Quartieri II: Testaccio

Rome was famously founded on seven hills. Beyond these hills, just outside the boundary of the most ancient incarnation of the city, there is another hill which is entirely manmade. It is a hill made not of volcanic detritus etched by water courses, but of junk: a waste product of the human activity of Rome’s ancient past.

View from the top of the Monte Testaccio looking towards the Aventine on a tour for which I had arranged special access to the usually gated hill. November 2022.

This is the Monte Testaccio, or the Monte dei Cocci. Its names come respectively from testae, the Latin name for the pottery shards which make it up, and cocci the modern Roman term for the same. This monofill site (which is, I now know, what a landfill site for the disposal of a single type of junk is called; everyday is a school day) has given its name to Testaccio, an intriguing neighbourhood where craft beer, elaborate tattoos, and old ladies mingle; and where just the right amount of rough-around-the-edges is to be found a stone’s throw from the understated leafy glamour and early Christian churches of the Aventine Hill.

via del Monte Testaccio. January 2023.