Piazza Augusto Imperatore: A City Learning to Charge

Central Rome has been changing the way it charges. The Pantheon began selling tickets in July 2023. From February 2026 the ring closest to the water at the Trevi Fountain costs two euros, and in the same month the city museums became free for residents. Through all of it, six paintings by Caravaggio have stayed on the walls of three churches, and pushing those doors open still costs nothing.

This piece covers the monuments and experiences within walking distance of Piazza Augusto Imperatore, one page each, written around tickets, hours, rules and history. Three hotels stand around that square and a guest at any of them can use it. One page connects directly to one of them: the last restoration of the Spanish Steps was paid for by Bvlgari. Thirteen pages, about eighteen minutes.

The last page carries a tickable list of twelve things. Most cost nothing, and a few work only within a particular hour. Tick them slowly. Nothing here needs rushing.

中文版：奧古斯都廣場周邊景點，一座正在售票的城市 →

01 · Range and rules

Five different ways of getting in

Taking Piazza Augusto Imperatore as the center, everything in this piece sits within a twenty minute walk, and the nearest of them stands on the far side of the square itself. Roman monuments share no single admission logic, and in one day you will meet five different systems.

Free, no booking	Churches. Six paintings by Caravaggio hang in three of them and you simply walk in. See page 8
Coin operated light	Famous paintings in churches usually sit in shadow, with a coin box on the wall beside them. Published amounts range from 0.50 to 2 euros, so carry change
Buy at the door	City museums and some churches. The Ara Pacis museum works this way
Online booking only	The Pantheon. On paid days there is no walk up queue, and the booking window opens around a month ahead
Timed and capped	The Borghese Gallery admits visitors in slots of about two hours, and high season sells out weeks ahead
Residents and everyone else	From February 2026, residents of Rome and the Città Metropolitana enter city museums free on presentation of an identity card. The rule does not extend to visitors
Dress in churches	Shoulders and knees covered. A light scarf in summer settles the question
Mass	Churches generally close to sightseeing while Mass is celebrated, and the times differ from church to church
The other two in this set	Two further articles cover this quarter: nine old houses with rules, and the shopping with the VAT refund procedure. All three share one walking radius and serve guests at any of the three hotels around the square

A few prices to calibrate against

Roman admission charges vary widely, so a couple of reference points help. The Pantheon is 5 euros until the end of June 2026 and 7 euros from July 1. The Borghese Gallery runs to 16 euros plus a 2 euro booking fee in one account and 20 euros in another. The Colosseum is around 18 euros and the Vatican Museums around 17 to 20. Most of what follows costs less than any of those, or nothing at all.

How to plan it

Before leavingPut a few one euro coins in your pocket. The church lights take coins only.
For the PantheonBook online. On paid days walking up to the door is no longer an option.
For the BorgheseBook as soon as your dates are set. It is the one place in this district that sells out weeks ahead.

02 · Across the square

A glass box holding an altar from 9 BC

The Museum of the Ara Pacis stands on the western side of Piazza Augusto Imperatore, a short walk across from its eastern edge. The altar inside was inaugurated on January 30 in the year 9 BC to mark the peace that followed Augustus returning from campaigns in Spain and Gaul. The box of glass and limestone around it is by Richard Meier, opened on April 21, 2006, and it remains the most argued about new building in the historic center.

Address	Lungotevere in Augusta at Via Tomacelli, about three minutes on foot
The altar	Carrara marble, inaugurated 9 BC. Sacrifices continued for about four centuries, after which it was abandoned and buried under Tiber silt for more than a thousand years
Reassembly	Fragments surfaced from the sixteenth century onward. The reconstruction was completed under the fascist regime in 1938 and moved to the present site
The building	Richard Meier, opened April 21, 2006. The museum also displays casts of relief panels whose originals sit in the Villa Medici, the Vatican and the Louvre
Hours	Accounts give roughly 09:00 to 19:00 daily, with the ticket office closing an hour earlier. Monday opening differs between sources, so follow the official notice
An exception to the resident rule	From February 2026 city museums are free for residents of Rome and the Città Metropolitana, but the Ara Pacis exhibition space itself is explicitly excluded from that exemption. Everyone under six enters free
L'Ara com'era	An augmented and virtual reality program running about 40 minutes across nine viewing points, in Italian, English, French, Spanish and German. The first two points are in virtual reality and let you fly over the altar, glide across the Campus Martius and watch a reconstructed Roman sacrifice. Tickets online, by telephone on 060608, or at the museum on the evening itself. It runs to a published schedule, so check the current calendar before you travel

