1) Pantheon

It’s one of the most famous monuments, celebrated for its unusual wide dome (the diameter is over 43 m, i.e. about 47yd). It was built in 27 b.C. by the project of Marco Vipsanio Agrippa, son-in-law of the emperor Augustus.
It was built  many times again  until 125 a.D., to change its shape and to increase its grandeur. It keeps the tombs of two great artists, Raffaello e Baldassarre Peruzzi.
It keeps also the tombs of  the first two kings of  Italy: Vittorio Emanuele I, the founder of the kingdom, and the successor Umberto I with his wife queen Margherita di Savoia.
Queen Margherita is famous nowadays for the honour reserved to her by the Neapolitan pizza makers that created the “pizza Margherita” showing the colours of the Italian flag: the green of the basil, the white of the mozzarella cheese and the red of the ripe tomatoes. 

2) Colosseum

It’s also called Anfiteatro Flavio and probably it’s the most famous Roman monument in the world.
Its name is due to the enormous statue of the emperor Nero that was there.
It was built during the age of  the emperors of the Flavian dinasty and it was opened to Roman people by emperor Titus.
It’s 50 m high, circular with a diameter 188 m large (about 206 yd).
Its first opening was celebrated by no-stop circus games in the following 100 days.
The games were grand fights with many gladiators, fighting against each other or against wild animals, or even naval battles (naumachie).
To create large shaded areas for the spectators, a squad of sailors, coming from the military harbour in Miseno, had to manage a lot of sails over the tiers.
Through an underground tunnel, the Anfiteatro was linked to Ludus Magnus, a small amphitheatre, where the gladiators used to train themselves.

3) Domus aurea

It was built by will of  Nero who wanted a stately house as the centre of his empire.
It was built after the great fire of Rome in 64 a.D. by the project of the architects Severus and Celer and it was decorated by the painter Fabullus.
Its decorations were well known in the Renaissance as the grottesche and were studied by the artists of this cultural age.
The villa had the imperial palace, a wide garden with a pond where emperor Vespasianus ordered to build the Colosseum.
We will also visit the Giardino Porticato, the famous Sala della Volta Dorata and the very high Criptoportico.
In the last building we will admire the painted walls, the vaults where many artists of the Renaissance impressed their signature and the Sala Ottagona delimited by a central dome.

4) The Baths of Caracalla

They are the greatest example of  baths in the imperial age.
They were completely built during the reign of Caracalla as from 212 a.D. and they could serve 1600  people at the same time.
The whole building was nearly square, with the side about 330 m long (370 yd), and it had  two imposing exedras,  along two opposite sides, that included a central large room with an apse, whose way in was decked with a colonnade.
Two smaller rooms were placed side by side to the largest one.
We will visit the various rooms of the baths, in particular the cold water room (frigidarium), the warm water rooms (tepidarium) and the hot water rooms (calidarium). 
Both the two granite baths, now situated in Piazza Farnese, and the mosaic representing athletes, now exhibited in the Musei Vaticani, come from the Baths of Caracalla.

5) Villa of Quintili

Our cultural itinerary will let you to know one of the large villas in the roman suburbs.
It’s located along the Appian road and it belonged to the two brothers Quintili, well-known for their active presence in the roman public life, thanks to their culture, military experience and wealth. 
The emperor Commodus ordered to kill them in 182 a.D., on the charge of their conspiracy against his reign, and confiscated all their property, the villa included.
The villa was so rich and beautiful indeed that the emperor himself used to live there very often to enjoy its convenience and comforts.
We’ll also visit the Antiquarium, where it’s possible to admire the precious statues coming from the ruins of the villa  as the result of the archaeological activity in the last century.   

6) Ara Pacis

The visit is dedicated to the monument known as the symbol of the Augustean age : Ara Pacis, that is the altar which celebrates the peace in the empire obtained by Augustus after the victories of Roman army in Gallia and in Spain.
It was built between 13 and 9 b.C. and  it was consecrated to Gods and to Augustus.
After its restoration,  Ara Pacis was set up in the scene conceived by the architect Richard Meyer and in the underground of the monument there is  a setting out path showing the history of the archaeologist excavations, of the  monument restoration and the relief model of the surrounding Campo Marzio area in the age of Augustus (so named area because dedicated to Mars, the god of war).  
You’ll also admire the plaster copies of  the faces of the most representative members of the giulian-claudian dynasty, the noblest families in Rome in that time.

7) Musei Capitolini (i.e. in Capitolium, the centre and the origin of Rome)

We’ll go all over the new show path, whose centre is the exedra of the Marcus Aurelius statue, which highlights the extraordinary ruins of the Giove Capitolino temple, the original statue of  Marcus Aurelius and the relevant sculptures of the gardens of the roman villas.
We’ll also admire the Spinario, the Lupa Capitolina, the female wolf that’s the symbol of Rome, the Venus Capitolina, the dying Galata and the collection of  the Roman Emperors’ busts.
At the end of the visit it will possible to achieve the arches of Tabularium and from there to see down and to enjoy the evocative view of the Foro Romano.
The Tabularium was the name of the ancient State archives in Rome, built in 78 b.C. under the rule of  the consul Quinto Lutazio Catulo.

Duration: 1 ½ hour