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Ostiense, Rome: San Paolo fuori le Mura, Centrale Montemartini and Garbatella

Ostiense, Rome

Ostiense is the tenth of Rome's quartieri, Q. X in the official series, with the toponymic code 210. It begins outside the Aurelian Walls at Porta San Paolo and runs south along via Ostiense to the Magliana viaduct, with the Tiber on its western side. Standing in it are the papal basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura, which is the property of the Holy See on Italian soil; a branch of the Musei Capitolini installed in a municipal power station of 1912; a Roman burial ground in a public park; two catacombs; the steel frame of a gasholder built in the 1930s; and Garbatella, the housing quarter whose foundation stone was laid on 18 February 1920. It is a quartiere and not one of the twenty-two rioni.

  1. The basilica over the tomb of St Paul, rebuilt after the fire of 1823 and consecrated by Pius IX on 10 September 1854; open daily 07:00 to 18:30, entry free.

  2. The 13th-century cloister with the picture gallery, the relics chapel and the excavated area of about a thousand square metres, open daily 08:00 to 18:00 at 4.00 euro.

  3. Roman sculpture among the turbines and diesel engines of a power station inaugurated in 1912; Tuesday to Sunday, 09:00 to 19:00.

  4. A burial ground used from the 1st century BC to the 4th century AD, inside Parco Schuster; booking on 060608 is obligatory, in groups of no more than 25.

  5. The catacomb of Felix and Adauctus on via delle Sette Chiese, with the painting known as the Madonna di Turtura; visits are by request only.

  6. The steel frame of the gasholder built by Ansaldo with Klonne between 1935 and 1937, 89.10 metres high, seen from via del Commercio and the Ponte della Scienza.

  7. Roberto Narducci's travertine station of 1940, with Francesco Nagni's Bellerophon relief and black-and-white floor mosaics by Giulio Rosso and Maria Immacolata Zaffuto.

  8. Rolling stock built between 1907 and 1945 in the old goods yard of the Roma-Lido terminus; closed from 2020, it reopened on 14 October 2022.

  9. Where Victor Emmanuel III laid Garbatella's first stone on 18 February 1920; the walled inscription records the date and the lots around the square date from that foundation.

  10. Innocenzo Sabbatini's transit housing of 1927-1928 on piazza Eugenio Biffi, with a canteen, a creche, laundries and shared washrooms built in.

  11. Sabbatini's cinema-theatre of 1927-28 on piazza Bartolomeo Romano, now owned and programmed by Universita Roma Tre.

  12. A villa confiscated from the Banda della Magliana and opened as a jazz venue in April 2005, with an auditorium seating about 150 in a park of 25,240 square metres.

  13. A restaurant at Via del Porto Fluviale 22, on the street that carries the Blu-painted former air force barracks at number 10.

  14. The air terminal built for the 1990 World Cup beyond Stazione Ostiense, where Eataly opened its Rome store in 2012.

What Ostiense is, and where it stops

A quartiere is a different kind of unit from a rione. Roma Capitale's own framing of the toponymic areas is that they «non hanno alcuna relazione con le aree urbanistiche ne amministrative» - they have no relation to the administrative or town-planning areas.

it.wikipedia's article on the quartiere gives its edges: to the north the rioni Testaccio and San Saba, separated by the Aurelian Walls from the Tiber to Porta San Paolo and from Porta San Paolo to Porta Ardeatina; to the east the quartiere Ardeatino, separated by via Cristoforo Colombo and via Laurentina; to the south the quartiere Europa, separated by viale dell'Atletica and the Magliana viaduct as far as the river; and to the west the quartiere Portuense, separated by the Tiber from the Magliana viaduct to the Ponte dell'Industria. Several things a visitor meets on the way in stand outside those edges: the Piramide di Caio Cestio and the stretch of Aurelian Walls at it are in Testaccio, and Porta San Paolo, the Museo della Via Ostiense and the Palazzo delle Poste are in San Saba. Fighting took place at Porta San Paolo in September 1943. Ponte dell'Industria and the railway Ponte San Paolo cross to Portuense.

