One of the most important monuments in the history of Rome is certainly the Mamertine Prison, where Christian hagiography places the apostles Peter and Paul imprisoned during the Neronian era. Its opening aims to restore the natural relationship of this monument with the Roman Forum Square (Comitium) and the Capitoline Hill area.
Originally part of the Roman Forum, now covered by the foundations of the church of S. Giuseppe dei Falegnami (16th–17th century), the complex is made up of two superimposed chambers: below, the “Tullianum,” a circular place of worship dating back to the archaic period and linked to an underground spring; on the upper level, the trapezoidal “Carcer” built in the Republican era (4th–2nd century BC), and remembered by ancient sources as a place of incarceration for public enemies of the Roman State awaiting execution.
Around the 7th century AD, it became a place of worship associated with the figures of the apostles Peter and Paul. The 9th–14th century paintings uncovered during restorations in the Prison are the first historical-artistic document related to the Church of San Pietro in Carcere.
