Discover Mausoleum of Augustus

The Mausoleum of Augustus is a large tomb built by the emperor Augustus in 28 BCE on the Campus Martius. It stands on Piazza Augusto Imperatore, near the corner with Via di Ripetta as it runs along the Tiber, with its grounds covering an area equivalent to a few city blocks between the church of San Carlo al Corso and the Museum of the Ara Pacis.

It is currently closed. After fourteen years shut for restoration it reopened to the public in March 2021, and has been temporarily closed again since June 2022 because of the renovation work in Piazza Augusto Imperatore.

The mausoleum was circular, built of concentric rings of earth and brick faced with travertine, planted with cypresses on the top tier and possibly capped by a conical roof and a huge bronze statue of Augustus. It measured 90 m across and 42 m high. A corridor ran into a chamber with three niches holding the golden urns of the imperial family, and two pillars at the entrance carried bronze plaques inscribed with the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Augustus's own account of his accomplishments.

It was a hill with a building inside it. The mausoleum was circular, made of several concentric rings of earth and brick, faced with travertine on the outside and planted with cypresses on the top tier. The whole was probably capped by a conical roof and a huge bronze statue of Augustus, though reconstructions are uncertain. Vaults held the roof up and opened the burial spaces below.

The numbers are the point. 90 metres in diameter, 42 metres high. That is a tomb the size of a city block, built by a man who was still calling himself the first citizen.

The entrance was a propaganda device. Twin pink granite obelisks flanked the arched doorway; they were removed long ago and now stand at Piazza dell'Esquilino, behind Santa Maria Maggiore, and at the Quirinal fountain. Two pillars at the door carried bronze plaques inscribed with the Res Gestae Divi Augusti — Augustus's own account of what he had achieved, written to be read by anyone entering.

Inside, a corridor ran to a chamber with three niches holding the golden urns of the imperial family.

And it stood in a park. The mausoleum was surrounded by landscaped parkland, a place of retreat in the heavily urbanised Campus Martius — which makes the hard Fascist-era piazza around it today a reversal of the original idea, not a continuation of it.

It was built early, and that is the interesting thing about it. The mausoleum was one of the first projects Augustus initiated in Rome after his victory at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, and it went up in 28 BCE — before the principate had settled into its final shape. A man builds a 90-metre dynastic tomb when he intends there to be a dynasty.

The construction is earth as much as masonry. Concentric rings of earth and brick, faced in travertine, with vaults to hold the roof and open the burial chambers beneath, and cypresses planted on the top tier. It is closer to an engineered tumulus than to a conventional building.

Then it was rebuilt four times without being rebuilt once. Buried under earth and trees by the end of the tenth century; fortified as a castle in the twelfth and held by the Colonna until their fortification was dismantled after 1167; used as a garden by Renaissance families; and roofed over in the early twentieth century as the Augusteo concert hall.

The 1930s stripped it back and rebuilt its surroundings instead. Mussolini closed the Augusteo and restored the mausoleum to the status of an archaeological site, as part of an ambitious reordering of Rome intended to connect Fascism with the ancient city. The square it stands in is that project.

The current campaign is the setting again. The renovation of Piazza Augusto Imperatore, by Rem Koolhaas and partly financed by the Bvlgari Group, closed the monument on 6 June 2022 and was expected to complete by the end of 2026. Twice in a hundred years, the work has been about what surrounds the tomb rather than the tomb itself.

Can I go inside? No. The Mausoleum has been closed to visitors since 6 June 2022 for the renovation of Piazza Augusto Imperatore.

When will it reopen? The work is by Rem Koolhaas, partly financed by the Bvlgari Group, and was expected to be completed by the end of 2026. Check with Turismo Roma before travelling.

Wasn't it open recently? Briefly. It reopened in March 2021 after fourteen years of restoration and closed again in June 2022 — about fifteen months open in twenty years.

Can I see anything? Yes. The exterior drum is visible from the surrounding piazza at any hour, free.

How big was it? 90 metres in diameter and 42 metres high — concentric rings of earth and brick faced in travertine, with cypresses on the top tier.

Who was buried there? Marcellus, who was first in 23 BCE; Agrippa; Nero Claudius Drusus; Octavia Minor; and Gaius and Lucius Caesar, among others.

Did the Visigoths really scatter the ashes in 410? It is the traditional story. Platner and Ashby argued it has no historical foundation and that nothing is known of the building's destruction.

What happened to the obelisks? The two pink granite obelisks that flanked the entrance now stand at Piazza dell'Esquilino, behind Santa Maria Maggiore, and at the Quirinal fountain.

Was it really a concert hall? Yes — the Augusteo, in the early twentieth century, until Mussolini closed it in the 1930s and returned the building to archaeological status.