Garbatella, which many travellers treat as a district of its own, is the zona urbanistica 11C, and it lies inside quartiere Q. X Ostiense. Its streets and squares include piazza Benedetto Brin, piazza Damiano Sauli, piazza Eugenio Biffi, piazza Bartolomeo Romano. The name has never been settled. The it.wikipedia article carries three accounts: an innkeeper, Carlotta or Maria, so obliging that travellers called her the Garbata Ostella, syncopated to Garbatella; the pleasantness of the place; and the a garbata method of training vines used on the tenuta dei 12 cancelli, held in the nineteenth century by Monsignor Alessandro Nicolai. A 2019 study by Giorgio Guidoni in Garbatella 100 proposes that the innkeeper was Clementina Eusebi, who ran an inn on via Ostiense between about 1835 and 1850, and that the name came from her mother's surname, Maddalena Garbata, mother and daughter being distinguished as Garbata and Garbatella. All four are accounts, not conclusions. The name of the new quarter was itself argued over until about 1930, with Concordia and Remuria proposed instead.

One old road runs through the middle of all this. Via delle Sette Chiese is the road pilgrims took from San Paolo fuori le Mura to San Sebastiano, at right angles to the Ardeatina and the Appia; from the sixteenth century it was part of the Giro delle Sette Chiese, and it is still walked on the pilgrimage to the Santuario del Divino Amore. The Chiesoletta, San Filippo Neri in Eurosia, the Garbatella model houses of lotto 24 and the entrance to the Commodilla catacomb all stand on it. The road runs well beyond the quartiere in both directions. Two more recent facts belong to the same streets: the quartiere article records that Muccassassina began near the former gasworks on via Ostiense in the 1990s, and that Ferzan Ozpetek used an address on via del Porto Fluviale for Le fate ignoranti in 2001.

Getting there

Three stations serve the quartiere. Piramide, on metro line B, was designed by Marcello Piacentini; its entrance steps rise onto the piazzale di Porta San Paolo, and a subway opened in 1990 links it to Roma Ostiense, with a second entrance and hall on via delle Cave Ardeatine. Roma Ostiense is the railway station on piazzale dei Partigiani. Roma Porta San Paolo is the terminus of the Roma-Lido railway, which passed from ATAC to COTRAL and ASTRAL with effect from 1 July 2022; the Polo museale dei trasporti, at Via Bartolomeo Bossi 7, stands next to it in the old goods yard. The Ponte Settimia Spizzichino carries the Circonvallazione Ostiense over the railway and metro line B, beside Garbatella station and the former Mercati Generali.

After that, steer by addresses, because the quartiere is long. The basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura is at Piazzale San Paolo 1, 00146, and the monastic garden is entered at the Spezieria, Via Ostiense 186. Centrale Montemartini is at Via Ostiense 106, 00154, opposite the former Mercati Generali. The Sepolcreto della via Ostiense is inside Parco Ildefonso Schuster on via Ostiense. The Catacomba di Commodilla is at Via delle Sette Chiese 42, 00145, and the Catacomba di Santa Tecla is on via Silvio d'Amico, which follows the line of the old via delle Statue. Casa del Jazz is at Viale di Porta Ardeatina 55, 00154. Eataly's Rome store is inside the former air terminal at Piazzale XII Ottobre 1492. Roma Tre's rectorate is at Via Ostiense 133, and the Teatro Palladium at Piazza Bartolomeo Romano 8, 00154.

Two bridges here carry traffic across the Tiber and both lie between Ostiense and the quartiere Portuense: Ponte Guglielmo Marconi, inaugurated on 26 February 1955, and the cycle-and-foot Ponte della Scienza Rita Levi-Montalcini, whose Ostiense landfall is at the Gazometro.

Tickets, hours and booking

The basilica's own site gives it as open every day from 07:00 to 18:30, with free entry. The sacristy is open 08:00 to 12:00 and 16:00 to 18:30, and confessions are heard 10:00 to 12:00 and 16:00 to 18:30. Weekday Masses are at 07:00, 10:00 and 17:00 with Vespers at 18:00; on Sundays and solemnities they are at 08:00, 10:00 conventual and 12:00, with Vespers at 17:00 and Mass at 18:00. The cloister with the picture gallery, the relics chapel and the archaeological area is ticketed separately: daily 08:00 to 18:00, last entry 17:30, 4.00 euro full and 3.00 euro reduced, with groups of more than ten at 3.00 euro a head and the group's guide free.

Centrale Montemartini opens Tuesday to Sunday 09:00 to 19:00, with last entry an hour before closing, and is closed on Mondays, 1 May and 25 December; from 24 to 31 December it opens 09:00 to 14:00, and on 1 January 2026 from 11:00 to 20:00. Admission is 11.00 euro full and 6.50 euro reduced; the seven-day Capitolini Card, valid for the Musei Capitolini and Centrale Montemartini together, is 15.50 euro full and 11.50 euro reduced.

