The largest unreinforced dome in the world, with a nine-metre opening that rain has been falling through for eighteen centuries.
A marble elephant carrying an Egyptian obelisk on its back, with a tail that seems to be delivering a message.
Eleven columns from an imperial temple, built into a customs house that now holds the Chamber of Commerce.
A dream, bad omens, and a letter he never read: the morning before he left.
A column thirty metres high raised for a philosopher-emperor, and a dead-straight street that spent centuries as a racecourse.
The dome above the nave is made of paint, and it only lines up from exactly one spot on the floor.
Inside: the small marble disc where the painted dome snaps into place, and what happens when you step aside.
A dome on a six-pointed star, crowned with a stone screw that appears nowhere else in the city.
The shape of the square traces the floor plan of a stadium, and the city's loveliest false story is about the figure with the covered head.
Their work stands twenty metres apart here, and that gave the city its finest untrue story.
A marble foot a metre and a half long, the last trace of an Egyptian sanctuary that once stood beneath this block.
A sixteenth-century water carrier, the only one in this little company that isn't an ancient statue.
Behind a quiet facade lies the iron gridiron on which, according to tradition, Laurence was roasted alive.
Inside: the iron gridiron in the first chapel on the right, and the tomb of Nicolas Poussin.
A toga-clad Roman who lost his head more than once, with a line on the base that he seems to speak himself.
The senate met in Pompey's hall, where a statue stood of the defeated rival whose name it bore.
Four temples from the republic, uncovered by a demolition that went wrong, and a cat colony that gets to stay by law.
Why the statues spoke, what's left of the company, and why notes still hang here today.
This short walk of about one and a half kilometres follows the talking statues of Rome, the group the city calls the congrega degli arguti. Under papal rule there was no free press, so Romans stuck their criticism on a handful of ancient statues at night, and those texts were passed around the city the next day. You pass Pasquino, Marforio, Madama Lucrezia, Abate Luigi and Il Facchino, and the walk ends back at Pasquino, where notes still appear today. Everything is out on the street except Marforio, which stands in the courtyard of the Capitoline Museums and needs a ticket.
This short walk of under two kilometres follows the afternoon of 15 March in the year 44 BC, hour by hour. You begin at Largo di Torre Argentina, where the hall of Pompey stood and where Caesar was killed, walk through the morning with his wife's dream and the letter he never read, and end on the Forum where his body was burned and where the republic effectively came to an end. The walk explains along the way who Caesar was and why some sixty senators wanted him dead, so no prior knowledge is needed. Everything is out on the street.
The water is two thousand years old, the fountain eighteen centuries younger, and off to the right stands a vase that holds nothing up at all.
Not one of the ten angels on the Angel Bridge is by Bernini himself. The two he carved with his own hands stand right here.
Midday, a petition used as a distraction, and twenty-three wounds of which only one was fatal.
Inside: the two angels Bernini carved with his own hands, and why they never made it to the bridge.
The one large square in the old centre without a church, with the half circle of a vanished theatre tucked around the corner.
A colossal bust from an Egyptian sanctuary, the only female voice in the company.
The market where sentences were also carried out, with the statue of Giordano Bruno standing at its centre.
This loop of around one and a half kilometres runs through the ghetto of Rome, where the Jewish community has lived for more than two thousand years and where it was locked behind gates from 1555 until 1870. You pass the only street that survived the demolition, a house that dates itself from the founding of Rome, the fish market under an imperial gateway, and the square that carries the date of the raid in its name. The walk starts and ends on Piazza Mattei. Everything is out on the street apart from the synagogue with the Jewish Museum, which requires a ticket.
This fashion street is named after the water main beneath it, and at number 86 you'll find the oldest café in the city.
A house from 1468 that dates itself from the founding of Rome: the year 2221.