Twenty years of complaints about the building

Meier's box drew objections from the design stage onward, aimed at its bulk and at the distance between its white modern language and the ochre brick and stone of the 1930s around it. One mayor of Rome said publicly that he wanted it demolished. Twenty years on it is still standing, and the argument has become part of the building. From the middle of the square you can see a colonnade from 1938, a glass box from 2006 and a tomb from the first century BC at once, which is an unusual combination even in Rome.

Take your time Once inside, do not hurry the circuit. The reliefs on the four sides show a procession, and among the members of the family of Augustus there are children, several of them carved in the act of tugging at an adult's clothing. That was how a sculptor in 9 BC handled a state ceremony. He put the restless children in as well.

03 · The middle of the square

An emperor's tomb, closed for four years

Stand on the square and the round mound in the middle of it is the Mausoleum of Augustus. It measures about 87 meters across, stood about 45 meters high, and once carried a gilded bronze statue of the emperor on top. It opened briefly to visitors in 2021, closed to entry in June 2022 for the redevelopment of the square, and remains the hardest place in this district to give a firm answer about.

Date	First century BC, built by Augustus for himself and his family
Scale	About 87 meters in diameter, originally about 45 meters tall
Buried here	Augustus himself, whose ashes were later stolen, his wife Livia, his grandsons Lucius and Gaius, his son in law Agrippa, and later emperors including Tiberius and Nerva
Later uses	A Colonna family fortress in the twelfth century, a Soderini family garden in the Renaissance, then for a long period a public entertainment venue that hosted bullfights and concerts
Restoration	Costs eventually reached around 11 million euros, partly offset by corporate sponsorship
Current status	Opened in 2021 and closed to entry since June 6, 2022 while the square is redeveloped. Works are due to finish by the end of 2026. Sources disagree on whether access has resumed, with one stating that entry is suspended until late 2026 and another that it reopened during 2026
How to check	Call the city information line on 060608 or consult the municipal pages. When open it runs on reservation, and the ticket has previously been in the 4 to 5 euro range

Sources disagreeThis is the least settled item in the article. Reports from the same month give opposite answers, one saying the site remains sealed and another that it has reopened. Confirm before you travel rather than walking over on the strength of any single guide.

Take your time Even with the gates shut, the circuit outside the fence takes about ten minutes. You can follow the brick rings stepping back and up toward an empty center. The first Roman emperor built this for himself, and two thousand years later a ring of 1930s colonnades stands around it, with your room upstairs in one of them.

04 · Eight minutes away

A staircase you cannot sit on, and the house that paid to clean it

The Spanish Steps are about eight minutes from the square. They connect Bernini's boat fountain at the bottom with the church of Trinità dei Monti at the top, and Roman Holiday made the view famous worldwide in 1953. One rule now governs them, and it is firm: no sitting.

Date	Built 1723 to 1725. The Italian name is Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti
Number of steps	Sources disagree. Published figures include 135, 136 and 144
The sitting ban	In force since August 2019, when police began patrolling the staircase and blowing whistles. Sitting carries a fine of 250 euros, and causing mess or damage 400 euros
The same package of rules	Also prohibited: jumping into fountains, dragging wheeled luggage down the steps, going shirtless, and eating messily beside monuments
What is allowed	Walking up, walking down, pausing briefly for a photograph or to wait for someone. Treat the staircase as a passage rather than a seat
The last restoration	Closed for work in October 2015, reopened on September 22, 2016 after about ten months. The restorer was Il Cenacolo
Who paid	Bvlgari, 1.5 million euros. Pledged in 2014 for the 130th anniversary of the house, in answer to a government appeal for help with heritage funding
What was done	Relevelling the treads, maintenance on the rainwater drainage, and restoration of the original lamps that light the steps at night

The fence, which came before the rule

Before the reopening in 2016, Bvlgari argued that the city should fence the staircase off at night, citing years of accumulated damage and, more recently, harm done to the fountain below by visiting football supporters. The mayor at the time, Virginia Raggi, declined. Her position was that allowing people to use cultural heritage is fundamental, and that the city would find ways to keep the steps from being abused.

