Rome's first public lift was installed on the Aurelian Wall in the Pincio Gardens in 1929

If you look closely, on the façade of this neglected sixteenth-century Tuscan-style building in the northern part of the Pincio gardens, directly above Piazza del Popolo, you can make out an inscription: ASCENSORI. Yes, it really is a lift. More precisely, it is the first public lift in Rome, installed right into the Aurelian Wall in 1929 by the Rome tram company. A tram line ran along the street below, and the lift provided the connection with it. Inside the unassuming structure, with its veranda and little balcony, were two electrically driven cabins measuring 3 by 1.9 metres, built to carry 18 people and covering a 15-metre ascent in 20 seconds. Most convenient. The service was, of course, paid; the lift was open from 7 in the morning until 11 at night, and the cabins ran at 5-minute intervals, in keeping with the public transport timetable. In 1959, when Via del Muro Torto was turned into an expressway, the rails had to be removed and the trams gave way to buses, whose frequency the lift could no longer match. It was mothballed, and opened only for the duration of the Olympics