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Casa di Goethe
A gathering place for German artists and intellectuals, the Via del Corso apartment where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lived between 1786 and 1788 is now a lovingly maintained museum. Exhibits include documents relating to his Italian sojourn and some interesting drawings and etchings - including a 1982 Andy Warhol portrait of the great man. With advance permission, ardent Goethe fans can use the library full of first editions.
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Castel Sant'Angelo
With its chunky round keep, this castle is an instantly recognisable landmark. Begun by Emperor Hadrian in 128 AD as a mausoleum for himself and his family, it was converted into a fortress for the popes in the 6th century AD. It was named by Pope Gregory the Great in AD 590, after he saw a vision of an angel above the structure heralding the end of a plague in Rome.
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Catacombe di Priscilla
These catacombs originally belonged to the patrician Acilii family in the 1st century AD. They were expanded in the 3rd and 4th centuries and became a high-society burial ground with appropriate upmarket decoration, quite a lot of which has survived. Several popes were buried in the catacombs between 309 and 555. A funerary chapel known as the Cappella Greca boasts good stucco decoration and some well-preserved late-3rd-century biblical frescoes.
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Catacombe di San Callisto
These are the largest, most famous and busiest of Rome's catacombs. Founded at the end of the 2nd century and named after Pope Calixtus I, who was killed in Trastevere in 222, they became the official cemetery of the newly established Roman Church. In the 20km of tunnels explored to date, archaeologists have found the sepulchres of some 500,000 people and the tombs of seven popes who were martyred in the 3rd century.
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Catacombe di Santa Domitilla
Among Rome's largest and oldest, these catacombs stretch for about 17km. They were established on the private burial ground of Flavia Domitilla, niece of the Emperor Domitian and a member of the wealthy Flavian family. They contain Christian wall paintings and the underground Chiesa di SS Nereus e Achilleus, a 4th-century church dedicated to two Roman soldiers who were martyred by Diocletian.
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Centrale Montemartini
Antiquity meets Fritz Lang's Metropolis at the striking outpost of the Capitoline Museums. In an ex-power plant, marble Roman deities are juxtaposed with beastly engines and furnaces in a battle of new gods and old. You'll find the collection's highlights in the Sala Caldaia, among them the youthful Fanciulla Seduta and the milky white 1st-century Venus Esquilina, discovered on the Esquiline Hill in 1874.
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Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis
This small church marks where St Peter, while fleeing Rome, met a vision of Jesus going the other way. He asked: 'Domine, quo vadis?' ('Lord, where are you going?'). Jesus replied that he was going to Rome to be crucified for a second time. Inspired, Peter returned to the city to be arrested and executed. In the centre of the aisle are copies of two holy footprints supposed to belong to Christ. The originals are in the Basilica di San Sebastiano.
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Chiesa del Gesù
A formidable and much-copied example of Counter-Reformation architecture, the Chiesa del Gesù is Rome's most important Jesuit church. It was built between 1551 and 1584 with money donated by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who was subsequently said to own the three most beautiful things in Rome: his family palazzo, his daughter and the church of Gesù.
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Chiesa della Trinità dei Monti
This landmark church was commissioned by King Louis XII of France and consecrated in 1585. Apart from the great views from outside, it boasts some wonderful frescoes by Daniele da Volterra. His Deposizione (Christ being taken down from the cross), in the second chapel on the left, is regarded as a masterpiece of Mannerist painting. If you don't fancy climbing the steep steps, there's a lift from Spagna metro station up to Viale Trinità dei Monti.
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Chiesa di San Bartolomeo
Built on the ruins of the Roman temple to Aesculapius, the Greek god of healing, Isola Tiberina's 10th-century church has been much altered over the centuries. As you see it today, it has a baroque ceiling, a Romanesque bell tower and a marble wellhead, believed to have been placed over the spring that provided healing waters for the temple.
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Chiesa di San Carlo ai Catinari
This 17th-century church with its severe facade and exquisite dome was designed by Rosato Rasati for Cardinal Carlo Borromeo. 'Catinari' refers to the bowl makers whose shops dotted the neighbourhood. Inside, there are altarpieces by Pietro da Cortona and Guido Reni, and a richly decorated 16th-century crucifix on the sacristy altar by Algardi.
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Chiesa di San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane
It might not look it, with its filthy façade and unappealing location, but this tiny church is a masterpiece of Roman baroque. It was the first church designed by Borromini and bears all the hallmarks of his tortured genius. The elegant curves of the façade, the play of convex and concave surfaces and the dome illuminated by hidden windows ingeniously transform a minuscule space into a light, airy interior.
