Balduina, population 42,000, is an urban area that belongs to the Municipio XIX

Municipio XIX

Municipio XIXCountry:Municipality: RomeArea:137 km²Population:177,418pop. density:1,295 km²President:Alfredo Milioni Website:MapThe Municipio XIX, is an administrative subdivisions of the city of Rome...

 of the commune

Comune

In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...

 of Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, and to the fourteenth borough of the city, (Q.XIV, called Trionfale). Situated at 139 metres above sea level on the southern side of Monte Mario

Monte Mario

-External links :* * *...

, Balduina is the highest part of Rome.

The area of Balduina is marked on the southern side by the green “cliffs” of the hill forming a natural entrance just at the corner of Via Antonio Labriola and Via Gualtiero Serafino through Viale delle Medaglie d’Oro in a place known at the beginning of the 20th century as Dogana della Balduina (the customs house of Balduina); It is bounded to the west by the FR3 railway that runs from Rome to Cesano and Viterbo

Viterbo

See also Viterbo, Texas and Viterbo UniversityViterbo is an ancient city and comune in the Lazio region of central Italy, the capital of the province of Viterbo. It is approximately 80 driving / 80 walking kilometers north of GRA on the Via Cassia, and it is surrounded by the Monti Cimini and...

, a boundary overtaken by some housing in the Monte Ciocci area, here facing the Valle Aurelia, known as “Valle dell’Inferno” Balduina is bounded to the north by some convents and villas on the Via Trionfale, a historic road that leads north towards Via Cassia. Finally, to east the neighbourhood is framed by the Via Trionfale itself, which runs down from Villa Stuart to Borghetto S. Lazzaro and is the boundary with Prati di Castello.

Balduina is divided into three readily identifiable districts:

• the “true” Balduina, the core of the neighbourhood, is centred on Piazza Balduina;
• Belsito, to the north, is marked by Piazzale delle Medaglie D’Oro and the green area of Parco della Vittoria, Villa Stuart and the green areas around the Cavalieri Hilton hotel;
• Monte Ciocci, named after the Casale Ciocci mansion (a work by Baldassarre Peruzzi), faces the Vatican hill
  Vatican Hill
  Vatican Hill is the name given, long before the founding of Christianity, to one of the hills on the side of the Tiber opposite the traditional seven hills of Rome...
  
   and is the home of the old brickworks which were created to provide building materials for Saint Peter’s Basilica. Streets here are named after Latin writers.

Until the beginning of the twentieth century “Balduina” and “Monte Mario” were used interchangeably and the neighbourhood was surrounded by open fields with no specific name. Subsequently the name “Monte Mario” slowly “moved” (in an urban sense) towards the areas of S. Onofrio and Case Nostre, marking these areas on the plateau where today stands the railway station of the same name.

History

Balduina is named after Baldovino del Monte, brother of Pope Julius III

Pope Julius III

Pope Julius III , born Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, was Pope from 7 February 1550 to 1555....

 del Monte (1550–1555) and owner of those lands on the southern part of Monte Mario.

The modern neighbourhood started around 1909 with some elegant villas built on Viale delle Medaglie d’Oro and Viale Tito Livio.

A much bigger expansion started just after World War II with the typical Roman Palazzine, four or five-storey buildings, split in some apartments, nine as a base.

Places of interest

• The 120,000 m² Parco di Monte Mario
• The Dominican monastery of the Madonna del Rosario that hosts an icon of the Virgin previously placed in S.Maria in Trastevere
  Trastevere
  Trastevere is rione XIII of Rome, on the west bank of the Tiber, south of Vatican City. Its name comes from the Latin trans Tiberim, meaning literally "beyond the Tiber". The correct pronunciation is "tras-TEH-ve-ray", with the accent on the second syllable. Its logo is a golden head of a lion on a...
  
  .
• The observatory, opened in 1938 in the Villa Mellini.

Historical villas and mansions

• Casale Ciocci, built by Baldassarre Peruzzi in the sixteenth century.
• Villa Stuart, built in the seventeenth century and owned by Emmeline Stuart-Wortley and Lord Allen since the nineteenth century.
• Villa Monte Mario, owned in the nineteenth century by Bernard Blumensthil, an Alsacian
  Alsace
  Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
  
   negotiator for the Holy See
  Holy See
  The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
  
  .
• Villa Miani, a mansion planned at the beginning of the twentieth century to host the American Methodist Church University.

Churches

• Santa Paola Romana, in Via Duccio Galimberti.
• Santa Maria Stella Matutina, in Via Lucilio.
• San Pio X, in Via Attilio Friggeri.
• San Fulgenzio, in Via della Balduina.

Transport

FR3: a regional and urban railway line linked to the major Trastevere and Ostiense train stations and to the Linea A metro with a junction at Valle Aurelia.

Bus lines: 907, 913, 991 and 999.