Colombari di Vigna Codini

The Vigna Codini columbaria can't be visited today: the Appia Antica Archaeological Park writes that access is currently suspended because safety conditions can't be guaranteed. They are on private land between Via di Porta San Sebastiano and Via di Porta Latina, next to the Parco degli Scipioni, and in normal times you entered only on request. No ticket and no public price.

They are three underground collective tombs of the early imperial age, excavated between 1840 and 1852 in what was then the vineyard of Pietro Codini, a few steps from the gate where Via Appia begins. Inside, hundreds of arched niches one above the other, colored stucco, paintings with vine shoots and masks, the little plaques with the names of slaves and freedmen who worked for the great families of Rome.

The practical information given here comes from the check of September 29, 2026 on the Roma Capitale tourism portal, on the Ministry of Culture website, on the Capitoline Superintendency pages and on the websites of the associations cited later. The authoritative channel remains the page dedicated to the columbaria on the Appia Antica Archaeological Park website: before writing to ask for a visit it's worth rereading it, because conditions and contacts can change.

In brief: address, hours, ticket

• Address: private land between Via di Porta San Sebastiano and Via di Porta Latina, bordering the Parco degli Scipioni. Reference given by the Sotterranei di Roma association: Via di Porta San Sebastiano 9, 00179 Rome.
• Ownership and operator: private property. Visit requests go to the Appia Antica Archaeological Park, an institute of the Ministry of Culture.
• How you get in: as of September 29, 2026 you can't, visits suspended by the Park for safety reasons. In the past only on request or with cultural associations.
• Price: no fare published by the operator. The associations ask for a fee that they don't make public online.
• Park contacts: phone 06 7806686, email pa-appia@cultura.gov.it, offices at Via Appia Antica 222.
• How to get there: on foot from Porta San Sebastiano or from the entrance of the Parco degli Scipioni at Via di Porta Latina 10. Surface lines to be checked on the ATAC website.
• Accessibility: underground chambers with the floor six or seven meters below ground level, accessibility not published by the operator.

Where it is and what you really see

The stretch of Via di Porta San Sebastiano that goes down from the Baths of Caracalla to the gate corresponds to the beginning of Via Appia, the part left inside the Aurelian Walls. Between this road and Via di Porta Latina stretches a wedge of green land, today divided between the public Parco degli Scipioni and some private plots. In one of these plots, underground, are the three columbaria.

The reason so many tombs are concentrated right here is the Roman rule that wanted the dead outside the city, along the roads leading out. Via Appia and Via Latina split a little beyond the ancient Porta Capena, and the land between the two roads filled with tombs already in the Republican age. The Aurelian Walls, built in the 3rd century AD, then ended up enclosing this necropolis inside the urban perimeter.

From the road you see almost nothing. Boundary walls, gates, trees. Anyone walking toward Porta San Sebastiano has no idea that a few meters away, below ground level, there are rooms that held the ashes of thousands of people. It is the normal condition of this area: the Tomb of the Scipios and the Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas are in turn hidden in the greenery, with discreet entrances.

Once inside, though, the view changes everything. You go underground to chambers where the walls are riddled from floor to vault with regular rows of niches. Each niche generally held two terracotta pots with ashes, and below ran a little plaque with the name. Painted plaster, stucco and a few marble slabs remain. The first impression is that of an archive, more than a tomb.

The three rooms differ from one another. The first is a large quadrangular chamber with a central pillar, also covered in niches. The second is almost square and preserves the finest remains of painting and stucco. The third has a U-shaped plan, with three corridors connected around a small open space, and wider rectangular niches, designed for marble urns and busts. Anyone who sees only one misses the comparison, which is the most instructive part.

In the 19th century the whole area was countryside: vineyards, vegetable gardens, farmhouses, a few villas of Roman families. The owners dug to plant or to look for antiquities to resell, and almost every season turned up urns and gravestones. Today Via di Porta San Sebastiano still keeps the profile of a road between boundary walls, with gates of private properties and a few houses, and in the less busy hours it helps to imagine the landscape of that time.

