Villa Maxentii

The Villa of Maxentius is an imperial villa in Rome, built by the Roman emperor Maxentius. The complex is located between the second and third miles of the ancient Appian Way, and consists of three main buildings: the palace, the circus of Maxentius and the dynastic mausoleum, designed in an inseparable architectural unit to honor Maxentius.

The remains of beautiful buildings are configured as the last phase of the transformation of an original rustic republican villa (2nd century BC) built in a scenographic position on the side of a hill facing the Alban Hills.

The two nymphaeums facing the Appian Way are dated in the Julio-Claudian era, one of which, still visible and recently rebuilt, was much later attached to a farm. In the 2nd century the place underwent a radical transformation under Herodes Atticus, who incorporated it into his Pago Triopio.

The property later passed under imperial rule and it was then that, in the early 4th century, Maxentius built the villa, the circus and the family mausoleum there. In this mausoleum was where his son Valerius Romulus, dead in adolescence, was perhaps first placed.

The defeat of Maxentius by Constantine probably led to the early abandonment of the site (it is believed that the racecourse was never used by Maxentius), and the property passed to the Patrimonium Appiae (already mentioned in the time of Pope Gregory I -in the late 6th century- among the ecclesiastical heritage). The circus, called Girulum, is mentioned in a land-transaction document between ecclesiastical entities in 850.

The great estate passed to the counts of Tusculum, then to the Cenci and finally to the Mattei -to whom the first excavations are connected- in the 16th century.

Only this Circus remains which, according to some, is the work of Galieno; a brick mass that was the main entrance, and the land cultivated around the Circus, in the middle of which was found the Egyptian obelisk that is now seen in the most noble source of Piazza Navona.

The obelisk mentioned is the Agonalis Obelisk, integrated into the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona.

Text adapted from “Villa of Maxentius” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Villa Maxentii ranks #2,970 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #234 of the 452 mapped in Italy. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,342 times in the last 60 days, more than 56% of the atlas. Wikidata records about 19,000 visitors in 2021. 63 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Rome, 5 km away. See how Italy compares in the castle statistics.

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