The Sepolcreto della via Ostiense must be booked. The Sovrintendenza Capitolina gives booking on 060608, 09:00 to 19:00, with a maximum of 25 people per visit and a maximum of ten at a time in the courtyard of the Rupe sector; admission is 4.00 euro full and 3.00 euro reduced, free for residents of Rome and the metropolitan area on production of identification and for MIC card holders, and the area is accessible to disabled visitors. The Catacomba di Commodilla is visited by request only, on +39 064465610 or +39 064467601 or at protocollo@arcsacra.va. The monastic garden of the abbey is opened only for booked guided visits, in spring and in autumn, on 06 698 80 811 or giardino@abbaziasanpaolo.org.

No source states opening hours for the Polo museale dei trasporti, for the Cisterna della via Colombo or for the Eataly store in the former air terminal, and no source states opening arrangements for the Catacomba di Santa Tecla, so none are given here. Forte Ostiense is a working police facility and the Gazometro site is a working private industrial estate; neither is a visitor site.

Frequently asked questions

Is San Paolo fuori le Mura on Italian soil?
Yes. The basilica stands on Italian soil, about two kilometres outside the Aurelian Walls, in quartiere Q. X Ostiense, at Piazzale San Paolo 1. The basilica and its annexed buildings are the property of the Holy See under Article 13 of the Lateran Treaty of 11 February 1929. Article 15 provides that the property, «benche 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 seats of the diplomatic agents of foreign States. It is on Italian soil and visitors are subject to Italian law. Article 16 of the same treaty covers a different list of properties and does not apply here.
Is Garbatella a separate district?
No. Garbatella is the zona urbanistica 11C, and it lies inside quartiere Q. X Ostiense, which is why it has no page of its own here. Its buildings are written with their own addresses: the foundation inscription of 18 February 1920 on piazza Benedetto Brin, the Alberghi Suburbani on piazza Eugenio Biffi, Innocenzo Sabbatini's Teatro Palladium on piazza Bartolomeo Romano, Angelo Brunetta's school on piazza Damiano Sauli, and the thirteen model houses of lotto 24 between via delle Sette Chiese, via De Jacobis and via Borri.
Can you go inside the Gazometro?
No. The site is a working private industrial estate. The frame is seen from via del Commercio, from the Ponte della Scienza and from the Riva Ostiense. What stands there is the steel frame of the gasholder erected by Ansaldo of Genoa with Klonne of Dortmund between 1935 and 1937: 89.10 metres high, 63 metres across, for a volume of 200,000 cubic metres. The holder bell itself was removed after the plant stopped working, so only the frame is left.
Which catacombs are here, and how do you visit them?
Two. The Catacomba di Commodilla, at Via delle Sette Chiese 42, 00145, is run by the Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra, and visits are by request only, on +39 064465610 or +39 064467601 or at protocollo@arcsacra.va. It holds the martyrs Felix and Adauctus, the painting known as the Madonna di Turtura and the cubiculum of Leo, an official of the Annona. The Catacomba di Santa Tecla is on via Silvio d'Amico; no source states opening arrangements, so none are given here.
Where can you eat in Ostiense?
Six addresses, and no clubs. Porto Fluviale is at Via del Porto Fluviale 22; Al Biondo Tevere at Via Ostiense 178; Pasticceria Andreotti at Via Ostiense 54b; Romeow Cat Bistrot at Via Francesco Negri 15; Hopside, a beer house, at Via Francesco Negri 39/41; and Tre de Tutto at Via Giustino de Jacobis 19 in Garbatella. Caffe Letterario, at Via Ostiense 95, has a library, the Bibliocaffe, and Eataly's Rome store is inside the former air terminal at Piazzale XII Ottobre 1492. No source states opening hours for any of them, so none are given here.
What is Centrale Montemartini?
A municipal thermoelectric station of 1912 that now holds Capitoline sculpture among its turbines and diesel engines, at Via Ostiense 106, 00154. It was inaugurated under mayor Ernesto Nathan, following the referendum of 20 September 1909 on municipalising public services, and was named in 1913 for Giovanni Montemartini, Nathan's technical assessor, who died during a council session. It was decommissioned in the mid-1960s. Sculpture was moved here in 1997 during the restoration of the Musei Capitolini, for the exhibition Le macchine e gli dei; the museum became permanent in 2001.

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