A curiosity about the Vigna Codini columbaria

The name doesn't come from an emperor or an archaeologist, but from the owner of a vineyard. Pietro Codini was the owner of the vineyard in which, from 1840, Marquis Giampietro Campana began to dig. The third columbarium, found in 1852, is recorded as discovered by Codini himself on his land. So a farm outside the gate ended up in the manuals of Roman archaeology, and its name stayed attached to tombs that are almost 2000 years old.

The word "columbarium" also has a concrete origin. The rows of arched niches recalled the little cells of dovecotes, where pigeons nested one beside the other. The Romans called the dovecote itself columbarium, and the image passed to these tombs. Looking at the first columbarium, with about 500 niches arranged on all the walls, on the pillar and even on a masonry step along the perimeter, the comparison stops seeming an erudite fancy.

Another detail surprises anyone who imagines marble gravestones everywhere. In the first columbarium, according to the Roma Capitale portal, many name plaques were simply painted on the plaster, while in the second quite a few niches never received an inscription. The possible reasons are different: places bought and never occupied, names written in colors that time has erased, spaces left free when the tomb ceased to be used. The sources don't allow a certain choice.

The central pillar of the first columbarium, then, is not just a support for the vault. The sources mention painted panels with Dionysian subjects, tied to the cult of Bacchus, among vine shoots, theater masks and drinking horns. For a tomb of servants and freedmen it may seem a strange theme. In reality the world of Dionysus, with the idea of an afterlife made of feasting and wine, was widespread precisely in Roman funerary decoration.

Something nobody tells you about the Vigna Codini columbaria

Many pages online present the columbaria as part of the Parco degli Scipioni, and the Capitoline Superintendency itself, on the park's page, counts them among the area's monuments. The Roma Capitale tourism portal, however, specifies that they are on private property and that access goes through a request to the Appia Antica Archaeological Park. Entering the municipal park doesn't mean being able to see them, no internal gate leads to the tombs, and today the Archaeological Park declares them not visitable for safety reasons.

The other thing that goes unsaid is the dispersal. A large part of the urns, inscriptions and other objects left the columbaria already in the 19th century. The Roma Capitale portal notes that a sarcophagus and other materials from the third columbarium are today in the Museo Nazionale Romano, and the academic sources speak of finds distributed among many museums. What you see on site is the architecture with its fixed decorations, not the complete furnishings.

Finally there is a question of numbers. You often read that the columbaria contained "hundreds" of dead, but scholars' estimates are higher. For the first they speak of about 900 people, counting two urns per niche, for the third of about 950. On the second the sources don't agree: some count a little over 300 burials and some reach almost 700. In all, a few thousand people in a few square meters.

The confusion also arises from the presence of two different bodies a few meters apart. The Parco degli Scipioni, with its garden, depends on the Capitoline Superintendency, that is, on the City of Rome. The Appia Antica Archaeological Park is instead an institute of the Ministry of Culture, and the Roma Capitale portal refers to it for access to the columbaria. Turning from the start to the body indicated by the portal saves weeks of runaround between offices that deal with different things.

Who was buried in these niches?

The columbaria were the Roman answer to a very practical problem: giving a dignified burial to people who couldn't afford a monument of their own. Slaves and freedmen of the great families, artisans, small shopkeepers. For many the niche was guaranteed by a funerary college, a kind of association in which members paid dues and obtained a place with their name. Cremation, prevalent then, made it possible to concentrate hundreds of dead in a single room.

In the case of Vigna Codini the link with the imperial house is strong. The sources describe among the buried slaves, freedmen and musicians in the service of Augustus's family, and for the second columbarium the identification with the monument of the servants of Marcella, daughter of Octavia and therefore granddaughter of the emperor, has been proposed. The attribution is debated among scholars, but it explains the tone of the rooms well: modest burials for people who lived in close contact with power.

From the inscriptions of the second columbarium emerges a small catalog of trades. Among the names is that of Pompeia Helena, remembered as aurifex, a word usually translated goldsmith, although some think rather of a keeper of gold objects. Beside her, according to the same sources, pearl dealers, clothing sellers, incense merchants. A Rome of shops and service, far from the marbles of the Forum, which left its names here.