Three years later, in August 2019, Rome banned sitting on the steps, with fines starting at 250 euros. No fence went up, and the act of sitting down was removed instead. Walk up the staircase today and the stone under your feet was cleaned at Bvlgari's expense, while the rule against sitting delivered, in its own way, the outcome the company had asked for and been refused.

How to plan it

Early morningGo before seven. The crowd is thinnest and the light comes from the east.
If you want to sitContinue up to the terrace in front of Trinità dei Monti, or turn into the Pincio gardens alongside. The staircase itself offers no legal seat.
With luggageDo not drag a wheeled case down the steps, which is prohibited under the same rules.

05 · Where the money came from

Three Roman monuments, three luxury houses

Bvlgari restoring the Spanish Steps was not an isolated act. Through the 2010s the Italian state ran short of heritage funding, opened the door to private sponsorship and attached a tax incentive to it. The result is that the three best known monuments in Rome each carry the name of a luxury company.

Spanish Steps	Bvlgari, 1.5 million euros. Work carried out 2015 to 2016
Trevi Fountain	Fendi. Published figures vary between 2 million, 2.18 million and 2.5 million euros. Unveiled in 2015, with further fountains restored afterward
Colosseum	Diego Della Valle of the Tod's group, pledged in 2010, around 25 million euros. The facade cleaning ran for five years
Rialto Bridge, Venice	The holding company of Diesel founder Renzo Rosso, around 5.5 million euros
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan	Prada and Versace together
The incentive	Sponsors receive a tax credit of about 65 percent of the outlay, spread over three years

What the sponsors got back

The physical return written into these arrangements is smaller than most people assume. During the Colosseum work the Tod's name appeared only in small lettering on the legally required site notices. Fendi received a plaque measuring 30 by 40 centimeters, fixed to the side of the fountain for three years.

The return arrived elsewhere. In July 2016 Fendi built a transparent runway across the Trevi Fountain and staged its ninetieth anniversary show there, with models walking effectively on the water and guests flown in by private jet from the Paris couture shows. That September, Bvlgari held a reopening dinner at the Spanish Steps. Exposure on that scale cannot be bought, and the price of it was one heritage restoration.

How to read the arrangementItalian cultural commentators pushed back hard at the time, fearing the privatization of national assets and logos creeping onto monuments. A decade on, the worst forecasts have not arrived and the plaque really is thirty centimeters. What did arrive is a voice: sponsors are listened to, and the argument over the fence on the Spanish Steps is the evidence. The mechanism repaired the monuments and also gave the payers a say in how public space is used. Both things are true at once.

06 · Fifteen minutes away

From February 2026, the front row is ticketed

The Trevi Fountain is about fifteen minutes from the square on foot. Since February 2, 2026 the city charges non residents two euros to enter the ring closest to the water. This is the first time Rome has charged admission to an open air fountain, and 230,000 people bought a ticket in the first month.

What is charged	Only the inner ring beside the water and the steps, called the catino in Italian. Seeing the fountain from the piazza remains free, with no barrier and no charge
Price	Two euros per non resident
Hours	Generally 09:00 to 22:00, and 11:30 to 22:00 on Mondays and Fridays. Last evening entry around 21:00. Outside those windows the fountain can be seen as before
Where to buy	The official website, the civic museums, tourist information points, affiliated outlets, or at the entrance itself, where only cards are accepted
Free entry	Residents of Rome and the Città Metropolitana with identification, people with disabilities and their companions, and licensed guides. The age limit for children appears as under five in some sources and under six in others
Prohibited	Sitting, loitering, eating, drinking, smoking and climbing, with fines from 40 to 240 euros
The heavier fines	Wading, taking water, or reaching into the basin for coins, with fines starting at 450 euros
The name	Trevi comes from tre vie, three roads. The fountain stands where three streets meet

The extra two and a half hours on Monday and Friday

Ticketing starts at 11:30 on Mondays and Fridays and at nine on other days. In practice that means the inner ring is not charged on Monday and Friday mornings. The city has not presented this as a concession, and it looks more like the product of a cleaning and maintenance schedule. Anyone who wants to use it can, though a better window to remember is the other one: before seven in the morning and after ten at night no charge applies and the crowd is far thinner.

