Mausoleo delle Fosse Ardeatine

The pozzolana quarries on via Ardeatina where German occupation forces shot 335 people on 24 March 1944, in reprisal for the partisan attack in via Rasella, and the memorial built over them. Entry from via Ardeatina is through a bronze gate about six metres long by Mirko Basaldella, finished in 1951, with two smaller versions inside. Just within stands Francesco Coccia's travertine group Le tre eta, a young man, an adult and an old man, on a base of stone tuff from Monte Compatri. The forecourt is dedicated to the dead of the Marzabotto massacre and carries a Christian cross and a Star of David. Inside the galleries are two chasms opened by the explosives the SS set to hide the bodies. The sacrario is a hollow reinforced-concrete monolith on a rectangular plan, 26.65 by 48.5 by 3.55 metres, sunk two metres into the ground so that a thin slit of light runs between base and cover, about 1,300 square metres carried on six supports along the long edges. It holds 335 granite sacelli, in seven double rows in the order the bodies were exhumed, plus one dedicated to the Martiri d'Italia; 328 of the dead are identified and seven are unknown, and 70 of the 335 were Jews. A votive lamp given by Paul VI stands at the end of the gallery. Open Monday to Friday 08:15 to 15:15 and Saturday and Sunday 08:15 to 16:45.