The Mattatoio: Where the Fifth Quarter Was Born
Why is it significant?
Look up at the monumental gate in front of you. On top, a winged figure wrestles a bull to the ground. It is an elegant, almost classical piece of sculpture, the kind you would expect on a museum. And in a sense this is a museum now.
Key Facts
| Place | The Mattatoio: Where the Fifth Quarter Was Born |
|---|---|
| Address | Piazza Orazio Giustiniani 4, 00153 Roma RM, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.87620, 12.47310 |
| Part of Walk | The Keyhole and the Amphora Hill: Aventine Secrets & Testaccio's Roman Soul |
| Generated | Generated |
Look up at the monumental gate in front of you. On top, a winged figure wrestles a bull to the ground. It is an elegant, almost classical piece of sculpture, the kind you would expect on a museum. And in a sense this is a museum now. But for nearly a century, behind this gate, Rome slaughtered its cattle.
The Mattatoio was designed by the architect Gioacchino Ersoch and opened at the end of the 1880s. It was a model of modern hygiene for its time, with long iron halls, rail tracks and cattle pens stretching toward the river. Thousands of animals passed through here every week to feed the new capital. It finally closed in 1975.
Now here is why every food lover should stand at this gate. The workers here, the vaccinari, were often paid partly in kind, with the parts nobody else wanted: tails, tripe, cheeks, hearts, intestines. Romans call this the quinto quarto, the fifth quarter, everything left after the four prime quarters of the animal have gone to the rich. And the families of Testaccio turned it into a cuisine.
Coda alla vaccinara, oxtail stewed for hours with tomato, celery and a hint of cocoa. Trippa alla romana, with mint and pecorino. Rigatoni con la pajata, made with the intestines of a milk-fed calf, the milk still inside, which curdles into a creamy sauce as it cooks. These dishes were born in the kitchens of this street, and one of the trattorias carved into the foot of Monte Testaccio has been serving them since the nineteenth century.
Today the iron halls hold a contemporary art museum, a university faculty of architecture and markets for organic food. The cattle pens are gone, but the sculptures of bulls are still everywhere if you look. From here, walk east along the edge of the old pens toward a pyramid... yes, a real one, and the quietest, most romantic cemetery in Rome.