Monti, Rome: The North Half of the Imperial Fora, Four Towers and the Lateran

Via dei Fori Imperiali, opened in 1932 as via dell'Impero, runs between Monti and Campitelli, and the archaeological strip it crosses is cut in two by it. The Forum of Trajan, Trajan's Column, the Markets of Trajan with the Museo dei Fori Imperiali, and the Forum of Augustus with the Arco dei Pantani and the Aula del Colosso are all on the Monti side. The fora on the south side belong to Campitelli, and so does the ticketed walkway that crosses beneath the road: it enters at the Trajan's Column end, in Monti, and leaves at the Foro di Cesare on via Bonella, in Campitelli. This guide carries no ticketing for it.

Roma Capitale dates Trajan's Column to 113 AD and credits the design to Apollodorus of Damascus: about forty metres with the base, seventeen monolithic drums, an internal spiral stair of 185 steps, and Trajan's ashes in the base — he died on 8 August 117. In 1587 Sixtus V put a figure of St Peter on top of it in place of the lost bronze statue. Behind the Forum of Augustus stands a firewall of peperino, pietra gabina and travertine, up to thirty-three metres high, built to shield the forum from the fires of the Suburra: the crowded low quarter that the Italian Wikipedia article on the rione places around the Argiletum, on the line of today's via Leonina and via Madonna dei Monti.

Uphill from the fora are the towers. The Torre delle Milizie, about fifty metres, is entered today through the Markets of Trajan; the Torre dei Capocci is thirty-six metres of brick on piazza di San Martino ai Monti; the Torre del Grillo carries the corner eagles and the inscription EX MARCHIONE DE GRILLIS that the del Grillo family added after buying it in 1675; and the Torre dei Conti, on largo Corrado Ricci, was built around 1203 by Pope Innocent III for his brother Riccardo and has one of the four squared-tufa exedrae of the Forum of Peace in its cellars.

Roma Capitale's own page for Rione I – Monti names the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano among the monuments, archaeological sites and places of worship present in the rione, describing it as the cathedral of Rome. The Comune's perimeter description for the rione lists «complesso del Laterano (entro le mura aureliane)» among the rione's boundary elements. The complex is not indivisible, though: boundary tests put the Scala Santa on the Esquilino side, and it is not covered in this guide. What is covered is the basilica, the baptistery, the Palazzo del Laterano where the Lateran Pacts were signed on 11 February 1929, the Lateran obelisk and the treasury museum.

Three of those properties belong to a legal tier that is neither Italian in the ordinary way nor Vatican. Under the Lateran Treaty of 11 February 1929, Italy recognises the Holy See's full ownership of them (Art. 13; Annex II). Art. 15 states that such a property, «benché facenti parte del territorio dello Stato italiano» — although forming part of the territory of the Italian State — enjoys the immunities that international law grants to the headquarters of the diplomatic agents of foreign States. They are on Italian soil and visitors are subject to Italian law. That is worth reading twice, because one of the museums inside the Palazzo del Laterano is called the Museo storico vaticano and stands on Italian soil, not in Vatican City.

Santa Maria Maggiore is the unresolved case, and this guide does not pretend otherwise. Roma Capitale's material on the basilica is internally inconsistent. Its Rione I – Monti page names the basilica among the monuments present in the rione; the same page states that the Esquiline hill no longer forms part of the rione, and its page for the basilica places the basilica on the summit of the Esquiline hill. The rione assignment is unresolved. The postcodes change across the block too — 00184 on the facade side, 00185 at Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore 28.

Several of the streets a visitor will walk are the rione's edges rather than its interior. Roma Capitale's perimeter for Monti reads: «piazza del Colosseo, via dei Fori Imperiali, piazza Madonna di Loreto, vicolo San Bernardo, via Magnanapoli, via XXIV Maggio, via del Quirinale, via delle Quattro Fontane, via Agostino Depretis, piazza Esquilino; via Esquilino, piazza Santa Maria Maggiore, via Merulana, piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano, complesso del Laterano (entro le mura aureliane), via della Ferratella, piazza di Porta Metronia, via della Navicella, via Santo Stefano Rotondo, via Oliviero Plunkett, via di San Giovanni in Laterano.» Via Merulana and via del Quirinale are boundaries, not interior streets, and this guide claims neither piazza del Quirinale nor piazza del Colosseo for Monti.

The interior streets are where the rione's own names survive. The Italian Wikipedia article on the rione records that via in Selci follows the ancient Vicus Suburranus and takes its name from the paving stones found during works there; that the salita dei Borgia runs partly along what is believed to be the Vicus sceleratus; that vicolo delle Carrette survives from a piazza and street where the carts bringing wine and food from the Castelli waited by the Forum market; that via Magnanapoli is said to be a corruption of Balnea Napoli; and that via degli Annibaldi and its neighbours are named for the families who held fortified houses and towers there. An inscription in piazza della Suburra still records the edicola di San Salvatore delle tre immagini ai Monti.

The metro station inside Monti is Cavour, at Via Cavour 197, 00184. The Italian Wikipedia article on the rione says Line B serves it. Colosseo station is contested between Monti and Celio and is not claimed here, and no source was obtained for which lines other than B serve it, so none is named.

Via Cavour itself was opened at the end of the nineteenth century to link the Esquiline to piazza Venezia through the Suburra valley, per the same article. Via Nazionale was «istituita il 30 novembre 1871», originally joining piazza Venezia to piazza dell'Esedra, which was renamed piazza della Repubblica in 1953; Palazzo delle Esposizioni is at Via Nazionale 194, 00184, and the Banca d'Italia head office at Palazzo Koch is at Via Nazionale 91, 00184.

Other street addresses worth writing down: San Pietro in Vincoli at Piazza di San Pietro in Vincoli 4/a, 00184; San Clemente at Via Labicana 95, 00184, which Roma Capitale places «circa 300 metri oltre il Colosseo», about 300 metres beyond the Colosseum; the Markets of Trajan at Via Quattro Novembre 94, 00187; Sant'Andrea al Quirinale at Via del Quirinale 30, 00187; the Museo Vite di IMI at Via Labicana 15a, 00184; Mercato Monti at Via Leonina 46/48, 00184; and Ai Tre Scalini at Via Panisperna 249/251, 00184.

One warning about hours. Only one place in this guide publishes them: Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, Tuesday to Sunday 9.00–12.00 and 15.00–18.00, closed Monday, from the church's own site. No source states hours for Santa Maria Maggiore or the Domus Aurea, so neither carries opening or ticketing information here. Check before you travel.