The largest funerary monument in the world after the pyramids of Egypt, it echoes with the ghosts of emperors and the splendour that once was Rome.
Now, after decades of being neglected, the Mausoleum of Augustus, a hulking stone building on the banks of the River Tiber, is to be restored and opened to tourists.
Visitors will be able to venture into its cavernous interior, where the cremated remains of the Emperor Augustus were later joined by other emperors, including Tiberius, Claudius, Vespasian and the psychotic, scheming Caligula.
When it was built 2,000 years ago by Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, it consisted of a huge circular chamber covered with a roof that was topped by pillars and statues.
The pillars, statues and roof are no more, but the main structure remains hugely impressive, guarding an internal sanctuary where the ashes of the emperors and their relatives were kept in golden urns which were displayed in marble niches.
The mausoleum is nearly 300ft in diameter and was once almost 140ft high, before its stone and marble was looted for other building projects.
It is all dusty pathways and overgrown vegetation at present, its gloomy inner chamber scattered with fallen masonry and broken marble inscriptions.
An Italian telecommunications company, Telecom Italia, has stumped up six million euros (£5 million) for its restoration, which is due to be completed in April 2019 and could include the rebuilding of the mausoleum’s roof.
The project is the latest example of a corporation donating money to restore Italy’s cultural heritage, after the luxury shoe company Tod’s funded the cleaning of the Colosseum and Fendi financed the restoration of the Trevi Fountain.
“We’re going to bring back to life one of the great masterpieces of ancient Rome, which has lain abandoned in the middle of the city for years,” said Virginia Raggi, the mayor, as she unveiled the project.
The history of the monument – and through it, the Roman Empire - will be told through a multi-media presentation, while new lighting and walkways will be installed.
Scaffolding has already been erected around the perimeter and heritage experts are busy repairing the Roman brickwork of its towering walls. They are also excavating areas that have never been studied before.
Among the discoveries they have made are the remains of stables that were used to keep wild buffalo, which were used in bullfights when the mausoleum was turned into an arena for spectacles. The fights were banned by Pope Pius VIII in 1829 after he deemed them too violent.
The cremated remains of Augustus and the rest of his dynasty were lost when the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 AD. The mausoleum fell into disrepair but was used for a wide variety of purposes in the following centuries.
A family of Roman nobles refashioned it into a fortress and it was later owned by enemies of the Medicis, who turned it into a refuge for political exiles fleeing Florence.
In the early 20th century it was converted into a concert hall, one of the largest in Europe, where the likes of Toscanini conducted operas.
Mussolini ordered the demolition of the concert hall in the 1930s and had surrounding medieval buildings flattened, as he sought to harness the memory of the mighty Roman Empire to glorify his own efforts to create a new, Fascist empire in the Mediterranean.
Born Gaius Octavius in 63 BC, Augustus was the great-nephew of Julius Caesar. The Senate bestowed on him the title Augustus – “worthy of veneration” – in 27 BC. He commissioned the building of the giant funerary monument as a place of veneration for himself and his successors.
Concentric walls and corridors inside the drum-shaped mausoleum gave the impression of entering a hallowed labyrinth.
“It consists of a mound of earth raised upon a high foundation of white marble, situated near the river, and covered on the top with evergreen shrubs,” wrote Strabo, the first century AD Greek geographer and historian. “Upon the summit is a bronze statue of Augustus Caesar and beneath the mound are the ashes of himself, his relatives and friends…Such is Rome.”
Considered one of the greatest of Rome’s rulers, Augustus famously boasted: “I found a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” He died in AD 14 and his ashes were placed inside the great structure.
“It is one of Rome’s most important monuments,” said Claudio Parisi Presicce, a senior cultural heritage official. “It hasn’t been accessible to the public for decades but now it’s going to be finally restored to the city.”