Julius I in 340.

Can I photograph inside Villa Farnesina? Photographs without flash, yes. Video, no — not inside and not outside, even during the extraordinary openings. Groups over ten must use earphones.

Why is there a lion on the rione's shield? The arms are a golden lion's head on a red field. The city's explanation is that until 1471, when the Capitoline Wolf replaced it, the lion was one of the symbols of Rome and of the power of the people.

Where is the Museo del Folklore? It was renamed. Since 2000 it has been the Museo di Roma in Trastevere, in the ex-monastery of Sant'Egidio.