Palestrina

Roman Praeneste. Home to the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia — a vast terraced complex climbing the hillside, one of the most ambitious pieces of architecture the Republic ever built.

A living Italian hill town built directly atop the ancient Temple of Fortuna Primigenia; the sanctuary's terraces underlie it, with a museum in the Palazzo Barberini.

Notable finds

Nile Mosaic of Palestrina

Laid around 100 BCE across the sanctuary's lower grotto floor, this giant mosaic traces the Nile from its Ethiopian highlands down to the Mediterranean, crowding in crocodiles, hippos and Egyptian soldiers well before Egypt was even a Roman province.

National Archaeological Museum of Palestrina, Palazzo Barberini

Head of the Cult Statue of Fortuna Primigenia

Found near the sanctuary's own oracle well, this head belonged to a marble statue that showed the goddess seated on a throne nursing the infant Jupiter and Juno at once, the strange, specific image that anchored her cult here for centuries.

National Archaeological Museum of Palestrina, Palazzo Barberini

Ficoroni Cista

An engraver named Novios Plautios signed his own name into this bronze bridal casket around 340-330 BCE, after covering it in fine line drawings of the Argonauts — one of the very few named artists whose work survives from the ancient Italian world.

National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, Rome

Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →