Page 270 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Rome

268  ROME AREA B Y AREA

w Catacombs of helped find the corpses. The site
Domitilla is now a memorial to the values
of the Resistance against the Nazi
Via delle Sette Chiese 282. Tel 06-511 occupation, which gave birth to
0342. @ 218, 716. Open 9am–noon & the modern Italian Republic (see
2–5pm Wed–Mon (summer: 5:30pm). also p187). A forbidding bunker-
Closed mid-Dec–mid-Jan, Easter Sun. like monument houses the rows
& ^ 8 ∑ domitilla.info
of identical tombs containing
This network of catacombs is the victims.
the largest in Rome. Many of Beside it is a museum of the
the tombs from the 1st and 2nd Resistance. Interesting works of
centuries AD have no Christian modern sculpture include The
connection. In the burial Martyrs, by Francesco Coccia,
chambers there are frescoes and the gates shaped like a wall
of both Classical and Christian of thorns by Mirko Basaldella.
scenes, including one of the
earliest depictions of Christ as r Tomb of Cecilia
the Good Shepherd. Above the
catacombs stands the basilica Metella EUR’s Palazzo della Civiltà del Lavoro, the
of Santi Nereo e Achilleo. Via Appia Antica, km 3. Tel 06-3996 “Square Colosseum”
After plenty of rebuilding and 7700. @ 118, 660. Open 9am–approx
restoration, little remains of 1 hr before sunset Tue–Sun. t EUR
the original 4th-century church. @ 170, 671, 714 and other routes.
One of the most famous q EUR Fermi, EUR Palasport. Museo
landmarks on the Via Appia della Civiltà Romana: Piazza G. Agnelli
Antica is the huge tomb built 10. Tel 06-0608. Open 9am–2pm
for the noblewoman Cecilia Tue–Sun (last adm: 1pm). Undergoing
Metella. Her father and husband restoration; call ahead. Closed Jan 1,
were rich patricians, and May 1, Dec 25. &
successful generals of late
Republican Rome, but hardly The Esposizione Universale di
anything is known about the Roma (EUR), a suburb south
woman herself. Byron muses of the city, was built for an
over her unknown destiny in international exhibition, a kind
his poem Childe Harold. of “Work Olympics,” that was
In 1302 Pope Boniface VIII planned for 1942, but never
donated the tomb to his family, took place because of the war.
the Caetani. They incorporated it The architecture was intended
in a fortified castle that blocked to glorify Fascism, and the style
Bronze entrance gates to the Fosse the Via Appia, allowing them to of the buildings is very over-
Ardeatine by Mirko Basaldella control the traffic on the road blown and rhetorical. The eerie
and exact high tolls. The marble shape of the Palazzo della Civiltà
e Fosse Ardeatine facing of the tomb was pillaged del Lavoro (The Palace of the
by another pope, Sixtus V, at the Civilization of Work) is an
Via Ardeatina 174. Tel 06-513 6742.
@ 218, 716. Open 8:15am–3:15pm end of the 16th century. un mistak able landmark for those
Mon–Fri, 8:15am–4:45pm Sat & Sun. On the opposite side of the arriving from Fiumicino airport.
Closed public hols. road stands what remains of the The plan was completed in
early 14th-century church of the 1950s. In terms of town
On the evening of March 24, San Nicola. planning, EUR has been quite
1944, Nazi forces took 335 successful, and people are still
prisoners to this abandoned eager to live here. The great
quarry south of Rome, and shot marble halls house govern ment
them at point-blank range. The offices and museums.
execution was in reprisal for a The Museo della Civiltà
bomb attack that had killed 32 Romana displays a vast scale
German soldiers. The victims model of Rome at the time of
included various political Constantine and casts of the
prisoners, 73 Jews, and 10 other reliefs on Trajan’s Column. These,
civilians, among them a priest and the interesting planetarium,
and a 14-year-old boy. The make the museum worth a visit.
Germans blew up the tunnels To the south is a lake, and
where the massacre had taken park, and the huge domed
place, but a local peasant had Fragments of marble relief on the Tomb of Palazzo dello Sport built for the
witnessed the scene, and later Cecilia Metella 1960 Olympics.

US_268-269_EW_Rome_US.indd 268 15/03/17 4:21 pm
Eyewitness Travel LAYERS PRINTED:
Catalogue template “UK” LAYER
(Source v1.9)
Date 20th August 2012
Size 125mm x 217mm