Widening the view to the whole complex, the academic sources list still other trades: shopkeepers, tax collectors, tent makers, alongside musicians and household staff. Many were not poor in the modern sense of the word. Quite a few had a specialized job and an income sufficient to pay the college's dues or the purchase of a niche. They were, however, excluded from the forms of remembrance reserved for the richest citizens, and the columbarium was their collective answer.

The name itself often tells a person's story. A freedman took the family name of the former master and kept as a cognomen the name he had as a slave. Iulius Chrysantus bears the name of the gens Iulia, Augustus's family, and a Greek cognomen, frequent among slaves of eastern origin. Pompeia Helena, likewise, points to a Pompeia family. Reading the plaques means reading a map of dependencies and emancipations.

The third columbarium tells instead of a somewhat richer phase. The rectangular niches could hold four urns each, and some were lined with marble slabs, framed by aediculae or arcosolia. It is calculated that about 950 people found a place there, the highest number of the three. One carefully decorated niche bears the name of Iulius Chrysantus, a sign that even inside a collective tomb someone managed to stand out.

How did a columbarium work?

The deceased was cremated on a pyre, and the ashes with the remains of the bones were collected in a terracotta olla, a pot with a lid, or in a marble urn for those who could spend more. The olla was walled into the niche and below it the name plaque, the titulus, was fixed or painted. Beside the third columbarium of Vigna Codini the sources also mention an ustrinum, that is, the place used for cremating the dead.

The columbarium was not a place closed forever. Relatives and fellow members of the college came back on anniversaries, brought offerings, ate meals in memory of the dead. The festivals of the dead in the Roman calendar, like the Parentalia of February, included visits to the tombs. For the third columbarium the sources also describe wooden mezzanines, which allowed reaching the highest rows of niches without climbing the walls or leaning on the rows of niches below.

The system was also a small business. Whoever built a columbarium could sell or transfer the niches, and funerary colleges assigned places to members according to precise rules. This is why offices, donations and allotments recur in the inscriptions of Roman columbaria. The mosaic inscription of the second columbarium, which records works paid for by members of the college, is a concrete example of this shared management, very far from the romantic idea of the tomb as a private and silent space.

In the second columbarium the colored stucco decorations show, among flowers and plant motifs, musical instruments as well. It is not a random detail. The sources mention among the buried several musicians tied to the imperial family, people who played in their masters' houses, at banquets, at ceremonies. The image of the instrument on the wall thus became a kind of professional calling card, the same role that a qualification engraved under a name would have today.

My advice for visiting the Vigna Codini columbaria

The advice, today, is not to organize anything around the columbaria until the Appia Antica Archaeological Park announces the end of the suspension. Follow the official page and the notices of the associations that used to organize entries. When it is possible to go down again, prepare beforehand: a plan of the three columbaria and two lines on Augustus's family turn walls of identical niches into a readable place.

During the visit it's worth looking for three specific things. In the first columbarium, the central pillar with the remains of the paintings. In the second, the mosaic floor with the college's inscription and the colored stuccos. In the third, the U-shaped corridors and the marble-lined niches, including that of Iulius Chrysantus if the guide can point it out. Ask to stay a few minutes in silence: that is how you grasp the scale of the place.

Shoes with a good grip, a light jacket even in summer, no bulky backpacks. The chambers are underground, the space between the walls is tight, and the decorations are damaged in a moment of distraction. The rule is simple: hands stay away from the plaster. The inscription on the third columbarium has been saying so for 2000 years, and it still applies to anyone who goes down there.

One last piece of advice concerns the order of the day. If possible, first stop by the Museo Nazionale Romano and look for the funerary urns and inscriptions on display, or calmly review some images of urns and plaques, and only then go down into the columbaria. Anyone who goes down knowing what an olla, a titulus and a funerary college are recognizes the details right away. Anyone who goes down unprepared risks seeing only holes in the wall, and coming out disappointed.

How do you get in and how much does it cost?

