Mausoleum of Augustus – the great tomb, built for the Roman Emperor Augustus in the campus Martius in Rome in 28 BC, the Mausoleum is located in Piazza Augusto Emperor, on the corner of the via di Ripetta. Today, the mausoleum is closed to tourists because of its interior spaces are in poor condition. But even representing the ruins, he is the dominant element of the landscape on the North side of the Champs de Mars.

The construction of the mausoleum was one of the first Roman projects August after he defeated at the battle of Accume in 31 BC According to plan round the mausoleum consisted of several concentric rows, planted with cypress trees and covered with a conical roof with a statue of the Emperor on top. Arches supported the roof and opened the access to the place of burial at the bottom. Two obelisk of pink granite framed the arched entrance. One of these obelisks now in the Piazza del Esquilino and the other at the fountain of the Quirinale. The overall diameter of the mausoleum was equal to 90 m, and a height of 42 m.

From the entrance to the center of the mausoleum was a corridor leading. Inside were three niches to store gold funerary urns containing the remains of members of the Imperial family. Until August in the mausoleum were buried his sister Octavia the younger and grandchildren and heirs Gaius and Lucius. In addition, in the tomb found the repose of Livia, wife of Augustus, Agrippina the Elder and her daughter Julia Livilla, Caligula, Claudius and numerous relatives of the Emperor.

In the year 410 during the sack of Rome by Alarion the Visigoths defeated the mausoleum, stole the urns and scattered the ashes, but left intact the structure of the building. In the Middle ages, grave mound was fortified and turned into a fortress (as the mausoleum of Hadrian was turned into Castel Sant'angelo), but already in the 12th century it was destroyed. So majestic mausoleum in ruins. Only in 1930 the site was discovered and identified, and work began on its preservation as a monument of archeology. The restoration of the mausoleum of Augustus answered ambitions Benito Mussolini to transform Rome into a great city and return him to the glory of the Roman Empire. Mussolini himself considered himself the "reincarnation" of August.