Rome - Aventine Attractions

The City Antiquarium in Rome features local archeological finds.

A columbarium was a communal burial chamber with niches in the walls for cinerary urns. The name comes from the resemblance of this type of structure to a dovecote (columba = pigeon). A particularly well-preserved example is the columbarium built for Pomponius Hylas and his wife Vitalinis, which is situated near the Sepolcro degli Scipioni, between the Via Appia Antica and the Via Latina. Pomponius Hylas was a freed slave who seems to have risen to prosperity in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius.

Between the Tiber and Porta San Paolo is a small hill, 35m/115ft high and 850m/930yd in circumference, which was formed during the republican period by the deposit of rubbish, mainly broken pottery from the nearby warehouses, on the banks of the Tiber where the merchant vessels discharged their cargoes. The site was occupied in ancient times by large trading establishments and the Portus Aemilius (second century B.C.), a street of shops 487m/530yd long.

The Oratory of St John "in the Oil" is a small octagonal chapel built by Bramante at the beginning of the 16th century on the remains of an earlier building, and later embellished by Borromini. Here, according to legend, St John was thrown into boiling oil but emerged unharmed, thereafter being banished to Patmos. If the Oratory is closed apply to the missionary college at No. 17.

The Protestant Cemetery lies within the Aurelian Walls near the Pyramid of Cestius. Among the famous foreigners buried here are Keats, who died in Rome on February 24th 1821, and Shelley, drowned in the Gulf of La Spezia in 1822.

San Saba was built in the eighth century and rebuilt in 1205. The elegant 15th century loggia was supported by a pillared portico. The interior is divided into three naves that was divided by 14 ancient columns with wonderful cosmatesque pavement.

Santa Balbina has fragments of mosaic from first century necropolis on the pavement of the schola cantorum.