From this lookout on the Palatine Hill the city unfolds in clear chronological layers. The octagonal structure in the foreground is San Teodoro al Palatino, a 6th-century early Christian rotunda that stands on top of what were once service buildings belonging to the ancient Forum. Behind it runs the edge of the modern city — the residential fronts of Via dei Fienili and Via San Teodoro, where contemporary Rome meets the archaeological zone. Further to the right are the towering remains of the Basilica of Maxentius, the last and largest hall ever built in the Roman Forum. Its arches, when complete, rose higher than the Colosseum and defined the skyline of late imperial Rome. On the horizon shines the massive white silhouette of the Vittoriano, the national monument dedicated to Victor Emmanuel II. It marks the moment when Rome became the capital of unified Italy and stands beside the bell tower of Santa Maria in Aracoeli and the medieval structures of the Capitoline Hill. Between all these landmarks lie the domes and churches stitched into the Forum’s landscape — Santa Maria di Loreto, Santi Luca e Martina, and others that grew out of the ruins in the centuries after the empire collapsed. This entire panorama covers the ground of the Roman Forum and the Imperial Fora — the heart of political power, religion, administration and ceremony in ancient Rome. In antiquity the view would have been filled with temples, basilicas, the Senate house, victory arches and sacred routes. In the Middle Ages these same spaces became the Campo Vaccino, a rough pasture where ruins stood half-buried. In modern times excavations reopened the ancient terrain, revealing the layering that defines this view today. Seen from here, Rome’s history becomes legible in a single glance — the early city, the imperial capital, the medieval town, the Baroque churches and the modern nation all standing in one continuous landscape.
Rome rises on seven hills, and this walk takes us across two of its most revealing ones — Esquiline and Palatine. The Esquiline, once the city’s eastern edge, still carries traces of imperial gardens, hidden nymphaea, magical gates, and traditions that survived the fall of the empire. The Palatine, the hill of the emperors, preserves stadiums, palaces, terraces and views where the entire history of Rome — Republic, Empire, Middle Ages, Baroque and modern Italy — lies in a single panorama. Along the way, we meet the monuments, streets and layers we uncovered in this journey: the baths of Trajan, the Domus Aurea beneath the grass, the Palatine stadium, the Forum’s arches and temples, and the buildings that reshaped Rome across two millennia. And we pause for something timeless: a pastry shop on the Esquiline that has kept its flavours unchanged for more than a century — a taste of Rome as constant as its stones.
