02/19/2026
99% of the people eating dinner 50 meters away have no idea this place exists.
The Antica Spezieria di Santa Maria della Scala was founded in the late 1500s by the Discalced Carmelites — the "barefoot" friars — inside their monastery. They grew herbs in the convent garden, crushed them by hand, and made remedies for their own community.
Then the popes found out.
The pharmacy was so close to the Vatican, and the quality of the medicines so high, that cardinals, princes, and eventually the popes themselves started coming here. It became known as La Farmacia dei Papi — the Pharmacy of the Popes.
In the 1700s, a friar named Fra Basilio della Concezione turned it into something bigger — a real pharmaceutical school. He developed legendary formulas, including the Acqua anti-pestilenziale (anti-plague water) and the Acqua della Scala, a lavender-based remedy still famous today. Fra Basilio lived to 77 — almost unheard of at the time — and people said it was proof his medicines actually worked.
The most extraordinary remedy still sitting in the room? The teriaca. A formula originally created by Andromachus, personal physician to Emperor Nero. It was considered the universal antidote — a cure-all made of 57 different ingredients, including viper meat. It sits in a marble container in the corner of the room. If the friar is in a good mood, he'll lift the heavy lid and let you smell it.
The pharmacy operated without interruption for nearly 400 years — through plagues, through wars, through the Roman Republic (when it was even used as a field hospital for wounded soldiers). It finally closed in 1954. But nobody ever cleared it out.
That's what makes this place unlike anything else in Rome.
The 18th-century wooden cabinets are still there. The frescoed ceiling with the Carmelite coat of arms. The original majolica vases, the scales, the mortars, the distillation stills, the pill-making machines. Even the medicines themselves — some over 200 years old — are still on the shelves. The wardrobe doors bear painted portraits of Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna, alongside records of famous visits, including King Vittorio Emanuele I in 1802.
And at the end of the visit? You can buy products still made by the Carmelite monks using the original recipes — creams, remedies, and liqueurs.
How to visit:
📍 Where: Piazza della Scala 23, Trastevere, Rome. You enter through the modern pharmacy on the ground floor.
You must book in advance. Email the friars. Cost: Around €5 per person.
