Caput Mundi: Insula Ara Coeli

Caput Mundi Next Generation EU for touristic great events (Mission 1, Component 3, Investment 4.3)

Italy’s Recovery and Resilience Plan increases the number of accessible tourist sites in Rome, creating valid and qualified tourist and cultural alternatives with respect to the crowded central areas, as well as increasing the use of digital technologies, enhance green areas and the sustainability of tourism. The investment envisages six lines of interventions:
1. “Roman Cultural Heritage for EU-Next Generation”, covering the regeneration and restoration of cultural and urban heritage and complexes of high historical-architectural value of the city of Rome;
2. “Jubilee paths” (from pagan to Christian Rome), targeted to the enhancement, safety, anti-seismic consolidation, restoration of places and buildings of historical interest and archaeological pathways;
3. #LaCittàCondivisa, covering the redevelopment of sites in peripheral areas;
4. #Mitingodiverde, covering interventions on parks, historical gardens, villas and fountains;
5. #Roma 4.0, covering the digitalization of cultural services and the development of apps for tourists;
6. #Amanotesa, aimed at increasing the supply of cultural offer to peripheries for social integration.

The investment is financed by the Recovery and Resilience Facility by EUR 500 million and includes this project.
This project focuses on preserving, enhancing, and ensuring the safety of the multi-level Insula of Ara Coeli, a unique example of Roman architecture. New access ramps, including a lift for accessibility, will open currently buried and upper-level rooms. The aim is to improve public usability, increase participation, and reveal the ancient building's full historical extent. This project is financed by the Recovery and Resilience Facility with EUR 3510000. The intervention aims to preserve, enhance, and transmit an asset of the highest historical, architectural, artistic, and landscape value: one of the rare surviving examples of Roman architecture developed on multiple levels. The objectives of the operation are: the preservation of the asset; improving physical accessibility and use; the restoration of adequate security levels; the increase in participation; and enhancement and restoration.

The new access ramp to the Insula of Ara Coeli, located on the right side of the Vittoriano, will allow access to both the ancient ground floor, which is currently below street level, and the first floor, now accessible only from the side of the Ara Coeli Staircase. In the external area, the upper portions of some rooms still buried today will be made visible, offering a clearer perception of the original extent of the ancient building complex. The path will continue to the second floor via an existing staircase that will be reconfigured to align with the new first-floor level, after the archaeological excavation uncovers the original floor.

To ensure accessibility for people with disabilities, a lift platform will be installed at the northwest corner of the monument, connecting the first floor to the second. Given its location in one of the most critical traffic areas in Rome and, not least, the presence of underground archaeological structures, a solution has been designed that utilizes the existing gap between the ground floor, the garden, and the pavement, inserting a new staircase that will connect the current street level to the original level of the Insula, located 9 meters below.