Today you can't get in and there is no ticket. The Appia Antica Archaeological Park page says that the columbaria are currently not visitable, because safety conditions for access can't be ensured. The Roma Capitale tourism portal still describes the old procedure, that is, the request to the Park. To find out when they will reopen, the contacts published by the Ministry of Culture are the phone 06 7806686 and the address pa-appia@cultura.gov.it.

The official channel therefore remains the website of the Appia Antica Archaeological Park, with its page dedicated to the columbaria, and the entry on the Turismo Roma portal that summarizes the access arrangements. The operator doesn't list authorized resellers, so be wary of anyone offering a "guaranteed" entry without explaining under what authorization.

When visits resume, anyone who writes to the Park for study reasons, for a university course or for an organized group will have a better chance of getting a useful answer if they explain clearly who they are and what they want to see. Attaching a program, naming a contact person and proposing several dates helps. Remember that the visit also involves the owners of the land: availability doesn't depend only on the public office, and a postponement is among the possibilities.

The other route, in normal times, is the cultural associations. Sotterranei di Roma lists the columbaria among the sites it has visited, with outings reserved for members. Dates and fees don't appear on the page, and with the suspension in place no outing is possible. It's worth signing up for their notices and expecting that openings are rare and places few, as is inevitable in underground spaces of this size.

Before paying for any offer, ask three questions. Who granted access and for what date. How many people go down together. Is the visit led by a licensed tour guide or an archaeologist? Also ask if the fee includes membership in the association, which is sometimes annual and is added to the cost of the single outing. A clear answer to these questions tells a serious opening from an improvisation.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely cited

That the Romans cremated the dead everyone knows. Less often cited is that the columbaria also document its decline. The academic sources indicate that the third columbarium remained in use until the age of Hadrian, in the first half of the 2nd century AD, when inhumation began to prevail. Niches for urns were no longer enough, sarcophagi and loculi for whole bodies were needed. From there, in a few decades, you arrive at the catacombs.

The change was neither sudden nor uniform. For some time urns and sarcophagi, cremation and inhumation coexisted, often in the same rooms. Even in the third Vigna Codini columbarium, beside the urns, cippi and a sarcophagus were found, today in the Museo Nazionale Romano according to the Roma Capitale portal. A sarcophagus inside a tomb born for ashes is the material proof of that passage, and is worth more than many explanations.

In this area the passage can also be read on the ground. The Augustan-age columbaria are inside the walls, while along the Appia outside the gate open the Catacombs of San Sebastiano and the Catacombs of San Callisto, dug when the whole body had become the norm. Visiting the two types of tomb on the same day explains the change in mentality between the 1st and 3rd century better than any panel.

The right photo to take at the Vigna Codini columbaria

Inside, the photo that works is the diagonal one, from the corner of the chamber toward the farthest wall, with the rows of niches repeating all the way up. It conveys the idea of quantity better than any detail. Flash flattens the stucco and bothers the other visitors: better to raise the sensitivity and lean against a wall to stay still. Before shooting, ask the person leading the visit if photos are allowed.

If the visit allows, a second shot should go to the details: a stucco vine shoot, a mask, a niche with the plaque still legible. These are the images that set Vigna Codini apart from any underground room. Keep the lens parallel to the wall to avoid distortion, and give up photos of people posing in front of the niches: in a tomb the smiling portrait is out of place.

Outside, where no permit is needed, the right frame is Via di Porta San Sebastiano with the vineyard walls on both sides and the gate's towers at the end. It is the same road that leads to the Appia Antica, and in a single image it holds together the city of the living and that of the dead. The best light comes in the late afternoon, when the sun falls sideways on the walls.

A common-sense rule applies outside: the land where the columbaria are is private property, and the gates are not a backdrop to zoom in on. No photos of the homes, no drones, no attempts to frame the inside by holding a phone over the boundary walls. The road, the gate, the walls and the trees already offer everything needed to tell the place without disturbing anyone.

How do you get there from central Rome?

The practical reference is Porta San Sebastiano, at the start of Via Appia Antica. From Circo Massimo, metro B stop, continue on foot along Viale delle Terme di Caracalla to Piazzale Numa Pompilio, and from there take Via di Porta San Sebastiano. The road is narrow, with sidewalks reduced in places and cars passing in both directions. Walk on the protected side and without hurry.

