Free Tour Rome at Night Forbidden Ghosts and Stories

1) Get ready (home)
It opens with Donna Olimpia and the hellish carriage that crosses at night loaded with stolen gold, horses with fire eyes. The bridge is also linked to executions and drownings → natural transition to the church of the anonymous Tiber dead.
2) Mastro Titta (the executioner) (transition while crossing the bridge)
The pontifical executioner was crossing here for the executions in Campo de’ Fiori: “Mastro Titta Pas Ponte” = synonym of death is coming.

The grimace of the Farnese mascherone who “laughs” at night. Dark Renaissance atmosphere.

Key stop macabre!
Church of the confraternity that buried the unknown corpses (drowned in the Tiber or found in the field). Facade with winged skulls, hourglasses, skeletons and phrases such as “Hodie mihi, cras tibi” (“Today to me, tomorrow to you”).
Suggestive oval interior, but the real chill is the crypt/ossuary (if open – check schedules, often guided tours or special openings) : decorations, lamps and compositions made with real bones, skulls and femurs. Remember the crypts of the Capuchins, but more “hidden” and disturbing.
Terrifying history: before 1870, in the underground cemetery they displayed full-size wax statues of macabre historical scenes to terrorize/instruct the people during the octane of the deceased.
Perfect for “memento mori”, death cult and ghosts of the forgotten.

Here began her stormy story: he initiated her into hermetic mysteries, she betrayed him by denouncing him to the Inquisition.
Cagliostro ended up sandwiched alive in a cell without a door in Castel Sant’Angelo (lowered from above), where he died in 1795.

Black heart of the ride.
Capital execution square for centuries: hangings, bonfires, beheadings.
In the center, the statue of Giordano Bruno, burned alive here on February 17, 1600 for heresy.
Philosopher, hermetic wizard, occultist, pantheist, defender of an infinite and animated universe... burned with a gag in his mouth so he wouldn't talk anymore.

The atmosphere is so suspended that many sensitive people feel “presences” – as if time had stopped in the 15th century.
Perfect for a mysterious pause: “It seems that the courtyard refuses to enter the present... who knows who still lives here, invisible.”

The Monaca Piangente : a tormented soul, a nun executed by forbidden love, is said to cry near the statue of Giordano Bruno on silent nights.

Giulia Tofana (or Toffana)
Serial poisoner from the 17th century, probably born in Palermo around 1620.
He fled to Rome (Tastevere/Regola area), selling the Agua Tofana : an odorless and tasteless poison based on arsenic, camouflaged as a cosmetic or devotional remedy.

The sister-in-law/lover of Pope Innocent X Pamphilj (Piazza Navona) was feared as an avid and powerful woman.
Black legend: after the pope's death, he stole Vatican treasures and fled.