Ghost Hunt Through Rome, with Mastro Titta's House

The best material on this walk is documented, which makes it worse rather than better. Mastro Titta was the executioner of the Papal States for sixty-eight years and carried out 516 executions, all of them recorded in his own hand. He lived on the wrong side of the river and was forbidden to cross the bridge except when working, so people knew what was coming when they saw him on it. His house is a stop on this route. The madonnelle, the little painted Madonnas set into corners all over the old centre, were the city's street lighting before street lighting existed, and they were installed partly to make robbing people harder. That is on the route too. So are Campo de' Fiori, where the executions happened; Ponte Sisto; the Fontana del Mascherone with its warning; a 17th-century chapel decorated with human bone; a building that was one of the worst prisons in Rome and is now flats; a former cosmetics shop with a story about poison sold as face powder; and the bridge where the bodies of the executed were displayed, now lined with angels, where the Cenci story ends. The group carries a Ghost Hunter Kit, there are video recreations at the stops, and everyone who finishes gets a certificate of survival. Arrive ten minutes early: latecomers are not refunded.