For bus lines the reference is the ATAC website, which publishes updated routes and detours: the columbaria's operator doesn't list stops. The main entrance of the Parco degli Scipioni, at Via di Porta Latina 10, is open according to the Superintendency from 7:00 to sunset, while the access from Via di Porta San Sebastiano appears to be closed. The exact meeting point for the visit is communicated by whoever organizes it.

From the Colosseum the walk passes by the Circus Maximus or the Celio and goes down toward the Baths of Caracalla: it is the best solution for those with time, because the route itself tells the ancient city. By car the area is awkward, the streets are narrow and the operator doesn't indicate parking options. Anyone arriving by taxi can be dropped at Piazzale Numa Pompilio and walk the last stretch.

The alternative is to arrive from the side of Via di Porta Latina, a quieter road, squeezed between walls and trees, which leads to the main entrance of the Parco degli Scipioni and then to Porta Latina. From here you also reach in a few minutes the churches of San Giovanni a Porta Latina and the Oratory of San Giovanni in Oleo. It is the most pleasant route for anyone arriving on foot who wants to combine the visit with a stop in the garden.

Some important events that happened here in history

The construction dates to the late 1st century BC and the first decades of the following century, between Augustus and Tiberius. For the first and second columbarium the academic sources give AD 10 as the latest date, derived from the mosaic floor of the second. That very floor preserves an inscription recording restoration works paid for by members of the funerary college: a sign that the members took care of maintaining their own tomb.

The period of use ends in the 2nd century AD, in the Hadrianic age. Then comes the long silence. In the 3rd century the Aurelian Walls enclose the area, the tombs fill with earth and over time vineyards occupy the ground above the tombs. The memory of the columbaria is lost, until the modern search for antiquities brings diggers back to these fields, with shovels, lanterns and little regard for context.

The sources don't agree on the history of excavations before the 19th century. Some reconstructions note that the area was already explored in the 16th century, under Pius IV, and again in the 18th century, with the recovery of urns and inscriptions. The documented season begins in 1840, when Campana dug the first columbarium. The second came to light in 1847, and the attribution of the discovery oscillates between Campana and Codini. The third was found in 1852.

Vigna Codini was not an isolated case. According to the Capitoline Superintendency, the first modern discovery of the Tomb of the Scipios dates to 1614, and in 1831 Campana himself had brought to light the Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas, with mosaics and frescoes. Within a few decades this corner of countryside between Via Appia and Via Latina became one of the most explored plots in Rome, and every discovery pushed neighboring owners to dig in turn.

A few years later, in November 1857, Campana was arrested on charges of misappropriating funds of the Monte di Pietà, of which he had been director general since 1833. The sentence of 20 years in prison was commuted to exile, and his collection, seized by the Papal State, was sold off piece by piece. Between 1861 and 1862 large lots took the road to the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg and the Louvre. This too is why reconstructing today what the tombs of the area contained is archive work more than excavation work.

Who has passed through the Vigna Codini columbaria

The first name is that of Giampietro Campana, born in Rome in 1808 and died in 1880, marquis, collector, public banker. He had begun digging at Frascati in 1829 and in 1831 had discovered the Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas, a few meters from here. He was one of the great antiquity hunters of 19th-century Rome, with methods very far from today's, but without him these rooms might have stayed buried.

Then there is Pietro Codini, the owner of the land, who unlike Campana has left no other trace in history. His name stays tied to the place for the simple fact of owning the vineyard at the right moment. Beside them, the laborers and workmen whose names no source records, who were the first to go down six or seven meters deep to free the chambers from the earth.

Through these rooms, indirectly, also passed Augustus's family. If the attribution of the second columbarium is correct, here rested the servants of Marcella, daughter of Octavia, the emperor's sister, related by marriage to Marcus Agrippa. The masters, as a rule, did not end up in these niches: the great families had their own mausoleums. But their names recur in the plaques, through the freedmen's family names and the service notations.

