On the ground floor of
the building several rooms were occupied
by the inn called della Sciacquetta.
The Romanesque poet Trilussa lived for a
certain period in the building on the
corner of Via della Lungarina.
From Piazza in Piscinula we
take the
Via Arco dei Tolomei which
takes its name from the medieval arch
which can still be seen,
even if it has
been considerably reworked.
The monument was erected for the noble Sienese family who lived in this quarter from the 14th century. From Via Arco dei Tolomei we turn onto Via dei Salumi (of the Cold Cuts: like many streets of the quarter, it owes its name to the trades of the shopkeepers), from which the picturesque Vicolo dell'Atleta starts. The Vicolo dell'Atleta is so named because the Apoxyomenos statue (The Scraper: an athlete scraping off the sweat and dust mixed with the oil with which he was coated before the fight) was found there in 1849. The sculpture, a 1st century A.D. Roman copy of a Greek original by Lysippus, is now kept in the Vatican Museums.
At no. 14 of Vicolo dell'Atleta
we can see a pretty 13th-century
construction, with a loggia and small
pointed arches on stone corbels,
and with
an inscription in Hebrew on the central
column. It is considered the only
surviving ancient Jewish synagogue in the
quarter,
which was populated by a
sizeable colony of Roman Jews in the
Middle Ages.
In this zone of Rome, the centre of the oldest Trasteverine folklore, people danced the saltarello, a typical dance from the regions of Abruzzo and Ciociaria dating from the 14th century. Each year since 1535, the traditional Festa de Noantri (Festival of Us Others, i.e. the citizens of Trastevere as opposed to voantri, the you others of the other quarters) is held, dedicated to Our Lady of Carmine, whose feast-day falls on 16 July. The religious feast-day is supported by the civil festivities which include concerts, sports competitions, and various attractions, ending with a display of fireworks. Going back to Via dei Genovesi we can take Via di Santa Cecilia which leads into the square dominated by the church of the same name. Across from the entrance to the Basilica of Santa Cecilia, at the corner of Piazza dei Mercanti there is a lovely example of a 14th-century house.
