Cattedrale di San Francesco d'Assisi
Civitavecchia cathedral, with its two-order Baroque façade and the statues of Faith and Justice.
2 places covered in Civitavecchia Grouped by type, most important first.
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Churches and places of worship
1Castles, palaces and villas
1Forte Michelangelo
The sixteenth-century fortress of Civitavecchia's port, wanted by Julius II and completed by Sangallo.
More places of interest
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Aquae Tauri
The Terme Taurine, also called the Baths of Trajan, are a large Roman bath complex on an isolated hill about four kilometres from Civitavecchia. They were built in the Republican age over hot sulphurous springs and greatly enlarged between 123 and 136, under Hadrian. The poet Rutilius Namatianus, who visited them in 416, tells that the name came from a bull that, pawing the ground before a fight, made the spring gush out; according to another hypothesis the name recalls Titus Statilius Taurus, a general of Augustus.
What to see
The site has two large areas. The Republican baths are entered through an atrium with a mosaic of stars and diamonds; beside a large exedra is the oldest room, a domed round bath that under Hadrian was turned into a laconicum, a dry-heat bath, with a new floor raised on small piers. The caldarium, divided by two rows of travertine columns like a basilica, had a large central pool and three small side tubs; in the apse at the end is a marble altar with a Greek dedication to the Nymphs, placed by Alcibiades, a freedman of Hadrian.
The imperial baths are even larger. The great caldarium, about twenty-three by nine metres, was almost entirely taken up by a pool lined with white marble and fed with thermal water; square and semicircular niches lightened the walls and let in the light. There were also a library with a porphyry floor and niches for scrolls, shops and at least five individual latrines similar to those at Hadrian's Villa. The baths remained in use until the mid-sixth century: in 593 Pope Gregory the Great writes of them.
Visiting
The baths are in an archaeological park, reopened to the public in 2020 after restoration, which also hosts music and art events. Opening hours and tickets should be checked beforehand.
Our editors' tip
In 1770 the Papal States began the first excavations and laid out an Italian garden nearby, which can still be seen today.
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Near Civitavecchia
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
