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This 12 BC edifice remains a truly imposing monument to the wealthy Tribune of the People for whom it was built. It stands 36 m (118 ft) high and took 330 days to erect, according to an inscription carved into its stones. Unlike Egyptian originals, however, it was built of brick then covered with marble, which was the typically pragmatic, Roman way of doing things.

To boost the female population in the 750s BC Romulus’s men kidnapped women from the neighbouring Sabine kingdom. As Rome began to expand, however, the kingdoms were united. Rome was later conquered by the Etruscan Tarquin dynasty. In 510 BC, a patrician-ruled Republic was formed that lasted more than 450 years.

When Raphael first cast his contemporary artists as Classical thinkers in this imaginary setting, one was missing. After he saw the Sistine ceiling Michelangelo was painting down the hall, Raphael added the troubled genius, sulking on the steps, as Heraclitus (see Raphael Rooms).

Raphael’s towering masterpiece and his final work was found, almost finished, in his studio when he died. It is the pinnacle of his talent as a synthesist, mixing Perugino’s clarity, Michelangelo’s colour palette and twisting figures, and Leonardo’s composition.

Writer-director-actor (b.1952), often using slapstick, achieved worldwide fame with Life is Beautiful .

Neo-realist master director (1906–77) of Rome ,Open City and Paisà .

Once the heart of the Roman empire, this mass of ruins is an eerie landscape that seems gripped by the ghosts of an ancient civilization (see Roman Forum).

Walk around the right side of Palazzo Senatorio for a postcard panorama – floodlit at night.

Romantic comedy which made a star of newcomer Audrey Hepburn in 1953, when she won the Academy Award as a rebellious princess who runs around the city with Gregory Peck, a penniless writer.