Museo dell’Ara Pacis

Now in a striking and luminous container – designed by Richard Meier and opened amid great controversy – Augustus’ great monument, the Ara Pacis Augustae, was inaugurated in 9 BC; this altar of Augustan peace celebrated the end of the civil war and strife that had characterised the last years of the Republic, and the wealth and security brought by Augustus’ victories. Originally located a few hundred metres away, the ara was designed to overlook the urban stretch of via Flaminia (now via del Corso) by which Augustus had re-entered the city after three years’ absence in Spain and Gaul. The altar as we see it now was reconstructed in the 1930s (by Mussolini who called himself ‘the New Augustus’) – after major excavations under the palazzo that had been built over the altar – its position known from fragments discovered during building work in the 16th century, and an equally major trawl through the world’s museums looking for missing bits. Outside, the flank of the building towards piazza Augusto Imperatore bears the Fascist Era inscription of the Res Gestae, Augustus’ testament to his ‘things done’.