Great Synagogue of Rome and the Jewish Museum site features

The Great Synagogue of Rome is a tall, pale, heavily ornamented block standing on its own ground by the Tiber, on the edge of the old ghetto, and the thing you see first — from the Aventine, from across the river, from half the bridges in Rome — is the dome.

It is square, which is why it stands out. Roman domes are round; this one rises from a square base, clad in aluminium that reads as pale grey against the sky, ribbed into panels and finished with a small lantern. Around its base runs a deep ornamental cornice, and the drum below is pierced by arched windows on each face.

The facade is tall, symmetrical and dense with carving. A high pediment, a row of Corinthian columns framing a great arched window, palm-leaf reliefs in panels either side, Hebrew inscription set into the tympanum, and — at the very top — a menorah in silhouette.

Inside, the decoration is art nouveau and it is not restrained. The interior is richly decorated in flowing floral and geometric painting, in strong colour under the dome.

The second synagogue is quieter and older in feel. The Spanish Temple, placed in the same building in 1932, was in 1948 embellished with the marble furnishings of the Cinque Scole, recreating the atmosphere that was breathed in the ancient synagogues of the ghetto, with their splendid marbles and fabrics.

The museum is compact and dark by design. 700 square metres in seven rooms with different themes, cased and low-lit for liturgical furnishings, manuscripts, incunabula, historical documents, registers and works in marble — textiles and parchment rather than monumental sculpture, so the scale of looking is close and slow.

The aluminium dome

On a square base, over the monumental building inaugurated in 1904 — the one synagogue dome on the Roman skyline.

The art nouveau interior

Richly decorated, with the bimah placed in a way that does not exactly conform to the tradition of the "Roman rite".

The Spanish Temple

For the rite officiated in Rome at least since 1492; placed in the same building in 1932 and embellished in 1948 with the marble furnishings of the Cinque Scole.

The seven rooms

700 square metres, seven rooms with different themes, display inaugurated in 2005.

The collection

Liturgical furnishings, manuscripts, incunabula, historical documents, registers and works in marble, dating mainly to the period of the Ghetto (1555-1870) and coming entirely from the palace of the Cinque Scole.

The seven-language audioguide

Free with the ticket, by QR code: Italian, English, Hebrew, Spanish, German, Russian and French.

The ghetto quarter

The ground the Temple was deliberately built on, and the subject of the museum's own guided walks.