How to read the two eurosThose against it say a fountain is not a museum and should not have an entrance. Those in favor say the previous state of affairs had become unsustainable, with people eating sandwiches on the rim, smoking, and being worked by photo sellers and pickpockets. Both positions hold. For a visitor the practical effect is modest: pay two euros for an orderly front row, or pay nothing and watch from the piazza. Either way you see the whole fountain.

How to plan it

Early morningArrive before seven. No charge, no queue, and the best light of the day.
For the inner ringBring a card. Cash is not accepted at the entrance.
Throwing a coinTurn your back to the fountain and throw with the right hand over the left shoulder. Do not reach into the water to retrieve anything, which starts at 450 euros.
Monday or FridayArrive before 11:30, when the inner ring is not yet ticketed.

07 · Twelve minutes away

Free for eighteen centuries, ticketed since 2023

The Pantheon is about twelve minutes from the square and its dome is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. It began charging admission in July 2023, ending eighteen centuries of free entry. From July 1, 2026 the full ticket moved from 5 euros to 7.

Price	5 euros until June 30, 2026 and 7 euros from July 1. The reduced ticket for EU citizens aged 18 to 25 stays at 2 euros
Basis for the rise	An agreement on joint management signed by the Ministry of Culture and the Diocese of Rome on April 10, 2026. Revenue is split seventy thirty between the state and the church
Free entry	Under 18s, residents of the Comune of Rome with identification, licensed guides, worshippers attending Mass, and people with disabilities and their companions
Free Sundays	The first Sunday of each month, under the national Domenica al Museo scheme. There is no online booking that day, everyone queues on site, and in high season the line wraps around the piazza for ninety minutes to two hours
Booking	Required on paid days, with the window opening about a month ahead. Tickets are named, and since March 10, 2026 a name may be changed once only, no later than 72 hours before the visit
Hours	Daily 09:00 to 19:00. Sightseeing stops during Mass
What it also is	A working Catholic church, formally Santa Maria ad Martyres
One alignment	The front door of the Pantheon faces the entrance of the Mausoleum of Augustus. The two were planned together as part of the Campus Martius

Human factorsA free first Sunday sounds like a gift, and in practice it trades two hours of queue against 5 or 7 euros. The rule exists so that locals and people on tight budgets can get in, which is reasonable. For a visitor with three days in Rome the time cost runs far above the ticket. Paying for a timed slot and spending those two hours somewhere else is the better allocation.

How to plan it

BookingWatch for release about a month before you arrive. Tickets are named, so spell the name correctly at the time of purchase.
Once insideStand directly under the center and look up. The opening is about nine meters across and is the only source of light in the building.
In the rainGo anyway. Water falls straight through the opening and the floor was built with drains for it.

08 · The free group

Six Caravaggios, still on the walls they were painted for

Caravaggio spent fourteen years in Rome and left twenty three works across nine sites. Six of them are not in museums. They still hang in the three churches that commissioned them more than four hundred years ago, and two of those churches are in this district. Neither charges admission.

Santa Maria del Popolo	Piazza del Popolo 12, about eight minutes on foot. The Cerasi Chapel holds the Crucifixion of Saint Peter and the Conversion of Saint Paul, both from 1601, facing one another with an altarpiece by Carracci between them
San Luigi dei Francesi	Beside Piazza Navona, about fifteen minutes on foot. The Contarelli Chapel holds the Matthew cycle: the Calling, the Martyrdom, and Saint Matthew and the Angel
The third church	Sant'Agostino, near Via della Scrofa, holds the Madonna of the Pilgrims and is also free
Lighting	The paintings hang in shadow with a coin box on the wall. Published amounts range from 0.50 to 2 euros, and the light runs for a few minutes
San Luigi hours	Sources disagree. One gives 09:30 to 12:45 and 14:30 to 18:30 on weekdays, shorter at weekends, closed on the first Wednesday morning of the month. Another gives 10:00 to 12:30 except Thursday, and 16:00 to 19:00
Santa Maria del Popolo hours and price	Sources disagree. Older material describes free entry from 09:30 to 12:30 and 16:30 to 19:00, while a 2026 listing gives a 5 euro charge and hours of 07:00 to 19:00. Confirm before you go
Also inside	Santa Maria del Popolo holds work by Bernini and Raphael as well, which makes the church a compressed history of Roman art on its own

