The Jewish Ghetto in Rome

The walk can start from Piazza Mattei, the square, small and hidden, is certainly one of the most enchanting in Rome. Here there are two noble palaces, Palazzo Mattei and Palazzo Costaguti, still inhabited today by the last heirs of this important Roman family. There is a fountain placed in the center of the square, built between 1581 and 1584 by the sculptor Taddeo Landini on a design by Jacopo Della Porta, the fountain was restored in 1658 at the behest of Pope Alexander VII, the works were entrusted to Gian Lorenzo Bernini who had the idea of adding bronze turtles, which made the fountain famous with the name of Fontana delle Tartarughe. The turtles, during the course of the centuries, were repeatedly victims of theft, but fortunately they were always found and today they are kept in the Capitoline Museums, now you will see copies on the edge of the fountain. Piazza Mattei in 1800 marked the border between Christian Rome and Jewish Rome: the Mattei and the Costaguti in fact held the keys to one of the Ghetto doors, opened in the dramatic "Serraglio" located between Piazza Mattei and the beginning of Via della Reginella . Each evening, at sunset, these doors were barred to be reopened only the following morning. The Jewish Ghetto was established in 1555 by Pope Paul IV Carafa to convey the Jewish inhabitants of Rome to a single neighborhood, in order to be able to better monitor them. The population lived in a terrible, dirty and in dramatic conditions, without rights and subjecting to absurd obligations, such as not being able to go out at night, wearing colored marks on clothes to be immediately recognized or being forced to listen to the "Messe Coatte ".

Crossing Via della Reginella which represents one of the most characteristic alleys of the Jewish Quarter, you reach the central artery of the Ghetto, Via del Portico d'Ottavia. A little further on, just past the corner, there is a small and graceful circular aedicule with white columns: it is the Carmel Temple inside which, in the past, the miraculous image of the Virgin of Carmine was kept, unfortunately now lost.