Your Rome Basic But Bonnie Corner

Pigneto is an area close to the centre (2, 2 km from Termini Station and 2, 7 from Colosseum) of ultra-popular origin. It extends in an almost equilateral triangle about 5 km on each side and lies between the consular streets Prenestina and Casilina parallel to the first section of the Claudian aqueduct. In antiquity, both roads exited from Porta Maggiore (in the Aurelian Pomerio era) and Porta Esquilina (in the Servian Pomerio era). In classical times, the area was an agro and burial ground, and with the advent of Christianity it was almost entirely occupied by the Villa of the Empress Mother, Helena. The entrance to the residence was adorned with two centuries-old laurels, which gave the area its still current toponym of AD DUAS LAUROS. In the early part of the 1900s, it became the shantytown needed to accommodate the great call of masons from Molise, Abruzzo and the Marches called to Rome to build THE ALTAR OF THE PATRIA (the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which stands in Piazza Venezia). In the second part of the 1900s the shacks increased and many were raised to accommodate a new wave of masons, this time also from Campania and Puglia for the great demolitions ordered by the fascist regime for the creation of Via dell'Impero (today Via dei Fori Imperiali), Via della Conciliazione and Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. The name PIGNETO originates from a vast and dense pine forest that covered the entire area and that had been planted by the owners, Marchesi Caballini, in pre-unification times. With unification, the Caballini family, who had not sided with the right side, fell into disgrace and their land was requisitioned and parcelled out among the veterans of the First World War. In July 1943, Pigneto was bombed along with San Lorenzo and then again, a few days later, on 13 August, during the so-called 'second air raid on Rome'. Two years later, Roberto Rossellini shot the film 'ROMA CITTA' APERTA' in Pigneto. In the 1950s and 1960s, the PIGNETO was immortalised in the cinema and literature of Pier Paolo Pasolini, who set scenes from 'ACCATTONE' and passages from 'RAGAZZI DI VITA' and 'UNA VITA VIOLENTA' there. Today, the neighbourhood has been semi-gentrified, many show business workers live there, but also many working-class families. In the evening it is a chaotic place, animated by a seductive and unruly movida.