Trastevere historical timeline

Last updated on October 5, 2026

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A quarter on the wrong side of the river, which kept its own name, its own water problem and its own lion.

Chronology

Augustan period — the area is the ancient regio called trans Tiberim, from which the rione takes its name: beyond the Tiber, with respect to the heart of the city on the other bank. Structural impact: a quarter defined by the river rather than by a centre. What you see today: the name, and the fact that everything here is reached by crossing.
62 and 46 BC — the two bridges to the Isola Tiberina are built: the ponte Fabricio towards the Ghetto in 62 BC, also called ponte Quattro Capi after the Roman herms on its parapets, and the ponte Cestio towards Trastevere in 46 BC. Structural impact: a permanent crossing in two stages. What you see today: the route still in use.
3rd century — by legend the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere is built at the order of Pope Callixtus I, and finished by Saint Julius I in 340. The city calls it probably the first official place of Christian worship in Rome. Structural impact: a church at the centre of the quarter. What you see today: the basilica, and a square named after it.
c. 1140 — the basilica is rebuilt under Innocent II, who belonged to the wealthy Trasteverine family of the Papareschi; the apse mosaics are made around 1140, after his death, and show him holding a model of the church. The square-based bell tower is of the same century. Structural impact: the building you walk into. What you see today: the mosaics and the tower.
1291 — Pietro Cavallini makes the lower apse mosaics depicting the Life of the Virgin. Structural impact: none. What you see today: the best thing in the basilica.
1471 — the year the city's own account gives for the Capitoline Wolf replacing the lion as a symbol of Rome and of the power of the people; the rione keeps the lion, a golden lion's head on a red field. The same year, Pietro del Massaio's map already documents the fountain in piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere in substantially its present form. Structural impact: none. What you see today: the shield, and a fountain older than most.
1505–1520 — Villa Farnesina is built for the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi to Baldassarre Peruzzi's design, and frescoed by Peruzzi, Sebastiano del Piombo, il Sodoma and Raphael, who with his school makes the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche and the nymph Galatea. Structural impact: a Renaissance villa on the Lungara. What you see today: the quarter's greatest interior.
1613 — Paul V commissions the Fontana dell'Acqua Paola from Vasanzio and Giovanni Fontana to supply the rioni of Trastevere, Borgo, Regola and Ponte; it stands at the end of via Giulia and draws from the Traiano-Paolo aqueduct. Structural impact: water brought to the right bank. What you see today: the fountain — but not where it was put.
1659 — Alexander VII Chigi increases the flow of water to the piazza Santa Maria fountain, until then very scarce throughout the whole quarter, and commissions its restoration from Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who sets four double shells facing outwards into the basin. Structural impact: the quarter's water problem solved by a pope who owned the villa up the road. What you see today: the fountain — though not Bernini's shells.
1692 — under Innocent XII, Carlo Fontana replaces Bernini's shells with the present larger ones facing inwards. Structural impact: the fountain's final form. What you see today: exactly what is in the square.
1847 — on 1 December, Pius IX introduces the noon cannon, so the citizenry has one signal of the official hour instead of churches ringing their bells at differing times. It fires first from Castel Sant'Angelo, then from Monte Mario. Structural impact: none. What you see today: the reason something goes off at midday.
1870 — the Tiber embankments are undertaken after a disastrous flood and the Acqua Paola fountain is dismantled; almost half its pieces break or are divided among the municipal stores. Structural impact: the river walled, the riverside rebuilt. What you see today: the lungoteveri that now form the rione's boundary.
1883 — Prince Tommaso Corsini sells Palazzo Corsini to the Kingdom of Italy and donates to the State all the works in it, which is why the Corsini holding is the only 18th-century Roman collection preserved intact. The Botanical Garden finds its definitive home at Villa Corsini alla Lungara the same year. Structural impact: a palace and a garden pass to the State together. What you see today: both, side by side.
1898 — the Acqua Paola fountain is rebuilt in piazza Trilussa by the architect Vescovali, who can use only what little remained; he sets it above street level at the top of fifteen steps, on the axis of ponte Sisto and in visual connection with the Acqua Paola display on the Gianicolo. Structural impact: a square given a focal point out of salvage. What you see today: the steps everyone sits on.
1904 — the cannon moves to the Gianicolo, below the Belvedere, where three soldiers fire a blank every day at 12 exactly. Structural impact: none. What you see today: the one thing in the rione that happens at a fixed time.
Around 1945 — the market of Porta Portese comes into being, in continuity with the black market that had previously taken place in the Campo de' Fiori area. Structural impact: a weekly market across a wide area of the rione's south. What you see today: what the city calls a genuine Sunday ritual for Romans.
2000 — the former Museum of Folklore and of Romanesco Poets, in the ex-monastery of Sant'Egidio, reopens as the Museo di Roma in Trastevere. Structural impact: none. What you see today: the museum's current name — the old one is still in circulation and is wrong.

