Monte del Grano

Is it worth the trip?

Only with a booking. On an ordinary day this is a hill of olive trees behind a fence in a pleasant local park, and nothing on the outside shows the tomb within. On one of the operator’s open dates it is something else: a walk down a 21 m Roman corridor into the chamber of the third-largest tumulus tomb in Rome.

The catch is the calendar. Individual visits run on a few dates a year, announced each quarter; for October to December 2026 there was one, on 14 October (Sovrintendenza). If you are in Rome on such a date, or can join a group with its own guide, it is cheap and easy to reach. If not, it is a stop only for someone already in the neighbourhood, and the arches of the Aqua Marcia at the Mandrione are about a kilometre away.

Getting there

The mound stands in the public park of Piazza dei Tribuni (Sovrintendenza), at the fourth kilometre of the Via Tuscolana (Turismo Roma). Porta Furba/Quadraro station on metro line A is about 190 m away, and the Tuscolana/Mamili bus stop about 170 m (OpenStreetMap). A garage about 100 m from the mound and a car park on Largo dei Quintili about 175 m away are mapped (OpenStreetMap).

The interior is entered by the gate of the public park opposite Via Asconio Pediano 14, and it is accessible to wheelchair users. Every visit has to be booked on 060608 (daily 09.00–19.00): groups and associations of up to 30 with their own guide, or individual visitors on the dates in the quarterly calendar. A ticket is €4, reduced €3, paid in cash on site, and free for residents of Rome and its metropolitan area and for MIC Card holders; a guided tour is not included. Occasionally the Sovrintendenza runs free special openings with guides on hand, as on Sunday 7 June 2026 from 10.00 to 13.00 (Sovrintendenza, read 23 October 2026 — check before travelling). Rome’s tourism portal still reports the site closed since August 2024 for works under the national recovery plan, but the operator’s own access page of 24 September 2026 lists it as open to the public.

History

The tomb stood on a road, now lost, between the Via Labicana and the Via Latina, in a fertile stretch of the suburbs crossed by most of the aqueducts that supplied Rome (Sovrintendenza). Brick stamps in the walls of the chamber and corridor date its building to the 2nd century AD: the Sovrintendenza puts it in the middle of the century, Turismo Roma in the time of Hadrian. Who was buried here is not known. The size of the tomb and the richness of the sarcophagus point to someone of high rank, probably of the imperial family or a senatorial one (Sovrintendenza).

The sarcophagus was taken out in 1594, according to the humanist Flaminio Vacca. Its lid, shaped as a couch, carries two half-reclining figures that were identified with the emperor Alexander Severus (222–235) and his mother Julia Mamaea, and the tomb was dated to his time (Sovrintendenza; Turismo Roma). That identification has since been shown to be unfounded, and the brick stamps point to a building older than his reign (Sovrintendenza; Turismo Roma), although recent studies by Erminio Paoletta, cited by it.wikipedia, argue again that it was the emperor’s tomb. The sarcophagus is decorated with the story of Achilles on Scyros, and some accounts claim the Portland Vase was found inside it (it.wikipedia).

The popular name, known since the Middle Ages, comes from the tomb’s shape, like an upturned modius grani, a Roman grain measure (Sovrintendenza; Turismo Roma). It was in use by 1386, according to documents in the Archivio Storico Capitolino (it.wikipedia). In the Middle Ages the tomb lay within a large estate called the Casale delle Forme, after the nearby aqueducts (formae) (Sovrintendenza). A tower was built on its top in the 16th century and appears in Piranesi’s engraving; it fell in a storm in 1900 (Turismo Roma). As the city spread round it in the 20th century, the Comune di Roma expropriated the area in 1966 and made it a public park (Sovrintendenza). The park is named after 17 April 1944, the day German troops rounded up the Quadraro and deported more than 900 of its men (Turismo Roma).