Museo dell’Ara Pacis Augustae

The Ara Pacis Augustae, dedicated to the Peace guaranteed by the first emperor in the territories dominated by Rome, represents one of the highest examples of classical art that have survived until today. The building of the Ara (altar) was decreed by the Senate in 13 B.C. on occasion of the return of Augustus from the provinces of Spain and Gaul and it was deliberately built north of Campo Marzio, theatre of the gymnastic and military training of the city’s young men. Buried and forgotten for centuries, some large fragments of the altar were recognised at the end of the 19th century and put back together in 1938 inside a structure that did not guarantee correct conservation. The current Museum, finished and inaugurated in 2006, was designed by American architect Richard Meier and represents the first architectural work realised in the historic centre of Rome since the Second World War.