Verified against Turismo Roma, October 2026.

External resources

Sources & verification Covers the sourced claims on this page.

Checked against Turismo Roma — Turismo Roma records that Rione XIII, Trastevere, is the largest rione in Rome, much loved by residents and visitors who find the atmosphere of the Rome of former times among its tangled lanes and characteristic squares, in its many trattorie and osterie and in its craft shops and fashionable bars, and that the rione's name comes from the Latin trans Tiberim, the name of the ancient Augustan regio, meaning beyond the Tiber with respect to the beating heart of the city, which had developed on the other bank of the river, Turismo Roma records that the arms of the rione are a golden lion's head on a red field, and offers as the reason that until 1471, when it was replaced by the Capitoline Wolf, the lion was one of the symbols of Rome and of the power of the people, a lion being said to have been kept in a cage at the foot of the Capitol, Turismo Roma records that the fountain in piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere is among the oldest of Rome's monumental fountains, already documented in Pietro del Massaio's map of 1471 in substantially the form visible today, that its troubled history is summarised in the four epigraphs set into its lower basin, that restorations were promoted in 1604 by Clement VIII and above all by Alexander VII Chigi, who in 1659 increased its flow of water -- until then in truth very scarce throughout the whole quarter -- and commissioned the restoration from Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who set four double shells facing outwards into the basin, and that in 1692 under Innocent XII Carlo Fontana replaced Bernini's shells with the present larger ones facing inwards, Turismo Roma records that the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere was probably the first official place of Christian worship in Rome, that by legend it was built at the order of Pope Callixtus I in the 3rd century and finished by Saint Julius I in 340, that it was rebuilt during the pontificate of Innocent II, who belonged to the wealthy Trasteverine family of the Papareschi, that many parts of the church date from the 12th century including the square-based bell tower, that the apse mosaics were made around 1140 after the death of Innocent II, who is shown in them holding a model of the church, that the lower apse mosaics depicting the Life of the Virgin are by Pietro Cavallini and dated 1291, that the portico was remodelled in 1702 by Carlo Fontana, that the interior has three naves divided by twenty-two ancient granite columns of varying diameter with Ionic and Corinthian capitals probably taken from the Baths of Caracalla, and that the coffered ceiling was made to Domenichino's design of 1617 with the Assumption at its centre, Turismo Roma records that the historic market of Porta Portese takes its name from the 17th-century gate built to replace the ancient Porta Portuensis, that it came into being around 1945 in continuity with the black market that had previously taken place in the Campo de' Fiori area, for the selling, buying and bartering of objects of every kind, that it has been captured over the years by poets, directors and songwriters including in Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Mamma Roma and Mario Monicelli's I soliti ignoti, and that an old saying holds that among its hundreds of stalls you can find everything from a pill to a Jumbo Jet, Turismo Roma records that the Isola Tiberina, the only urban island of the Tiber, is about 300 metres long and about 90 wide and is linked to the banks by two bridges -- towards Trastevere by the ponte Cestio, dating from 46 BC, and towards the Ghetto by the ponte Fabricio, built in 62 BC and also called ponte Quattro Capi after the Roman herms that ornament its parapets -- that beneath the sediment its geological basis is a compact bank of tufa similar to that of the nearby Capitoline hill, that by legend a delegation sent to Epidaurus during the plague of 291 BC returned by ship with a snake which leapt ashore at the