Just across from the Circus Maximus on Via dei Cerchi, there’s a building that looks like any other old municipal structure. In fact, today it houses the city’s Dipartimento Sviluppo Economico e Attività Produttive (Department of Economic Development and Productive Activities). But in the late nineteenth century, it was the beating heart of Rome’s pasta industry: the Pantanella factory, the city’s first large-scale pasta operation.

Its founder, Michelangelo Pantanella, arrived in Rome from Arpino in southern Lazio in 1848 with little more than ambition and a new marriage. He started out selling polenta cakes near the Colosseum and on the Campidoglio, later reinvesting profits from a grain windfall into a bakery on Via della Fontanella. He eventually set his sights on something bigger: a steam-powered bakery and pasta plant at the Circus Maximus, an area that at the time was practically the suburbs.

By 1878, construction had begun. Archaeological officials opposed the project, but Pantanella compromised, setting the building back from the Circus proper, and got the go-ahead. Later, archeologists discovered ancient ruins beneath the factory, including a sanctuary dedicated to the eastern god Mithras.

Pantanella rose quickly, becoming one of the city’s wealthiest entrepreneurs and a leader in the national millers’ association. But by the 1890s, his independence was under pressure from the Banco di Roma–backed Molini e Magazzini Generali di Roma. The two firms dominated Rome’s grain trade, and the tension came to a head in 1892, when a fire gutted Pantanella’s factory. The damage, paired with the collapse of the Banca Romana—Pantanella’s main creditor—left him vulnerable. His debts were absorbed by his rivals, and a merger followed. He lost control of his company and died five years later.

Production moved to a new facility near Porta Maggiore in 1929 and eventually shuttered in the 1970s. Today it is a condo complex, complete with a bingo hall. Meanwhile, the Via dei Cerchi building was briefly home to city museums before becoming a government office building and costume and set warehouse for the Teatro dell’Opera, functions it still serves today.

Plans to restore the building are underway, but the story of Pantanella remains a window into a lesser-known part of Rome’s food history, when city residents were eating fresh pasta that they made at home and also dried pasta manufactured right in their backyard.