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Home / Hills of Rome /

Aventine Hill

Written by: Artur Jakucewicz

Sights of the Aventine Hill in Rome
Recommended tour
Address Aventine Hill, Roma

Aventine Hill (Aventino) is the southernmost of Rome’s Seven Hills. Today, visitors prize its leafy lanes, hilltop gardens, and sweeping panoramas, yet its story arcs from the plebeian quarters of the Republic to patrician villas of the Empire and, much later, to Fascist-era politics.

Contents

Toggle
  • What to See and How to Visit
  • Monument to Giuseppe Mazzini
    • Municipal Rose Garden (Roseto Comunale)
    • Fontana del Mascherone di Santa Sabina
    • Orange Garden (Giardino degli Aranci)
    • Basilica di Santa Sabina
    • Knights of Malta Keyhole
  • Aventine in Antiquity
    • Ancient Fortifications & Emporium Port
    • Temple of Diana
  • Hidden Churches of the Aventine
    • San Alessio (Santi Bonifacio e Alessio)
    • Sant’Anselmo all’Aventino
    • Santa Prisca & Mithraeum
    • Santa Maria del Priorato
  • Best Time to Visit
  • Views from the Aventine
  • Foundation Legend
    • Republic and Early Empire
    • Late Antiquity and Middle Ages
    • Modern Era
  • Nearby Attractions

What to See and How to Visit

The most efficient way to explore the Aventine is to climb from the Circus Maximus side. Follow this route:

Circus Maximus ▶︎ Monument to Giuseppe Mazzini ▶︎ Rose Garden ▶︎ Orange Garden ▶︎ Santa Sabina ▶︎ Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta ▶︎ The Keyhole

Monument to Giuseppe Mazzini

Erected in 1949 to designs by sculptor Ettore Ferrari, this 10-meter-tall monument honors the “Prophet of Italian Unity.” Bas-reliefs depict episodes from the Risorgimento, while Mazzini’s bronze figure gazes toward the Parliament he never lived to address.

Monument to Giuseppe Mazzini on the Aventine Hill

Municipal Rose Garden (Roseto Comunale)

Open roughly mid-April–mid-June, this 10 000 m² garden cultivates more than 1 100 rose varieties, many of them prize-winners from its annual international competition. Terraces look toward the Palatine Hill.

Rose trellises in the Roseto Comunale on the Aventine

Fun fact: The ground was Rome’s Jewish cemetery until 1895; the flower beds still trace a discreet Star of David.

Fontana del Mascherone di Santa Sabina

Carved in 1593 to drawings by Giacomo della Porta, this brooding marble “big mask” once watered cattle in the Roman Forum. After long wanderings, it was paired in 1936 with a granite basin from an ancient bath and set into the tufa wall beside Piazza Pietro d’Illiria, just outside the Orange Garden.

Fontana del Mascherone di Santa Sabina

Its furrowed brow and flowing beard evoke Oceanus, god of river and sea, while the ever-running jet still feeds from Rome’s modern aqueduct—perfect for a refill on a hot climb. Movie lovers may recall the fountain from Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty.

Jep Gambardella Aventine Hill The Great Beauty 2013

Tip: Visit at midday when sunlight sculpts the mask’s relief or after dusk when niche lamps cast dramatic shadows rivaling the nearby Mouth of Truth—without the queue.

Orange Garden (Giardino degli Aranci)

Laid out in 1932 by Raffaele de Vico on land once worked by Dominican monks, this 7 800 m² terrace is shaded by bitter-orange trees said to descend from one planted by Saint Dominic in 1220. It frames sunset views of St Peter’s dome and the Janiculum ridge.

Visitors relaxing in the Orange Garden on the Aventine

Address: Piazza Pietro D’Illiria | Tip: come at dawn for crystalline light or an hour before sunset for musicians and golden tones.