Campana's story also had a small return to Rome. After the dispersal of the collection, in 1873 the Capitoline Museums acquired about 400 Roman and Byzantine gold coins that had belonged to him. For the rest, his objects are today in great museums of Europe and America. It is the paradox of many 19th-century excavations: the rooms stay where they were found, while what they contained travels the world.

And above all there are the buried, who are the real protagonists. Slaves and freedmen of the families of Augustus and his relatives, musicians, a goldsmith, shopkeepers. Iulius Chrysantus with his decorated niche. Pompeia Helena with her trade written on the gravestone. In a place designed for collective remembrance, the names engraved or painted are the only thing these people left, and for epigraphists they are worth more than any statue.

Documents, tradition and legend

In the documents is what the inscriptions say: names, trades, relations of dependence, works paid for by the college. There is also the warning read on the third columbarium, "Ne tangito, o mortalis, revere Mane deos," which translates more or less like this: do not touch, mortal, respect the Manes gods. It is an engraved text, not a phrase attributed to someone, and it conveys well the ancient concern for the integrity of burials.

The scholarly tradition, on the other hand, discusses attributions and dates. The second columbarium as the monument of Marcella's servants is a hypothesis, not a certainty. The third is dated by some to the age of Augustus and Tiberius, by others to the 2nd century AD. The numbers of the dead also oscillate depending on how the niches and urns are counted. Anyone reading precise figures online should keep this in mind.

Legend, finally, tends to mix these tombs with the stories of ghosts and violated tombs that circulate all along the Appia, and with the tales gathered among the ghosts of Rome. No source documents apparitions or curses tied to Vigna Codini. Here legend stays legend: anyone looking for chills will find instead the concrete sensation of standing among thousands of forgotten names.

Why do so many start from Porta San Sebastiano and get it wrong?

In our view the most common mistake is thinking that the "real" Appia Antica begins outside the gate, among the paving stones and the pines. The urban stretch, inside the walls, is the one with the greatest concentration of famous tombs: the Scipios, Pomponius Hylas, the three Vigna Codini columbaria, as well as San Cesareo de Appia with its mosaics. Skipping it to run toward Cecilia Metella means missing the origin of all the rest.

The trouble is that almost nothing in this stretch is open with regular hours. The Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas, run by the Capitoline Superintendency, appears closed to the public since August 1, 2024 for works funded by the PNRR. Vigna Codini at the moment can't be visited at all. Also for the Tomb of the Scipios it's best to check openings and reservations on the operator's website before setting out. Anyone organizing a day here has to work with reservations, not with the curiosity of the moment.

Within this system the columbaria have a precise role: they are the popular part of the necropolis. The Scipios represent the Republican aristocracy, Pomponius Hylas a well-off freedman with his decorated space. Vigna Codini shows the many, those who were entitled only to a niche among hundreds. Read in sequence, the three places tell the social ladder of Rome through the way each was remembered.

There is also a prejudice to correct: the idea that the columbaria are minor tombs, to be seen only after the catacombs. In our view it is the opposite. The catacombs tell mostly of the first Christian centuries, while the Vigna Codini columbaria show the Rome of Augustus from the point of view of those who worked in the houses of the powerful. To understand how the majority of the city's inhabitants lived, few visits are as direct.

When is it closed and what not to expect?

Today the columbaria are closed to everyone, even on request, because of the suspension decided by the Park for safety reasons. There are no days of free opening, nor a custodian to ask on the spot. Even the days with free entry to state museums don't apply here, because it is not a museum. Showing up at the gate hoping for an exception is useless and disrespectful to the owners of the land. The gate of a private property is not an entrance.

Don't expect an equipped site with marked paths and assistance. The operator doesn't list restrooms, ticket office or educational panels as in the state parks. The decorations are fragmentary, and the quality of the visit depends almost entirely on whoever leads it. And don't expect to see original urns and inscriptions in quantity: most of that material ended up in museums, in Rome and elsewhere, already in the 19th century. What remains is the architecture, which alone justifies the effort of the request.

