Via Nazionale and further east
Five minutes from the gallery runs straight east via Nazionale which connects Piazza Venezia and the city center with the Stazione Termini and the districts beyond. It is, in a way, the main shopping street in Rome, and after unification it was significantly expanded. Heavy, overloaded buildings, similar to those on via XX Septembre, they were to give Rome a more sophisticated look, when it became the capital of the new state, at present there are department stores and clothing stores. Republic square (formerly Piazza d'Esedra) at the end, it is typical of this 19th century regeneration: it is raw and distinguished, and now a rather tacky semicircle of buildings occupied by cheap hotels and travel agencies.
The square partially stands on the site of Diocletian's former baths, whose sparse ruins are preserved on the other side of the square in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. The church is not one of the most encouraging in Rome, but it gives an idea of the enormity of Diocletian's thermal complex. This large open building is used today for formal occasions such as visits by statesmen, and the interior after centuries of fragmentary adaptations (initiated by the aged Michelangelo) was standardized by Vanvitelli in the style of 18th-century confection. However, the pink granite pillars are original, and the main transept was the main room of the bathhouse; only the crescent-shaped facade remains of the original caldarium (previously obscured by a new facade), vestibule (tepidarium) and the main transept. The meridian running diagonally across the floor was to 1846 r. used for time stamping (currently, a cannon is fired daily from the Janiculum Hill).
Is said to be, that Michelangelo contributed to the modification of another part of the term, courtyard forming part of the Museo Nazionale Romano behind the church (wt.-sb. 9.00-14.00, nd. 9.00-13.00; 1000 L) entrance from Piazza dei Cinquecento. It could be a very good museum - the collection of Greek and Roman antiques is excellent and second only to the Vatican but like many museums in Rome suffer from a lack of financial resources; to be expected, that some part of the exhibition will always be closed and it is better to find out which one before buying an admission ticket. And it's worth paying to see the courtyard with its various Roman sarcophagi, statues and mosaic fragments at the top of the stairs on the first floor (although the collection pales in comparison to Naples) and stucco shards from the ruins of an Augustus villa found on the grounds of Villa Famesina; in a separate room there is also a full set of frescoes from Villa Livia on the Palatine Hill, depicting a garden dense with fruit and flowers, in which quails fly, turtledoves and other birds. In the museum you can also find the so-called. Ludovisi throne, Greek object from the 5th century. p.n.e., decorated with reliefs depicting, inter alia, the birth of Aphrodite.
Through the trees in the museum garden, the low white silhouette of the Stazione Termini and noisy looms, full of Piazza dei Cinquecento buses in front of the station. The square is probably the largest open space in the city and all types of public transport converge here. Most of the bus lines pass this way, Two metro lines converge and the easiest way to get a taxi here. As for the station itself, this is an example of modern architecture that perfectly fulfills its function. Station, completed in 1950 r., it completely dominates the surrounding streets with its flat and consciously modern silhouette. This is a nice place to welcome Rome.
East of Termini, behind the polyclinic and university buildings, the SAN LORENZO district stretches from the end of via Tiburtina to the railway tracks, inhabited mostly by workers and retains its local color. The area takes its name from the Church of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura (codz. 15.30-18.30; guided tours every half hour) on via Tiburtina, one of the seven great pilgrim churches in Rome, bizarrely situated on the main street in front of the huge Campo Verano cemetery, where from 1830 r. All Roman Catholics are buried and is worth visiting in itself because of the numerous rich tombs. The church is a typical Roman basilica with a portico with columns and a wonderful 12th century cloister to the side. The original church was built on the site, somewhere in. Lawrence was martyred at the hands of Constantine. The saint was reportedly burned on the grate, and in the middle of his torment he cried out immortal words: "Turn me over, from this side I am already finished. “San Lorenzo, however, differs from other pilgrim churches, because it is a combination of three churches built in different periods of the 6th-century reconstruction of the Church of Constantine by Pelagius II, currently forming the presbytery and the fifth-century church from the pontificate of Sixtus III, connected by the thirteenth-century basilica erected by Honorary II. The interior contains elements from all periods, although with a predominance of later cosmatesco, 13th-century pulpits and Paschal candlestick. The mosaic on the triumphal arch is a 6th-century portrait of Pelagius offering his church to Christ; from the catacombs stretching under the building of Constantine, under the stairs you go to the romanesque cloisters and the well-kept garden.