Why the original wall changes the painting

Caravaggio composed these pictures for the walls they were going to hang on, and the light in them answers the light in the room. The Cerasi Chapel is narrow, the two canvases nearly face each other, and a visitor stands between them. The Contarelli Chapel sets three paintings out as a sequence, and the beam falling from the upper right in the Calling of Saint Matthew runs in the direction the chapel is actually lit from. Move the paintings into a gallery and that relationship disappears.

How to plan it

Before going inCheck that you have coins. Without them those paintings are close to black.
After the coin dropsTake in the whole picture first and the details second. The light runs for a few minutes and then cuts out.
AvoidMass times, when churches generally close to sightseeing.

09 · One illusion

That dome is flat

Sant'Ignazio di Loyola stands east of the Pantheon, about fourteen minutes from the hotel, and admission is free. Its ceiling is a trompe l'oeil painting by Andrea Pozzo covering roughly 600 square meters. The church ran out of money for a dome, so Pozzo painted one where the dome should have been. Stand on the floor and look up and a vault rises above you. There is a flat canvas up there.

Address	Piazza di Sant'Ignazio, about fourteen minutes on foot
Admission	Free
Hours	Accounts give roughly 09:00 to 19:00 daily, with adjustments around midday and during Mass
The ceiling	A trompe l'oeil fresco by Andrea Pozzo covering about 600 square meters
The false dome	Painted on a flat surface. Walk closer or further away and the perspective collapses. The effect holds from one particular standing position
How to see it	A marker on the floor shows where to stand. The church also keeps a large mirror so that the ceiling can be studied by looking down instead of craning upward

Take your time Find the marker on the floor, look up, then walk three paces to the side and look again. The same ceiling turns from a deep vault into a distorted painting. A seventeenth century painter fooled everyone standing in the right spot with a flat surface, and he knew perfectly well that anyone standing in the wrong spot would see through it instantly.

10 · The one to book

Two hour slots, sold out weeks ahead

The Borghese Gallery sits inside the Villa Borghese grounds, about twenty five minutes from the square, and the walk up through the Pincio gardens is a pleasant one. It is the only place in this article that has to be planned in advance: entry is timed, each slot runs about two hours, and high season regularly sells out weeks ahead.

Entry	Timed slots of about two hours. When time is up the next group comes in
Price	Sources disagree. One gives 16 euros plus a mandatory 2 euro booking fee, another gives 20 euros. Special exhibitions adjust the figure
Booking	Compulsory, and frequently sold out weeks ahead in high season
Caravaggio	Six works, the largest holding at any single address in Rome: Young Sick Bacchus, David with the Head of Goliath, Madonna and Child with Saint Anne, Saint Jerome Writing, John the Baptist and Boy with a Basket of Fruit
Bernini	Apollo and Daphne, the Rape of Proserpina and David are all here
Walking there	From the hotel along Via di Ripetta to Piazza del Popolo, up the Pincio slope into the park, about twenty five minutes, with a stretch that looks down over the piazza

Whether two hours is enough

It is, and the limit is deliberate. The collection is dense but not large, and twenty rooms in two hours is a reasonable pace. What needs watching is how the time is allocated: you cannot step out and return, and you cannot extend. Splitting the visit into an hour per floor works well. The Bernini sculptures are on the ground floor and most of the Caravaggios are there too.

The rhythm of bookingThis is the only entry here that belongs in the planning stage. Everything else can be decided on the day. If you want to fix exactly one thing before the trip, make it this.

11 · Starting at the desk

What each of the three hotels arranges

The three hotels around this square each curate their own experiences, and the three lists do not overlap. What they share is that none of it appears in a ticketing system, so everything runs through a concierge or a host team.