While waiting for the reopening, the area still offers a lot. The Museo delle Mura has regular hours, the churches of San Cesareo de Appia and San Giovanni a Porta Latina can be visited during the hours of their respective communities, and the Parco degli Scipioni remains a public garden for a stop in the shade. To see a columbarium open continuously you will have to wait for the reopening of Pomponius Hylas, for which no dates are announced.

Extraordinary openings of normally closed sites, in Rome, go through the channels of the Ministry of Culture, the Capitoline Superintendency and the associations that organize visits. As of the check date the Park declares Vigna Codini not visitable for safety reasons and announces no reopening dates. It's worth following the institutional websites, without trusting calendars copied from one site to another, which often report dates years old presented as current.

Eating in the area

For those traveling with children the simplest solution is a packed lunch. The Parco degli Scipioni, according to the Superintendency, has its main entrance on Via di Porta Latina, where the play equipment for the little ones is also found, and is open from 7:00 to sunset. Bring enough water: along Via di Porta San Sebastiano refreshment points are very few, and in summer the stretch between the walls heats up quickly in the middle hours.

Via di Porta San Sebastiano and Via di Porta Latina are streets almost without shops, between the walls of villas and convents. To eat you go back toward the Baths of Caracalla, the Circus Maximus or the neighborhoods beyond the walls. Along the routes most traveled by tour buses the usual traps apply: menus with photos of the dishes, someone at the door inviting you in, kitchen open at all hours without a break, items with no price.

Romans avoid those places for simple reasons: the price adapts to the passing customer, the menu displayed outside doesn't always match the one handed over at the table, the pasta "made in the window" serves more to stop passersby than to cook well. Better to move a few streets away and look for places frequented by people who live in the area. As a starting point there is the list of addresses on Google Maps curated by the editorial team.

What to combine in a day

The natural pairing is with the Museum of the Walls, inside Porta San Sebastiano itself, at Via di Porta San Sebastiano 18. According to the museum's website it is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 16:00, with last entry an hour before and closed on Monday. From there, according to the museum's visiting rules, you walk a stretch of the walls' walkway and look from above at the road you have just walked. Fares and reductions are on the Musei in Comune website.

A few minutes away, toward Via di Porta Latina, are San Giovanni a Porta Latina, with its cycle of medieval frescoes, and the small Oratory of San Giovanni in Oleo. Beyond the gate begins the Appia Antica Park, with the church of Domine Quo Vadis, the Basilica of San Sebastiano and the Villa of Maxentius. A full day can follow the timeline, from the Augustan niches to the catacombs.

Farther along the same road are Capo di Bove and the Villa of the Quintilii, which however need a separate day or a bicycle. Anyone who prefers to stay on the theme of collective tombs has the Catacombs of Domitilla, those of Pretextatus and the Jewish catacombs of Vigna Randanini, all along the same axis. Anyone who wants to choose calmly among opening hours, reservations and types of visit will find the overall picture on the page about the catacombs of Rome.

Farther away, the Hypogeum of the Aurelii and the Hypogeum of Via Dino Compagni show the funerary painting of the following centuries, with themes and patrons very different from the Augustan ones, while the Underground Basilica of Porta Maggiore is another large underground space of the early imperial age in Rome. To find your way among all these places, including those open only on request, there is the page on underground Rome.

Heading north, on the side of the Baths of Caracalla, you climb to the Celian Hill with Santo Stefano Rotondo and the Roman Houses of the Celio, or to the Aventine with Santa Balbina and the Basilica of San Saba. Near Piazzale Numa Pompilio you also come across San Sisto Vecchio. Anyone staying among the ancient monuments always has the Circus Maximus as a point of arrival.

Anyone who wants another look at the ways Rome remembered its dead can continue toward the Pyramid of Cestius, the tomb of a rich Roman who wanted an Egyptian form, and the nearby Non-Catholic Cemetery. For the materials that came out of tombs like these, the right place is Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, home of the National Roman Museum, and for the family served by these freedmen, the Mausoleum of Augustus.

Frequently asked questions

Are the Columbaria of Vigna Codini open to the public?

