Italy · Lazio · Rome
San Saba, Rome — Area Guide & Where to Stay
San Saba is a rione of Rome named for the Basilica of San Saba, a quiet slice of Municipio I edged by the Aurelian Walls.
About San Saba
Where to stay in San Saba
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Beds are thin on the ground in San Saba, and most of what exists is small, a handful of guest houses and apartments on the streets between the Baths of Caracalla and the Aurelian Walls. Quiet comes as standard, since through traffic keeps to the perimeter and the evenings empty early. You trade nightlife for calm.
Anyone here for the archaeology gains a considerable head start each morning.
About San Saba
What are the main landmarks in San Saba?
Antiquity sits close to the surface. The Baths of Caracalla dominate, their bulk sheltering the Mithraeum at the Baths of Caracalla, while the Aurelian Walls run past with the Museo delle Mura installed inside one of the gates. The Tomb of the Scipios and the Arch of Drusus mark the old road out of the city, and the Domus Cilonis and Horti Galateae survive as excavated ground.
Churches hold the rest: San Cesareo in Palatio, San Giovanni a Porta Latina, San Giovanni in Oleo. Beneath San Cesareo lies another Roman house. Santi Nereo e Achilleo closes the group.
What is the history of San Saba?
Rome made San Saba a rione only in 1921, though the ground it covers had been walked since antiquity, when the road out of the city ran past the Tomb of the Scipios and the Arch of Drusus. Its name came from the basilica. Emperors built here first, and the Baths of Caracalla remain the largest thing that period left standing.
The Aurelian Walls closed the edge, and Municipio I takes in the whole rione.
Where is San Saba?
San Saba covers a broad, low-built stretch of Municipio I, held between the Aurelian Walls and the open ground of the Baths of Caracalla.
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Updated September 2026