Sixty years ago, the Italians were making ready to welcome the world to the Olympic Games at the very same stadium. It is at the heart of the impressive Foro Italico.

Rome had waited more than half a century for the honour. The Eternal City had originally been awarded the 1908 Games in what Baron Pierre de Coubertin described as "a sumptuous toga" for the Olympic movement.

The eruption of Vesuvius in 1906 meant priorities switched to disaster recovery and although Italy played a prominent part in international sport throughout the 1920s and 1930s, it was not until 1955 that their Olympic dream was revived at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Paris.

Brussels, Budapest, Detroit, Lausanne, Mexico City and Tokyo were in the bid race.

Rome sent big hitters in sports administration to plead their case. These included Giulio Onesti and Bruno Zauli, the General Secretary of the Italian Olympic Committee and a leading light in athletics.

They "succeeded in creating an atmosphere of cordial understanding in the halls of the ancient Parisian palace of Faubourg Saint-Honore taking infinite pains."

They had produced a wealth of documentation and brochures in support of their campaign.

The voting went to three rounds and it soon became clear that it was a head-to-head with Lausanne. In the final round, the verdict went to Rome by 35 votes to 24.

The delegation admitted that much would have to be built in the five years they had to prepare for the Games. The organising committee was headed by Giulio Andreotti, a future Prime Minister of Italy.

An Olympic Village was built in conjunction with the city authorities.

The first to arrive there had been five Indonesian cyclists and six boxers from Ghana. In all, 5,352 competitors from 83 nations eventually thronged the thoroughfares.

The Village is still occupied today and can be reached by a short tram ride from the Piazza del Popolo.

The road signs offer clues to the former occupants. There is a Via Unione Sovietica, but also Via Dorando, named in honour of the fabled marathon runner in 1908 who staggered into the stadium and was disqualified after officials rushed to his assistance.

Nearby, the Stadio Flaminio was the setting for the medal matches in football. Despite the presence of future superstar Gianni Rivera and Giovanni Trapattoni in the Italian team, they lost the bronze medal to Hungary whilst Yugoslavia beat Denmark for the gold.

The stadium was used for another 40 years and was used for Six Nations rugby - but is now an abandoned ruin.

The Olympic Flame came across the Mediterranean in style by tall ship. It burned on the bridge of the Amerigo Vespucci, a training ship in the Italian navy.

Bells tolled around the city as the Games opened in the heat of the afternoon against the backdrop of a flawless blue sky.

Soon-to-be decathlon champion Rafer Johnson was the flagbearer for the United States and Italy’s most successful Olympian, fencer Eduardo Mangiarotti, carried the Italian tricolour.

There was plenty for the Italians to cheer, with boxer Nino Benvenuti - a future world champion - striking gold and Livio Berruti sprinting to 200 metres victory in sunglasses.

For other competitions, they made use of the backdrop that only the Eternal City could offer.

The Basilica of Maxentius made a superb backdrop for the classical sport of wrestling.

The gymnastics were held in the precincts of the ancient Roman baths of Caracalla.

It was a fitting stage for one of the legendary figures of the sport. Larisa Latynina, representing the Soviet Union added to her already considerable reputation with three gold medals.

There was a sign of the future too. The Japanese won the men’s team competition and Takashi Ono returned home with three gold medals.

Perhaps the most memorable image came one evening beneath the arch of Constantine, where Abebe Bikila, a palace guard at the court of Emperor Haile Selassie won the marathon. He had discarded his running shoes because they were uncomfortable.

For much of the race the group of leading runners included Bikila and a Moroccan army sergeant Rhadi Ben Abdesselam.

Bikila ran barefoot because as his Finnish coach Onni Niskanen observed: ‘’It appeared he was five or six steps slower with shoes and his running style was not as perfect as when he ran barefoot.”

With a little more than two miles to go, Bikila struck to open up a gap of 50 yards which had extended to 200 by the time the race was over. The winning time of 2 hours 15min 16.2sec was a world best.

Tragically, there was a death in one of the endurance cycling events. Knud Jensen of Denmark collapsed and died during the road race. It later emerged that he had taken a stimulant which proved lethal in the heat.

Not all the venues were from the time of the ancient Games. The equestrian events were centred on the Villa Borghese a park first laid out in the early seventeenth century. Italy’s legendary Raimondo and Piero D’Inzeo dominated the individual jumping.

Boxing produced arguably the most celebrated Olympic champion of modern times. The light-heavyweight champion was a young man from Louisville in Kentucky. He was known then as Cassius Marcellus Clay. Although they may have seemed appropriate names for a Roman setting, the champion did not agree. Within four years he had changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

Rowing was held on the outskirts of Rome at Lake Albano, not far from the Pope’s summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. The Pope had greeted members of the IOC before its session, but the idea of a Vatican Olympic team, now apparently a possibility for 2024, would have never have entered their thoughts.

Next door to the Olympic stadium, the hockey tournament was played in the Stadio dei Marmi, a small but striking venue built in the 1930s and surrounded by giant Fascist statues of sportsmen.

Although a mural from the same era in one of the buildings had been hastily covered up during the Games, a mighty obelisk inscribed with Benito Mussolini’s name still stood at the entrance to the Olympic stadium and does to this day. The walkway still has Fascist symbols including the word "Duce", the name given to the Italian leader.