The street that stayed

Via della Reginella is barely four metres wide, and it's the only street of the old ghetto that still lies the way it did back then.

The rest was flattened in the 1880s. Not long after the ghetto was abolished, the new Italian state decided the whole quarter had to come down: too damp, too crowded, too often under water. A grid of broad streets took its place, and only this one passage was left standing.

The height of the houses tells you why it felt so stifling here. In 1555 the Jewish population of Rome was crammed into a few hectares, and the only way to make room was to build upwards, floor upon floor, until the daylight barely reached the street at all.

Look at the facades for the pieces of ancient marble set into the walls, reused from the ruins around the corner, since buying fresh building material was usually beyond the means of the ghetto's residents.

We follow the street to the end and turn right onto the broad Via del Portico d'Ottavia.