I cant believe i spent a week in Rome and didn’t even know about this. Its right near the train station!
The non-Catholic cemetery is right next to it (though you have to walk around the block to the entrance). In there are buried Keats, Shelley, and Gramsci among others, attended by a colony of cats.
Haha “technically the cats own the property”
Right rond the corner is a very unassuming hill, that is circled by night clubs. That hill is the oldest mass garbage disposal we know of.
It’s called monte Testaccio where millions of Roman amphorae used for olive oil were discarded. The hill played an important role in religious festivities.
Quite a fun landmark in this area of the city. It’s easy to miss, as it’s Rome and there’s important history on every corner.
For quite some time this pyramid was the number one resource for artists who wanted to paint Egyptian scenes. The travel cost to Egypt was prohibitive for many artists.
So Cestius’ pyramid with it’s more acute angles features quite a lot in Egyptian scenes in the Renaissance. So if you’ve ever wondered why painters made rather acute pyramids, whilst they aren’t very common in Egypt, this pyramid holds the answer.
Today we could just look up an image but before the invention of photography that was impossible.
