Altar of the Fatherland (Vittoriano) Site Features

The Tomb of the Italian Unknown Soldier

Built beneath the statue of the goddess Roma after the First World War, following an idea of General Giulio Douhet. The side facing outward at the Altar of the Fatherland is guarded permanently by a guard of honour, with two flames burning in braziers. The tomb is a symbolic shrine to all the war's fallen and missing — which is why it is watched rather than displayed.

The Altar of the Fatherland itself

Originally an altar of the goddess Roma, conceived as the chapel of a deity, and only afterwards the soldier's shrine. Both readings are still legible in the sculpture, and knowing the order they happened in is what makes the Altar comprehensible.

The Panoramic Terrace

Reached by the two glass lifts installed from 2007, and the reason to buy a ticket. It is the only high, central, publicly accessible vantage point in Rome that looks down the length of the Imperial Fora, and the view runs a full 360 degrees.

The Museo Centrale del Risorgimento,

In the base of the monument: the national museum of Italian unification, and the context that explains why an object of this scale exists at all.

The quadrigae and the Winged Victories

The bronze chariot groups on top add eleven metres to the monument's height. From the free terraces you see them from below; from the Panoramic Terrace you are level with them.

The great garden of Palazzo Venezia,

Included in the free zone and almost unvisited: a walled garden a minute from the busiest square in Rome, where you may sit without paying anything.