This is a simple list of indications and suggestions which obviously may be expanded or reduced, adapting everything to the particular needs of each group.

Portico di Ottavia
From this point it is easy to see how small the space of the Ghetto is: three hectares. The experimental wall, built at the expense of the Jewish community and torn down in 1848, rose in the middle of the current Via di Po di Ottavia to Piazza delle Cinque Scole to the Tiber River (at the time without embankments, erected in 1888). The first Jewish nucleus, coming from Trastevere, was formed here in the 16th century.

The following is to be noted: what remains of the Portico di Ottavia (restored by the Emporer Augustus in honor of his sister) among whose columns the church of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria
was built in the year 200 circa, site of the forced sermons during the Ghetto period. The name "in Pescheria" refers to the fish market, which flourished in this area since ancient times. The wider
space in front of the portico is the place where, the morning of October 16, 1943, the Nazis parked the truck which was used to deport the Jews captured during the raid. A memorial plaque recalls and admonishes without words of revenge.

Walking in the direction of the Via Arenula, to be seen on the right is the Vicolo della Reginella, which gives a good idea, together with that of Sant'Ambrogio, of the little streets there before work was done on changing the area. The block between the two small streets, painted red, corresponds to the building added to the Ghetto starting in 1825, under Leo XII, through the intervention of the English Jewish bankers, the Rothschilds, who made large loans to the pontifical treasury.

From the Portico d'Ottavia to the Tiber River

The church of San Gregorio in Divina Pietà, near the Quattro Capi bridge. This little church is dedicated to St. Gregory because in the area were the houses of the Anicii, a noble Roman family connected with the birth of Pope Gregory the Great (590-604), defender of the rights of the Jews. Put up on the façade, in 1858, was a scroll which was first found in the vicinity, in front of one of the gates of the wall which is no longer there. On it was a verse written in Hebrew and in Latin which cites Isaiah 65, 2-3: "I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, following their own devices; a people who provoke me to my face continually".

The bridge of the Quattro Capi (Four Heads) is also called the "Pons ludaeorum" and connects with the Tiber Island where, in the rooms of the old Jewish Hospital, now utilized as a surgery and first aid station (behind the church of San Bartolomeo), there are two small rooms used as a Youth Synagogue and very dear to the Roman Jews because they risked their lives to come here and pray during the nine terrible months of the Nazi occupation. Another very sad memory is linked with the Fatebenefratelli Hospital, where the almost forty wounded were brought following the terrorist attack by members of the PLO in 1982. A two-year-old child was killed in that attack, and he is now remembered in a small plaque on the left pillar in front of the façade of the Synagogue.

Vicinity

In the nearby Piazza Mattei (walking down Vicolo della Reginella) is the famous Fountain of the Turtles. The Matteis were among the Christian families whose houses were near the Ghetto and who had the keys to the main gates of the Ghetto which were closed when the Ave Maria bells were rung and reopened the next morning from the outside. Behind the Portico d'Ottavia may be seen the apse of Santa Maria in Campitelli: here during the period of the great Nazi danger, the Jews often found fraternal refuge. In 1990, the first Day of Judism? Hebrewism? was solemnly celebrated, and the Commission of Italian Bishops wants all Catholics to celebrate this day on January 17th of each year.

House of Lorenzo Manili

Coming from the Portico D'Ottavia towards Via Arenula, you will find this building at the end of the street. In 1468, the merchant Lorenzo Manili, wishing to build something to beautify the city in that period of the reawakening of the building trade in the City of Rome, built his own house "ad forum ludaeorum": in front of the Piazza degli Ebrei, or Piazza Giudia, which later will be divided into two by the Ghetto wall. The façade has several bas-reliefs ornamenting it and a long inscription on which it is written that Lorenzo Manili builds his house on Piazza degli Ebrei.

In the Corner of the Manili House

The small door of one of the most popular points of the Ghetto in Rome: the pastry shop which produces typical Jewish delicacies every day. Turning the corner one sees a small temple (dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, in 1759) at present badly covered by rusty plates, but having exquisitely beautiful lines. On the opposite side is the small church of Santa Maria del Pianto, built around a picture painted on the wall and connected to the story of a miracle. It is one of as many as 16 churches which rose here in what has always been the smallest neighborhood of Rome. Still standing in the vicinity are the Church of San Tommaso, of Santa Caterina dei Funari, of San Stanislao dei Polacchi and that which was built over the house of the family of Sant'Ambrogio.

Opposite the Manili House

In Piazza Giudia the beautiful fountain was built which we now find between Santa Maria del Pianto and Palazzo Cenci Bolognetti. The fountain is by Della Porta (1591) and has a troubled history because it was torn down and modified many times. Palazzo Cenci was included in the Ghetto temporarily following the expansion made necessary in 1836 under Gregory XVI.

Piazza delle Cinque Scole

The door bears the memory of the small building of the Cinque Scole or Synagogues which arose in this spot and which were demolished in 1910. One of the prohibitions in the time of the Ghetto was that it was forbidden to have more than one synagogue, apart from the number of Jews and without considering the extreme variety of origin (Catalan, Aragonese, Sicilian and others). The difficulty was handled in part by including in one building various different rooms for the different groups.

Synagogue

Visible from many parts of the city with its square cupola, the Synagogue or Temple as the Roman Jews love to call it, is architecturally the recaptured citizenship of the community after the shame of the Ghetto. The architects Armani and Costa who built it were not Jews. The community was still not able to have its own architects. It was inaugurated in the greatest solemnity and devotion. Even now it is frequented by practically all the Roman Jews, even though there are at least five other smaller Synagogues in the city in different neighborhoods. The style is a mixture of "Liberty" and Babylonian art, with evident reference to the style of the time of construction and to the middle-eastern origin of the Jewish religion. It has no pictures or images, only symbols: the Menorah, the Tablets of the Law, the Lulav. The many writings in Hebrew are almost all verses of Scripture which exalt the sacredness of the place. On the Tiber river side, the Synagogue wall has different plaques of great historical interest: there are long lists of the Jews who were killed in the First World War, of the Jews who were killed at the Fosse Ardeatine, the numbers of the Shoà; they do not have words of revenge, they invoke peace for all.

The tour of the Ghetto can be ended here. Rarely is it possible to find so many memories, so much pain and so much hope contained in such a small space.