Cestia Pyramid – Testaccio
The Cestia Pyramid in Rome is a funerary monument dedicated to the member of the “College of the Septemviri” Caio Cestio Epulone, who probably died in 12 B.C. The work, which well demonstrates what kind of fascination the Egypt exercised on the aristocratic classes of Rome after the conquest of 30 B.C., is built in concrete and externally covered by marble slabs.
The Cestia Pyramid is approximately 37 metres high, and it is laying on a square base with a side equal to 30 metres; a slab on the oriental side remembers how the work has been realised in less than 330 days, in respect to the testamentary dispositions that established that the monument should have been completed in such a period to gain access to the inheritance.
The complex, built in an isolated position along the “via Ostiense”, is nowadays close to the Door of San Paolo along the path of the Aurelius walls, where it was placed by the Emperor himself between 274 and 277 A.D.
The Cestia Pyramid, wrongly thought during all the Middle Ages to be the tomb of Remo, brother of the founder of Rome Romolo, was restored by Alessandro VII between 1656 and 1663 A.D., as it is testified by the inscription on the west side.
In that occasion, probably an entrance to access to the rectangular funerary room was opened along the same side; the internal space is covered by barrel vaults and it is entirely covered by frescoes with feminine figures and ornamental paintings almost completely cancelled by time.
The name of the district Testaccio, visible staying in one of the hotels of the area, derives form the Mount, 35 metres high, where it rises (the Testaceus, so called because of earthenwares, testae in latin, that compose it): the earthenwares that create the hill are debris and remainings of wheat and liquid containers coming from the Ripa harbour, that accumulated here; still nowadays, the symbol of the quarter is an amphora ( it is assessed that about 25 million of them have been piled up here ).
The Ripa harbour is connected to the Porta San Paolo by via Marmorata ( one of the places that define the quarter, together with Mura Aureliane and Tiber river ), which is so named because of the marble ( “marmo” in italian ) that Romans bought from all over the Mediterranean Sea and that was stored there, until the end of the Empire.
The area, that was reorganized only after 1870 and was addressed to “heavy” industrial activities, also if it was inside city walls had a population constituted mainly by farmers and sheperds, and the zone suffered from the Tiber floods and was infested by malaria.
The area defined by the Mount and the city walls was occupied by meadows and pastures: here the inhabitants of Testaccio brought animals to graze, where well-off people were used to go there for the traditional Easter Monday countryside picnic.
Unique example of programme durbanization in Rome, the Testaccio district was born as an housing settlement for workers, connected to the places of work but divided from it ( by the city walls ) in the same time.
Because of the high number of workers, farmers and sheperds, the district has always been hosting inns, taprooms and tavern; nowadays instead of them there are pubs and restaurants, that preserve the distric wordly tradition and attitude.
However the area connect also culture to this kind of life: in Testaccio, in fact, there is the main office of Facoltà di Architettura di Roma Tre, while in the old Mattatoio(slaughterhouse) has been installed a section of Macro ( the Contemporary Art Museum of Rome ) and there is also the main office of Scuola Popolare di Musica (that is the Popular School of Music).
A must-see, while staying in hotels in Testaccio ( that borders with the districts Ripa and San Saba ), also the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice, the Protestant Cemetery, the Piramide Cestia, the Fontana Testaccio, Nicola Zabbaglia Road, the Porta San Paolo and the Monte dei Cocci.