Basilica di Santa Sabina

Interior of the 5th-century Basilica di Santa Sabina

Rome’s best-preserved early-Christian basilica (AD 422-432) boasts 24 Corinthian columns recycled from a pagan temple, alabaster clerestory windows, and a cypress-wood door whose 18 carved panels include the oldest known Crucifixion scene—headquarters of the Dominican Order.

Hours: 08:15–12:30 & 15:30–18:00 | Free entry; shoulders and knees covered.

Knights of Malta Keyhole

A peephole in the bronze doors of the Priory of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta perfectly aligns its garden avenue with the faraway dome of St Peter’s—three sovereign territories (Malta, Italy, Vatican City) in one frame. The square was remodeled by Piranesi in 1765.

St Peter’s framed in the Knights of Malta Keyhole

Address: Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta | Best light: early morning before tour groups arrive.

Aventine in Antiquity

Ancient Fortifications & Emporium Port

The Servian Wall (early 4th c. BC) once skirted the hill’s base; segments survive along Via di Porta Lavernale. Below, the Emporium port handled grain, marble, and wine amphorae unloaded from sea-going barges—its vast warehouses (2nd c. AD) now lie buried under 19th-century embankments.

Remains of the Servian Wall on the Aventine

Temple of Diana

Founded around 540 BC by King Servius Tullius, the Temple of Diana became a plebeian rallying place and a model for provincial cults. Though no superstructure remains, excavations beneath Santa Prisca revealed its black-tufa foundations and dedicatory inscriptions.

Hidden Churches of the Aventine

Leave the main promenade, and silence descends: embassies hide behind high walls and the air smells of orange blossom. Along the ridge stand sanctuaries spanning 1 600 years—from a fifth-century basilica to a Rococo chapel guarding a keyhole, a Benedictine abbey still echoing Gregorian chant and a Mithraic temple under a parish floor. Each portal opens onto another century; many reward you with rooftop views and extraordinary cloisters, even in mid-August.

San Alessio (Santi Bonifacio e Alessio)

Founded in the late 900s and later rebuilt in Baroque style, the basilica shelters the wooden staircase under which Saint Alexius is said to have lived incognito as a beggar in his parents’ house. Saint Thomas the Apostle relic lies in the crypt, and the campanile loggia offers a rarely photographed panorama of Trastevere and the Janiculum.

Facade of the Basilica dei Santi Bonifacio e Alessio

Sant’Anselmo all’Aventino

Built 1893–1900 by the Benedictine architect Hildebrand de Hemptinne, the abbey is the headquarters of the Benedictine Confederation and houses the Pontifical Athenaeum. Daily vespers at 18:30 feature unaccompanied Gregorian chant in exemplary tempo and pitch. The Papal Ash Wednesday procession begins here.

Santa Prisca & Mithraeum

This modest fourth-century church sits atop an aristocratic house whose basement became a Mithraic spelea (AD 2nd c.). Stucco vaults, painted attendants, and an altar relief of Mithras slaying the bull survive in vivid color. Guided visits (Fri & Sat 09:00; book through the parish) descend eight meters beneath the nave.

Santa Maria del Priorato

Reworked by Piranesi (1764–66) for the Order of Malta, the chapel brims with maritime trompe-l’œil—anchors, seashells, and eight-pointed crosses. Tours are limited (Fri & Sat 10:00; book online), but even from outside the famous keyhole view of St Peter’s is an Aventine rite of passage.

Best Time to Visit

Golden Hour turns the Aventine into a painter’s palette. Arrive at sunrise if you want the lanes to yourself: even in high season, the hill is nearly empty before 9 a.m. In the low season, you may have its gardens and terraces alone. About an hour before sunset, the light melts to pastels, and buskers drift into the Orange Garden—ideal for photography and people-watching.

Tourists enjoying sunset on the Aventine observation deck

For mild weather and lighter crowds, target late April–June or September–October, when orange blossoms perfume the gardens and tour buses thin out.

