The Pimpaccia, the Golem and a Slice of Pizza

A dark-history walk that stops to eat, and that names its ghosts. It starts at the Portico d'Ottavia in the Jewish quarter, with the mystical traditions the district carried, the symbolism attached to the number seven, and the Golem, the figure said to have been made to protect the community when it needed protecting. On Via dei Giubbonari, once the street of the tailors, the ghost is Olimpia Maidalchini, whom Romans called the Pimpaccia. She ran the city through her brother-in-law the pope, accumulated a great deal of money and was widely detested for both. She is supposed to still be about here after dark. On Via Giulia the subject is Giulia Tofana and the Aqua Tofana she sold: a few drops in wine or soup, slow, undetectable, bought by women with no legal way out of a marriage. Between those, Roman pizza. Later, wine and local biscuits. The route also covers the Passetto del Biscione and its frescoed vault, the madonnelle, Giordano Bruno's statue in Campo de' Fiori, the bone-fronted church of Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte, and the Arco dei Banchi, where a plaque still marks how high the Tiber came. It ends at the Ponte Sant'Angelo with Mastro Titta.