Rome's Jewish quarter: alive and kicking

Travellers in Italy will be familiar with the Ghetto of Venice, the first in Europe (established in 1516) and the one that gave its name to all the others. Like much of Venice, physically the Ghetto has hardly changed over the years, and you can still visit the original, atmospheric synagogues and, with little effort, visualise the daily life of the former inhabitants as they drew water from the wells in the campo and ran pawn shops from ground-floor rooms. But those who decide to spend time in the Ghetto of Rome will find that a very different place awaits them.

Rome is to Venice what a living organism is to a museum exhibit, and this is emphatically true of the two cities' Ghettos. Rome's Ghetto, although physically transformed to the point of obliteration, remains a vital centre of Roman, and Italian, Jewish life. The city's Jewish community, like Rome itself, is far older than that of Venice, tracing its continuous lineage back to the second century BC, when a community of Jewish merchants from Alexandria set up shop there. Their presence was augmented by slaves brought to Rome by the general (and later emperor) Titus, who suppressed a rebellion in the province of Judea in AD70. The Arch of Titus, which still stands in the Roman Forum, depicts his victory procession in panels of sculpture that show soldiers carrying booty from the sacking of the Temple in Jerusalem. And the community's numbers were further swelled by the expulsion of the Jews, after 1492, from Spain, Portugal and southern Italy.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews chose mainly to live in Trastevere, across the river Tiber from what was, in 1555, to become the Ghetto of Rome. Following the precedent of Venice, but implementing it in a far more brutal fashion, Pope Paul IV ordered all the Jews in Rome to crowd into a small, walled, riverside area, beneath the Capitoline, from which they were not finally freed until 1870, when the Pope's authority in Rome was displaced by the new Italian state. The newly established capital of Italy decided to knock down the old Ghetto and replace its crowded, higgledy-piggledy streets with three blocks of Liberty (Italian for Art Nouveau) apartment houses and a giant synagogue, the Tempio Maggiore, which was designed in a pastiche Assyrian-Babylonian idiom. Although not particularly successful as architecture, psychologically the new synagogue accomplished its purpose: letting a formerly abased people hold their domed head up high on the skyline.

The Tempio Maggiore, has recently inaugurated a permanent exhibition that narrates the history of the Jewish presence in Rome, and also displays numerous precious and beautifully crafted ritual objects, including many fine embroidered coverings for the scrolls of the Torah. Despite the enforced poverty of the Ghetto, the Jews confined there managed to scrape together sufficient resources to ensure that the finest artisans in Italy were employed for such objects. I began my visit to Rome by touring the exhibition at the Tempio Maggiore, which includes a moving documentary film of the rounding-up of Rome's Jews by the Germans, in 1943, before they were shipped off to Auschwitz. After seeing that, the opportunity to visit the main prayer hall of the synagogue has the air of a benediction, a testament to the survival of the living community. The Roman Ghetto is still the symbolic, and to a degree, the actual centre of Italian Jewish life. The same day as my visit to the Tempio Maggiore, the President of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, stopped by to see the new museum and discuss contemporary anti-Semitism with the Chief Rabbi and other officials from the Jewish community.

Moving outwards from the architecturally transformed site of the former Ghetto, you plunge into the warren of cobbled streets, small squares, Roman remains, Renaissance palaces and Baroque churches that make this area of Rome a delight to explore. Via della Reginella gives one a sense of the changing social mix. As you walk up the only surviving street from the former Ghetto now, you pass a corner shop selling kitsch figurines, a Jewish nursery school, a series of fashionable shops and a picture framer. Via della Reginella leads into Piazza Mattei, the site of the delightful Fontana delle Tartarughe (Turtle Fountain) and the site of bars and restaurants where youths congregate in the evenings.