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Chiesa di San Francesco d'Assisi a Ripa
The overriding reason to visit this otherwise unexceptional church is to gasp at one of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's most daring works. In the Beata Ludovica Albertoni (Blessed Ludovica Albertoni; 1674) is a work of highly charged sexual ambiguity showing Ludovica, a Franciscan nun, in a state of rapture as she reclines, eyes shut, mouth open, one hand touching her breast.
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Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini
At the head of Via Giulia, this 16th-century church was commissioned by Pope Leo X (a member of the Florentine Medici clan), as a showcase for Florentine artistic and architectural talent. Jacopo Sansovino won a competition for its design, which was executed by Antonio Sangallo the Younger and Giacomo della Porta, while Carlo Maderno completed the elongated cupola in 1614.
Read more about Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini
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Chiesa di San Gregorio Magno
Towering over Via di San Gregorio, this church stands on the site where Pope Gregory the Great is said to have dispatched St Augustine to convert the British to Christianity. Originally it was the pope's family home but in AD 575 he converted it into a monastery. It was rebuilt in the 17th century and the interior was given a baroque face-lift a century later.
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Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Lucina
Little remains of the original 5th-century church that was built here atop an ancient well sacred to Juno. The exterior, with its Romanesque bell tower and long columned portico, dates to the 12th century, while the elaborate interior is 17th-century baroque. Look out for Guido Reni's Crocifisso (Crucifixion) above the main altar, and a fine bust by Bernini in the Cappella Fonseca, the fourth chapel on the southern side.
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Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi
The church of Rome's French community since 1589, the Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi is one of the capital's art heavyweights. Built by Domenico Fontana and designed by Giacomo della Porta, its interior is a master class in baroque bombast, with no less than three paintings by Caravaggio - the so-called St Matthew cycle.
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Chiesa di San Martino ai Monti
In the 3rd century this was already a place of worship - Christians would meet here, in what was then the home of a Roman named Equitius. In the 4th century, after Christianity was legalised, a church was constructed and subsequently rebuilt in the 6th and 9th centuries. It was then completely transformed by Filippo Gagliardi in the 1650s.
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Chiesa di San Nicola in Carcere
This church was built in the 11th century on the site of three Republican-era temples. Marble columns from the temples were incorporated into the church's façade and interior and are still visible today. If you're not claustrophobic, check out the excavations beneath the church, where you'll find the foundations of the temples and remnants of an Etruscan vegetable market that also stood here.
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Chiesa di San Paolo entro le Mura
With its stripy neo-Gothic exterior and prominent position on Via Nazionale, the American Episcopal church of St Paul's Within the Walls is something of a landmark. There's not a whole lot to see, but it's a quiet spot for a breather and there are some unusual 19th-century mosaics. Designed by the Birmingham-born Edward Burne-Jones, they feature the faces of his famous contemporaries.
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Chiesa di San Pietro in Montorio & Tempietto di Bramante
An architectural Kinder Surprise, Bramante's perfectly proportioned Tempietto (Little Temple) is tucked away in the courtyard of Chiesa di San Pietro in Montorio, reputedly the site of St Peter's crucifixion. Lauded the first great building of the High Renaissance, it was completed in 1508, with Bernini adding the staircase in 1628. Bernini also contributed a chapel (the second on the left) in the church.
Read more about Chiesa di San Pietro in Montorio & Tempietto di Bramante
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Chiesa di San Saba
Dating from the 10th century, this church has been substantially rebuilt. Cosmati marble work from the 13th century decorates the main door and floor, and on the left-hand nave there's a fresco of three naked girls in bed. Legend has it that these girls were saved from prostitution by St Nicholas, who threw stockings filled with gold up to their bedroom. Better known as Santa Claus, this story is the origin of the Christmas stocking tradition.
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Chiesa di Sant'Agostino
Despite boasting one of the earliest Renaissance façades in Rome, this 15th-century church is more interesting inside than out. Inside the main door, on the right, you'll find Jacopo Sansovino's much-loved Madonna del Parto (1521), a sculpture of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, revered by soon-to-be mums and doting parents.
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Chiesa di Sant'Andrea al Quirinale
Regarded by many as one of Bernini's greatest is this late-17th-century church. Faced with severe space limitations, the great man managed to produce a sense of grandeur by designing an elliptical floor plan with a series of chapels opening onto the central area. The opulent interior, decorated with polychrome marble, stucco and gilding, was much appreciated by Pope Alexander VII, who used it while in residence at the Palazzo del Quirinale.
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Chiesa di Sant'Andrea della Valle
The setting for the first act of Giacomo Puccini's opera Tosca, this towering 16th-century church is topped by Carlo Maderno's huge dome, the second-highest in Rome after St Peter's. The impressive baroque interior features frescoes by Mattia Preti, Domenichino and, in the dome, Lanfranco. Competition between the artists was fierce and legend has it that Domenichino once took a saw to Lanfranco's scaffolding, almost killing him in the process.
