Elizabeth F Heath - The Architecture Lovers Guide to Rome

The Portico d Ottavia today .

The temples the portico encloses were constructed in the second century, BCE.

The portico itself was constructed more than 150 years later, on orders of Emperor Augustus, in honour of his sister, Ottavia (Octavia) Minor.

On at least two occasions in the first century CE, the structure was badly damaged by fire and restored.

In 442 CE, an earthquake levelled the two right-hand columns, which were replaced with the brick archway still visible today.

By the early Middle Ages, a fish market was established on the ruins of the portico.

In 772, the church of SantAngelo in Pescheria ( pescheria refers to the fish market) was built over the original temples. The stairs and green door at the back of the portico belong to the church, and three columns from the portico were incorporated into the left-hand side of the church faade.

In 1555, Pope Paul IV ordered that all of the citys Jewish population be forcibly moved into an area of a few square blocks adjacent to the portico. The area, which became known as the Ghetto of Rome, was walled-in and had four gates, which were locked shut at night. One gate was to the left of the Portico of Octavia. The Ghetto was an unsanitary, overcrowded neighbourhood subject to frequent flooding and outbreaks of disease. Residents were only allowed to leave the Ghetto during daylight hours, and they had to be back inside the walls by sundown.

In the late 1700s, Jews from the Ghetto were forced to attend Jesuit sermons every Saturday, delivered in the ruins of the Portico of Octavia, which also remained a fish market well into the 1800s.

With the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy in 1870, the Ghetto was abolished. In 1888 the Ghetto walls were torn down. In 1943, the Nazis occupied Rome, and sent more than 1,000 of its Jewish residents to death camps. A plaque near the portico remembers those who were sent away and never returned.

Today, the Portico of Octavia flanks the eastern entrance to the area still referred to as the Ghetto. Romans and tourists alike visit here today, to look for traces of its past as a Jewish enclave and to eat in one of the many restaurants along Via del Portico dOttavia, where Roman-Jewish cuisine is the specialty.

A first-century BCE monument, built over second-century temples, with fifth-century restorations and an eighth-century church growing out of its ruins. A bustling marketplace and a symbol of religious prosecution. A tourist attraction and a place of remembrance.

Welcome to Rome!

The Portico of Octavia serves as a fitting example of how architecture has evolved organically in a city thats been continuously occupied for nearly 3,000 years. Rome has never been frozen in time its been an evolving, constantly changing city since its inception. Its never completely intact and its rarely pristine even buildings like the Pantheon and St Peters Basilica, both models for their architectural styles and periods, differ significantly from their original designs. Instead, the architecture of Rome is the stage set on which a dynamic, living city goes about its daily business. Its at turns soaring and inspirational, crumbling and chaotic, functional and severe. Its been pillaged and preserved, restored and bastardised. Its most revered monuments, before they were elevated to their current iconic status, were once cattle pastures, marble quarries and yes, fish markets.