The Jewish theme continues in a bevy of restaurants and bakeries that feature Roman Jewish cooking. Much of it is fried, as one of the few commercial activities that the Jews of Rome were allowed to pursue during the period of the Ghetto was that of friggitore, vendor of fried food. For a sample of the most famous dish, carciofi alla Giudia (golden, crispy, fried artichoke), have a traditional Roman meal at Giggetto, next to the Portico d'Ottavia, on the northern edge of the Ghetto. Portico d'Ottavia itself is one of the most evocative sites from ancient Rome. All that remains of the vast, colonnaded atrium, which was built, 27-23BC, is the monumental entrance and a handful of columns stretching out to either side, which have been dug out to their original depth, at the ancient street level. The portico was later employed as the entrance to a church, San Angelo della Pesce, at which the Ghetto's Jews were required to attend Sunday sermons. Opposite the Portico are the remains of the Teatro Marcello, a grand, semi-circular edifice begun by Julius Caesar and completed by Augustus. The theatre was converted into a palace in the Renaissance, and now houses luxury flats. Just to the west of the Ghetto is the Campo de' Fiori, a lively piazza. Hotels in the area are reasonably priced for such a central location, and the restaurants feature regional specialties. For a Roman version of cod and chips, try the filetto di baccalà, at Filetti di Baccalà, a basic, popular, bustling and cheap place to dine. And for meat dishes, such as the tasty stracetti (strips of beef mixed with rocket salad leaves), there's the rightly well-regarded Trattoria Da Sergio.

I took a day out to visit Renaissance palaces within easy walking distance. Both Palazzo Spada and Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj are blessed with their original interiors and collections of painting and sculpture - original in the sense that generations of family owners added sympathetically to the magnificent surroundings, picking up priceless masterpieces as they went along. As I strolled through their galleries and salons, though, I could not help thinking of the comparatively claustrophobic lives led by the residents of the Ghetto during the years when these palaces were being used to host politicians, churchmen, intellectuals and artists. Due to the harsh restrictions on whom Jews could associate with and the limited number of humble crafts they could practise, the denizens of the Ghetto would have been kept far from Rome's glittering aristocratic circles.

South of the Ghetto, one returns to the world of ancient Rome. Following the Tiber downstream from the Tempio Maggiore, past the Ponte Fabrico bridge, you come to the charming Temple of Vesta, the oldest marble edifice still standing in Rome. Finally, towering over the Ghetto to the east is Michelangelo's Piazza Campodiglio, at the summit of the Capitoline hill, whose magnificent buildings house a wonderful collection of ancient sculptures and busts. From there one can look back down on the former Ghetto or across to the remains of the Roman Republican and Imperial Forums. But that is an exploration for another day.

TRAVELLER'S GUIDE

GETTING THERE

You can fly to Rome from a wide range of UK airports. Full-service airlines and some no-frills carriers use Fiumicino airport, also known as Leonardo da Vinci. These include British Airways (0870 850 9850; www.ba.com) and Alitalia (08705 448259; www.alitalia.com), Flyglobespan (0870 556 1522; www.flyglobespan.com) and Jet2.com (0871 226 1737; www.jet2.com). Express trains run to Rome's Termini station from the airport.

The leading low-cost airlines, easyJet (0905 821 0905; www.easyJet.com) and Ryanair (0871 246 0000; www.ryanair.com), fly to Ciampino, which is nearer to the city but has poorer transport: a long, slow bus link.

To reduce the impact on the environment, you can buy an "offset" from Climate Care (01865 207 000; www.climatecare.org). The environmental cost of a return flight from London to Rome, in economy class, is £2.40.

STAYING THERE

Hotel Teatro di Pompeo, Largo del Pallaro 8 (00 39 06 687 2812; www.hotelteatrodipompeo.it). Doubles start at €130 (£93) including breakfast.

VISITING THERE

Museum of the Jewish Community of Rome, Tempio Maggiore, Lungotevere Cenci (00 39 06 684 0061).

Palazzo Spada, Piazza Capo de Ferro 13 (00 39 06 687 4893; www.galleriaborghese.it).

Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj, Piazza del Collegio Romano 2 (00 39 06 679 7323; www.doriapamphilj.it).

EATING & DRINKING THERE

Da Sergio, Vicolo delle Grotte 27 (00 39 06 686 4293).

Giggetto, Via Portico D'Ottavia 21/a (00 39 06 686 1105; www.giggettoalporticodottavia.it)

Filetti di Baccala, Largo Librai 88 (00 39 06 686 4018).

FURTHER READING

The Ghetto Reveals Rome by Luca Fiorentino (Gangemi Editore) is a beautifully illustrated text about the physical and social history of the Ghetto.

MORE INFORMATION

Rome Tourism: 00 39 06 488 991; www.romaturismo.com

Italian State Tourist Board: 020-7408 1254; www.enit.it

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