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Bernini’s father Pietro possibly helped train his son in making this tongue-in-cheek 1629 fountain of a sinking boat. The design ingeniously solved the low water pressure problem by having a boat sprouting leaks rather than jets and sprays.

Fellini’s 1960 classic on “the sweet life” of 1950s Rome, when the Eternal City was a hotspot for international glitterati. Marcello Mastroianni plays a reporter sucked into this decadent lifestyle, while a character named Paparazzo, snapping stars at Via Veneto cafés, gave a name to his occupation.

Discovered in the 1920s, four Republican temples stand out distinctly, with the columns of a portico at the north end. The drainage gutters of an Imperial public latrine are behind one temple, and behind others stands the tufa-block platform of the Curia of the Theatre of Pompey. Caesar was killed here on 15 March 44 BC.

The important ruins of four Republican temples (one dating back to the 4th century BC) were uncovered here in 1925. On the northwest side is the pleasing façade of the 18th-century Teatro Argentina, with its inscription to the Muses. Many operas received their debuts here in the 19th century, including Rossini’s Barber of Seville . It was a crashing flop on its first night, but only because his enemy, Pauline Bonaparte, had paid a gaggle of hecklers.

Barely sketched out, yet compelling for its anatomical precision and compositional experimentation. Jerome forms a spiral that starts in the mountains, runs across the cave entrance and lion’s curve, up the saint’s outstretched right arm, then wraps along his left arm and hand into the centre.

Surprisingly successful 1998 mix of comedy and fable set against Nazi-occupied Italy. Writer/director Roberto Begnini’s Jewish bookseller uses comedy to shield his son from the horror of their Nazi concentration camp by pretending it’s all a big game. It won three Academy Awards.

The ultimate Romantic poet (1788–1824) who lived, to varying degrees, the cavalier life so beloved by his genre. He spent years in Italy in the company of the Shelleys and other friends, and based a large part of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Don Juan on his experiences here.

Visconti (1906–1976) is most famous for filming The Leopard and Death in Venice .

The closest Rome came to having a philosopher-king of the Platonic ideal (161–80).