Views from the Aventine

Two terraces share almost the same postcard sweep from the Tiber River to the Janiculum, yet each frames the skyline differently.

Wide panorama from the Aventine Hill

Giardino degli Aranci (Orange Garden) gives the broader canvas—room for a tripod, a dead-center alignment of St Peter’s dome, or silhouette play at dusk.
Giardino di Sant’Alessio, twenty meters uphill, sits farther back from the parapet; the extra elevation compresses rooftops into tighter layers, perfect for portraits or telephoto work on campanile and cupolas. They are thirty seconds apart—visit both.

Glance left of St Peter’s and Trastevere fills the foreground—a 50 mm lens captures its pastel roofs—while the Janiculum ridge rises behind. A 200 mm (or longer) telephoto isolates the lighthouse, Garibaldi monument, or Acqua Paola fountain.

Trastevere and the Janiculum from the Aventine

Look right of St Peter’s: the ocher façade of Villa Medici tops the Pincio, and nearer, the bright tiers of the Altar of the Fatherland dominate Piazza Venezia.

Telephoto view toward Villa Medici and the Altar of the Fatherland

A 200–300 mm lens pulls their sculptural details forward.Close-up of the Altar of the Fatherland from the Aventine

Foundation Legend

Romulus claimed the Palatine for his new city; Remus chose the Aventine. Their fatal dispute left the hill outside Rome’s sacred boundary, the pomerium until Emperor Claudius extended that line in AD 49. Even earlier, around 540 BC, King Servius Tullius persuaded the Latin League to build a federal Temple of Diana here. In 493 BC, Rome dedicated a sanctuary to Ceres, Liber, and Libera—the “Aventine Triad” and a rallying point for the plebeians.

Republic and Early Empire

Overlooking the Tiber docks, the lower Aventine was filled with warehouses, grain yards, guild halls, and tenements that rose behind. During the Second Secession in 449 BC, the commoners gathered here to demand the Twelve Tables. By the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, the address had gentrified: senators built townhouses, Trajan and Hadrian kept private residences and Emperor Decius opened a public bath complex in AD 252—mosaic floors from the Baths of Decius still lie beneath Piazza del Tempio di Diana.

Late Antiquity and Middle Ages

Christian Rome arrived early with Santa Prisca (4th c.) and Santa Sabina (432), turning the ridge into a monastic zone. After the sack of 410, the Savelli and Crescentii clans fortified the hill with towers and walled gardens, blending battlements with cloisters.

Modern Era

On 26 June 1924, about 150 opposition deputies left the Chamber after Giacomo Matteotti’s murder. They gathered on the hill—a modern echo of ancient plebeian walk-outs, now dubbed the “Aventine Secession.” Today, the ridge rises just 46 m above sea level, its lanes perfumed by bitter-orange trees, and its skyline marked by bell towers rather than apartment blocks, making it one of Rome’s quietest, most coveted quarters.

Nearby Attractions

Knights of Malta Keyhole
1 min 230 ft 70 m
Fountain of the Mask
6 min 920 ft 280 m
Orange Garden
7 min 1120 ft 340 m
The Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere
10 min 1670 ft 510 m
Monument to Giuseppe Mazzini
13 min 2130 ft 650 m
Mouth of Truth
14 min 2300 ft 700 m
Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin
14 min 2330 ft 710 m
Pyramid of Caius Cestius
15 min 2400 ft 730 m
Circus Maximus
15 min 2430 ft 740 m
Arch of Janus
17 min 2820 ft 860 m

Author: Artur Jakucewicz

Artur Jakucewicz

I have lived in Rome for over 10 years and am glad to share my experience and knowledge. I love ancient history and architecture — author of travel guides in Italy for independent travelers.

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2025.We're Kate and Artur, a duo bound by our shared fascination with the Eternal City – Rome. Our paths, driven by a mutual passion for its timeless stories and architectural marvels, converged in a way we had never imagined.

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