island, a temple to Aesculapius being raised where it took refuge and the island itself being arranged architecturally as a ship with stern and prow and an obelisk in the middle for a mast, that the church of San Bartolomeo all'Isola was later built on the Roman temple's remains and keeps a 12th-century Romanesque bell tower and a hollowed column used as a well-head, and that the island's ancient medical vocation continues in the Fatebenefratelli hospital, founded in 1584 and still active, and in the Israelitico hospital, Turismo Roma records that the fountain in piazza Trilussa is the Fontana dell'Acqua Paola by the architects Van Santen, known as il Vasanzio, and Giovanni Fontana, commissioned by Pope Paul V Borghese in 1613 to supply the rioni of Trastevere, Borgo, Regola and Ponte, that it originally stood at the end of via Giulia and drew its water from the Traiano-Paolo aqueduct, that in 1870 it was dismantled when the Tiber embankments were undertaken after a disastrous flood, almost half its pieces breaking or being divided among the municipal stores, and that when it was rebuilt in piazza Trilussa in 1898 the architect Vescovali could use only what little remained, setting it above street level at the top of a flight of fifteen steps, on the axis of ponte Sisto and in visual connection with the Acqua Paola display on the summit of the Gianicolo, Turismo Roma records that the Villa della Farnesina alla Lungara, in the heart of the Rione Trastevere, is one of the noblest and most harmonious achievements of the Italian Renaissance, built as the residence of the rich banker of Sienese origin Agostino Chigi to a design by Baldassarre Peruzzi between 1505 and 1520; that it was frescoed to an iconographic programme of extraordinary richness entrusted to the greatest artists of the period, among them Peruzzi himself, Sebastiano del Piombo, il Sodoma and Raphael, who with his school made the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche and the fresco of the nymph Galatea; that chroniclers of the time record how in 1518, at the baptism of Chigi's firstborn, the gold and silver used for the meal was thrown into the Tiber as a sign of munificence, though it appears the prudent banker had secretly had nets laid in the river and so recovered the precious vessels; that Landsknechts bivouacked in the villa during the Sack of Rome; that in 1590 it was bought by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese the younger, from whom comes the name Farnesina to distinguish it from Palazzo Farnese across the river, a bridge over the Tiber being meant to link the two Farnese properties to a design by Michelangelo; that in 1927 it was bought by the Italian State as the seat of the Accademia d'Italia; and that since 1944 it has been the representative seat of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Turismo Roma records that the Gallerie Nazionali d'Arte Antica are a single museum institution divided between Palazzo Barberini and the 16th-century Palazzo Corsini, which also houses the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and the Botanical Garden; that the Corsini holding is the only 18th-century Roman collection to have been preserved intact, thanks to the foresight of Prince Tommaso Corsini, who on selling the palace to the Kingdom of Italy in 1883 donated to the State all the works that formed part of it; and that among the best-known artists whose works are shown there are Beato Angelico, Rubens, Guido Reni, Guercino, Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci, Turismo Roma records that since 1904 three soldiers have fired a blank cannon shot below the Belvedere of the Gianicolo every day at 12 exactly, a tradition going back to Pius IX, who on 1 December 1847 introduced it so that the citizenry would have a single signal of the official time, the city's churches having rung their bells at differing hours, and that before reaching the Gianicolo the cannon fired from the towers of Castel Sant'Angelo and then from Monte Mario (October 2026).

Trastevere historical timeline

Chronology

External resources

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