Discover the new Virtual Tour
of the Jewish Museum of Rome
The Jewish Museum of Rome is located in the Great Synagogue monumental complex. Walking across the different rooms you can see a reconstruction of Jewish life in Rome since the earliest settlement in the second century before the Common Era.
The Jewish community has been living continuously in Rome for 2,200 years, making it one of the oldest communities outside of Israel. The exhibits on display in the museum date back principally to the ghetto period (1555-1870) and all come from the original ‘Five Synagogues’ building.
The rich collection includes liturgical furnishings, manuscripts, incunabula, historical documents, records and marble works.
Since 1960, the museum displayed its treasures in a single room, but the study and cataloguing of all the works required a larger display area. The new exhibit was inaugurated in 2005.
The museum covers an area of 700 square meters and unfolds through seven rooms with different themes. It offers a reconstruction of the Jewish people life in Rome and shows us how they managed to integrate into the socio-economic structure of the city, while they maintained their own identity.
The Great Synagogue
In 1870, with the breach of Porta Pia, the Italian Army conquered Rome and the city, with all its territory, was absorbed into the Kingdom of Italy: the temporal power of the popes had ended. Later on, Rome was declared as the capital of the Kingdom… Read more…
The Spanish Synagogue
At the end of the nineteenth century, the Jewish Community of Rome wanted to replace the Ghetto’s five ancient synagogues (Cinque Scole) with a monumental one Read more…
The jewish quarter
n 1555 Pope Paul IV established the ghetto, a run-down district where Jews were forced to live apart from the rest of the population…
Exhibitions
1849-1871 The Jews of Rome between Segregation and Emancipation
1849-1871 The Jews of Rome between Segregation and Emancipation (Jewish Museum of Rome)Exhibition curated by Francesco Leone and Giorgia Calò November 10, 2021 – May 27, 2022   On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of Rome as the capital of...
MENORAH: CULT, HISTORY AND MYTH
THE MENORAH: CULT, HISTORY AND MYTH Braccio di Carlo Magno (Vatican Museums)Jewish Museum of Rome (Great Synagogue) May 15th - July 23rd, 2017 The exhibition involves, for the first time, the cooperation between the Vatican City State and the Jewish Community of Rome,...
First of all Italians; Roman Jews and the Great War
First of all Italians; Roman Jews and the Great War (Jewish Museum of Rome, 18th December 2014 – 18th March 2015  Since the Italian Risorgimento, the Jews, hitherto considered extraneous to national values and excluded from society and military service, began to...
Events
European Day of Jewish Culture 2022
The plaque from Ostia Antica will be exhibited at the museum relating to the oldest document that explicitly certifies the presence of Jews in Italy.
SYNAGOGUE-CHURCH-MOSQUE. Connections, interactions and transformation strategies
Presentation of the volume: “Storia dell’Italia contemporanea 1943-2019”
The rooms
The Gallery of Ancient Marbles
The Ancient Marbles Gallery is a suggestive space where the marbles, of the utmost importance for the history of the Jewish Community of Rome and dating back to the XVI-XIX centuries, are collected. Some of them remember the legacies of wealthy families, others...
Room 1 – The Fabric Wardrobe
Renaissance velvets decorated with gold threads, embroideries and lace of the Baroque age, French eighteenth-century lampas: a world of grace and richness that has come down to us from the age of the ghetto. The museum has about 900 fabrics, some of which are...
Room 2 – From Judaei to Giudei: Rome and its Jews
Tombstones casts from Rome catacombs and from Ostia Antica synagogue, Middle Age manuscripts, plants of the city characterize this room in which the uninterrupted presence of the Jews in Rome, for over two thousand years, is visually reconstructed.
Reservation
For schools or groups of people who want to access the Museum and Synagogues through a private tour, reservation is required. For individual visitors booking is not compulsory, but required only if you wish to visit the Museum and the Synagogue with a private tour. The Jewish Museum organizes two daily tours of the Jewish Quarter: the tour in English takes place at 1.30pm and the tour in Italian at 3.00pm. Visits can be booked on our website site, up to 30 minutes before the tour starts at Museum ticket hall.
