Insula Araceli

Brief information

The Insula dell'Ara Coeli is interesting because it is not a temple or a palace, but the remains of ordinary multi-story housing from ancient Rome. The source text calls it the best-preserved residential building in Rome and in the entire territory of the former Roman Empire. So what matters here is not monumental scale, but the structure of the house: shops and workshops operated on the ground floor, there were mezzanines between the first and second floors, and apartments were located higher up.

A house like this helps you see the city as a place of dense everyday life. The stone part has preserved several levels, but the source clarifies that, based on the thickness of the walls and Tacitus’s description, at least two more wooden floors are assumed to have existed. This means the present ruins do not show the full height, but rather the sturdy lower part of the building, above which lighter structures may have stood.

What to notice first

It is worth comparing the lower tier with the upper remains. The ground floor was occupied by shops and workshops, while the mezzanines connected it with the level above: this explains why the building was read not only as housing, but also as a working space. Higher up were apartments, including two large second-floor apartments of 200 m² each; this detail changes the usual idea of an insula as cramped housing without exception.

Only two arches survive from the arcaded façade, so they provide a rare hint of the house’s exterior appearance. Alongside the ancient remains, traces of the site’s later life are important: the campanile, remains of the apse, and frescoes belonged to the church of S. Biagio de Mercatello, later dedicated to Saint Rita. The ruin shows not a single moment of antiquity, but a site where a residential building, a church, and 20th-century restoration were layered over one another.