Piazza Mattei

A small jewel-box square in the Jewish Ghetto, built around the Turtle Fountain and surrounded by elegant Renaissance palazzi: Palazzo Costaguti and Palazzo Mattei di Giove. The square is named after the Mattei family, who paid for the fountain in exchange for the right to keep gambling debts off the public record. It's one of the quietest corners in central Rome — a few minutes' walk from Largo Argentina but feeling worlds away.