Casina del Salvi reopens as café and public study hall

Rome has reopened the 19th-century Casina del Salvi, located inside the Celio Archaeological Park near the Colosseum. The newly restored neoclassical building now hosts a café and public study hall.

The ground floor of the historic building offers a cafeteria and terrace, while the upper floor provides 38 workstations with Wi-Fi and charging points.

Mayor Roberto Gualtieri inaugurated the space on Tuesday. “It is one of the access doors to Carme, the new archaeological walk,” he said. “I doubt there are such beautiful refreshment and study points in the world,” Gualtieri added. “Anyone studying here is bound to get top marks in their exams.”

The intervention has returned the building to its original 1835 function. Pope Gregory XVI commissioned architect Gaspare Salvi, who drew inspiration from Valadier’s Casina on the Pincio. It sits beside the remains of the Temple of Claudius.

Reopens after decades

Closed for decades, the Casina has now reopened following restoration by the Capitoline Superintendency. The work removed architectural barriers and updated systems.

Culture councillor Massimiliano Smeriglio described it as the Casina’s “first real inauguration”.

“This wonderful place has never taken off,” he said. “It was supposed to be a coffee house but was abandoned for decades.”

The study room joins a growing network of public workspaces across Rome’s cultural venues, including museums and libraries. Visitors to Celio Park can also explore the nearby Museo della Forma Urbis, opened in January 2024 and already visited by 75,000 people.

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Museo della Forma Urbis

The museum exhibits fragments of the Forma Urbis Romae, a vast marble map of ancient Rome created in the 3rd century AD. Displayed under a glass floor, the pieces rest on a printed version of Giovanni Battista Nolli’s 1748 map of Rome.

A new multimedia project titled The Gates of Celio, the Keys to the City is also underway. It will offer immersive experiences in the museum and park.

These developments are part of the Carme project, a wider plan to revitalise Rome’s central archaeological zone. The goal is to link major sites via a pedestrian ring. The route will include the Forums, Colosseum, Celio, Palatine, Baths of Caracalla, and Capitoline Hill.