Bvlgari Hotel Roma	Seven routes of its own: Bvlgari's Roma, The Magnificent Path walking tour, lunch in a private home, the streets of artists and artisans, art behind the scenes, a day in the countryside, a proposal arrangement, and a treasure hunt inside the house
The one there that needs no booking	The circular vestibule shows ancient Roman sculpture from the Torlonia Collection on rotation. Fondazione Bvlgari has funded the conservation of those pieces since 2023
Elizabeth Unique	The house works as an extension of Galleria Russo, with work chosen by the gallery owner, rotated, and partly for sale. Guest services can arrange tours led by art historians, and a weekly gallery visit is offered
The First Roma Dolce	A private pastry lesson with the hotel chef. A complimentary transfer also reaches the sister house Arte, for its fitness center and the Acquaroof terrace
How to ask	Through each house's concierge or host team. Content, price and availability are confirmed case by case

What each of the three solves

The value in the Bvlgari list lies in access: private homes, working studios and institutional back rooms have no ticket window and run on relationships. The Elizabeth list turns a hotel into an extension of a gallery, which suits anyone who would visit galleries anyway. The Dolce list is the smallest, though it is the one that brings making something into the picture, which is uncommon in Roman hotels.

How to judge whether to spend on thisTwo questions decide it: how much time this trip holds, and whether you want to hand an afternoon over to somebody else to arrange. What these experiences share is that they solve the hardest problem in Rome, which is getting in. On a full itinerary, this page can simply be skipped.

12 · Three years of change

Rome is putting prices on things that used to be free

Line the dates in this article up and a direction appears. The Pantheon began charging 5 euros in July 2023. In February 2026 the inner ring at the Trevi Fountain went to 2 euros, the city museums became free for residents in the same month, five previously free sites acquired tickets for non residents, and in July 2026 the Pantheon moved from 5 euros to 7.

July 2023	The Pantheon begins charging, full price 5 euros, ending eighteen centuries of free entry
February 1, 2026	Residents of Rome and the Città Metropolitana enter city museums free on production of identification, including the Capitoline, the Ara Pacis museum, Trajan's Markets and Centrale Montemartini. Tickets are introduced at five previously free sites for non residents
February 2, 2026	The inner ring at the Trevi Fountain begins charging 2 euros. 230,000 admissions in the first month
July 1, 2026	The Pantheon full ticket moves from 5 euros to 7
What did not change	Six Caravaggios in three churches remain free and unbooked. The ceiling at Sant'Ignazio remains free. The Spanish Steps and Piazza del Popolo remain free
Another kind of free	On the first Sunday of each month the national Domenica al Museo scheme applies, and the Pantheon is included

Two movements at the same time

The city is charging visitors and opening up to residents in the same breath. The February 2026 package writes both into one document: residents free on production of an identity card, non residents paying, and five new charging points added. From a municipal point of view the logic is consistent. Tourism carries the cost and residents recover the use of their own institutions.

The effect on a traveler stays modest. Do everything in this article apart from the Borghese Gallery and the tickets come to somewhere around ten euros in total. The expensive part of the historic center has never been admission. It is beds and meals.

A small discoveryThe distribution of the free items carries information of its own. Almost everything that charges is run by the city or the state, and almost everything that is free is a church. That is no accident. Churches fall outside municipal control, and their first identity is as places of worship rather than as attractions. The best free things in this district stay free because of who owns them.

Piazza Augusto Imperatore: A City Learning to Charge

Five different ways of getting in

A few prices to calibrate against

A glass box holding an altar from 9 BC

Twenty years of complaints about the building

An emperor's tomb, closed for four years

A staircase you cannot sit on, and the house that paid to clean it

The fence, which came before the rule

Three Roman monuments, three luxury houses

What the sponsors got back

From February 2026, the front row is ticketed

The extra two and a half hours on Monday and Friday

Free for eighteen centuries, ticketed since 2023

Six Caravaggios, still on the walls they were painted for

Why the original wall changes the painting

That dome is flat

Two hour slots, sold out weeks ahead

Whether two hours is enough

What each of the three hotels arranges

What each of the three solves

Rome is putting prices on things that used to be free

Two movements at the same time

How to walk a day, and who this list suits

Suits

Does not suit