No. The page of the Appia Antica Archaeological Park says that for now they cannot be visited, because the safety conditions for access cannot be guaranteed. Even before, they had no regular hours: they are on private property and entry was only on request to the Park or through cultural associations. Showing up at the gate is no use, not even on weekends or holidays.

How much does it cost to visit the Columbaria of Vigna Codini?

Today you pay nothing because you can't get in: visits are suspended. Even before, the figure was not published. The Appia Antica Archaeological Park did not state a fee for the visit on request, and the associations that took small groups inside do not post the fee online. When visits resume, ask in writing how much you pay, to whom, and what is included.

When will it be possible to visit them again?

The Appia Antica Archaeological Park does not give a date. Its page says only that for now the columbaria cannot be visited for safety reasons. The Ministry of Culture lists as the Park's contacts the phone number 06 7806686 and the address pa-appia@cultura.gov.it, with offices at Via Appia Antica 222. It's best to check the official page before making any plans, and to be wary of anyone offering visits without citing an authorization.

Can you see the columbaria from the Parco degli Scipioni?

No. The Parco degli Scipioni is a public garden run by the Capitoline Superintendency, open according to the Superintendency itself from 7 until sunset, with an entrance at Via di Porta Latina 10. The columbaria of Vigna Codini are in the adjoining plot, underground, and there is no passage from the park. Anyone who enters the garden sees trees, lawn and walls, not the tombs, which remain closed.

Can the Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas be visited on the same trip?

Not at the moment. The Capitoline Superintendency states that the Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas has been closed to the public since August 1, 2024, for the start of the works planned under the PNRR. Before the closure, visits were booked through 060608, the number given by the Superintendency, active from 9 to 19. Before planning your day, check the official page of the site, which will report any reopening first.

When were the columbaria built?

Between the end of the 1st century BC and the first decades of the 1st century AD, that is, between Augustus and Tiberius. For the first two, academic sources give 10 AD as the date by which they were already built. On the third, the sources disagree: some place it in the same period and some move it to the 2nd century. In any case, use continued until the age of Hadrian.

What is the difference between the three columbaria?

The first is a large chamber with a central pillar and about 500 arched niches. The second, almost square, keeps the best remains of stucco and paintings and a mosaic floor with an inscription. The third has a U-shaped plan, larger rectangular niches, marble facing and the inscription that asks people not to touch the burials. Seen one after the other, they show how taste changed within a few decades.

Is the visit suitable for children or for people with mobility difficulties?

The operator does not publish accessibility information. The chambers are six or seven meters below ground level and are reached by stairs, so access by wheelchair is to be ruled out unless the organizers say otherwise. For children the problem is the tight space and the ban on touching. Above age eight to 10, with good preparation, the visit can work well.

Where did the finds from the columbaria end up?

In part at the National Roman Museum, where the Roma Capitale portal places a sarcophagus and other materials from the third columbarium. Many objects found by the nineteenth-century excavators passed through private collections, and Campana's, after the seizure of 1857, was sold to museums such as the Hermitage and the Louvre. Academic sources speak of finds scattered across many museums, which makes it hard to put the original assemblage back together.

Who wrote this and from what sources

The text comes from the editorial team of Tour Leader Pro, the Rome-based outfit that designs itineraries, visits and cultural events across Rome and Lazio. Fees, hours and booking methods given here come from the official sources cited in the text, as of the date stated at the top: for the columbaria, the authority is the page of the Appia Antica Archaeological Park, which today declares them not visitable for safety reasons. Tell us what you find changed.

Organizing a group visit in places like this takes different work from a museum with a ticket office: formal requests, small numbers, times agreed with the Park, an archaeologist or a licensed guide to read inscriptions and decoration on site. For anyone organizing group trips, a useful resource is Tour Leader Pro, which gathers tools and references for preparing visits with reservations and special openings, from requests to the authorities to the time to allow in the program.

The columbaria are one piece of a wider story that begins on the Appia, crosses the Castelli Romani and reaches the imperial villas of Lazio. Anyone who wants to put together underground Rome, the archaeological parks and the villages of the surroundings in a trip of several days needs realistic timing and well-thought-out transfers: a useful resource for building a multi-day itinerary is Italy Planner.