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Based around the 16th-century Medici Pope Leo X’s Renaissance palace, the Baroque façade of unpointed brick and bold marble window frames was added in the 17th century. Since 1870 it’s been the seat of Italy’s Senate, so public admission is obviously limited.

This masterpiece of Baldassare Peruzzi marks the transition of Roman architecture from the High Renaissance of Bramante and Sangallo into the theatrical experiments of Mannerism that would lead up to the Baroque. The façade is curved for a reason; Peruzzi honoured Neo-Classical precepts so much he wanted to preserve the arc of the Odeon of Domitian, a small theatre incorporated into the south end of the emperor’s stadium.

Housing an extraordinary collection of ancient frescoes, mosaics and sculpture, this branch of the Museo Nazionale Romano is perhaps the most inspiring. The building itself was erected by the Massimo family at the end of the 19th century and later served as a Jesuit college (see Museo Nazionale Romano).

Originally worshippers approached this temple to all the gods by a steep staircase, but the street level has risen since the 2nd century. The present temple was built by Hadrian, after the 1st-century BC temple burned down (see The Pantheon).

Following the departure of the papacy to France in 1309, the city became a backwater ruled by petty princes who built palaces out of marble from the great temples. In 1377 the papacy returned to Rome, and the city was reborn.

That this faceless, armless statue was part of “Menelaus with the body of Patroclus” (a Roman copy of a Hellenistic group) is almost irrelevant. Since this worn fragment took up its post here in 1501, it has been Rome’s most vocal “Talking Statue” (see Around Piazza Navona).

Scholarly and secular, but fighting Protestant reforms, Paul III (1534–49) founded the Jesuits and the Inquisition.

The English poet (1792– 1822) lived in Italy with his wife Mary from 1818 until he drowned near Pisa. He visited Rome often, and penned the masterpiece The Cenci about the scandal of Roman patrician Beatrice Cenci.

Petronius (70–130) parodied Roman life in Satiricon .