Rome - Mausoleo di Augusto

The present appearance of the Piazza Augusto Imperatore gives little hint of the importance this area once enjoyed. Here, some years before his death, the Emperor Augustus constructed a mausoleum for himself and his family (the Julio-Claudian dynasty). This took the form of a gigantic earthen mound 89m/290ft in diameter, of the kind used for the burial of kings and princes in the Mediterranean area since prehistoric times. Outside the entrance to the mound stood two Egyptian obelisks, now to be seen behind the church of Santa Maria Maggiore and in the Piazza Quirinale. By the entrance were the "Res Gestae", two bronze tablets on which Augustus recorded the achievements of his reign. (The original tablets are lost, but their text has been preserved in inscriptions.) During the Middle Ages the mausoleum was used by the Colonna family as a fortress, which was pulled down by Pope Gregory IX in 1241. Thereafter the mausoleum became a garden, an Amphitheater and even a concert hall, before being restored to its original state in 1936.