The site preserves a stretch of the ancient Via Latina, which connected Rome with Capua, still paved for a long stretch with the ancient basalt flint stones, and on both sides numerous funerary monuments and historical and material evidence from the Republican age to the Early Middle Ages.
The discovery and excavations of the area were carried out between 1857 and 1858 by Lorenzo Fortunati, a teacher with a passion for archaeology. The first monument towering on the right side of the road is the so-called Tomb of the Cornelii or Barberini, so called for the aristocratic family last owning the area.
The funerary monument, datable to the 2nd century AD, consists of two above-ground levels and the underground burial chamber, surrounded by a corridor, also used for burials, paved with mosaic. On the outside, there are preserved architectural terracotta decorations originally painted. The interior was covered by frescoed and stuccoed vaults.
Shortly after the Barberini tomb, on the left side of the road is the so-called Fortunati 25 tomb. Consisting of a square-plan structure, with an underground burial chamber, it was accessed from the Via Latina by means of a staircase with two flights of steps that still retain traces of marble slab cladding.
Continuing along the route of the Via Latina, which preserves the basalt pavement in some points, on the right side is the so-called Tomb of the Valeri, the above-ground structure currently visible was built at the end of the 19th century, set on the original masonry.
Opposite the Tomb of the Valeri is the Tomb of the Pancrazi, dating from the late 1st – early 2nd century AD, so called for the reference to the inscription citing the funerary collegium of the “Pancratii,” placed on the front of a sarcophagus of a married couple within the first hypogeum room. The last tomb visible on the left side of the road is that of the Calpurnii: enclosed within a fence, it consists of a single underground chamber that preserves traces of the original plaster and stucco covering; on the wall are arcosolia for housing the sarcophagi.
On the right side of the road just before the end of the Park, stands the façade of the so-called Baccelli tomb, all that remains of a tomb that remained intact in elevation until 1959, when most of the building collapsed. The structure is typical of 2nd century AD tombs, two brick levels with decorated cornices, brackets, and architrave, and two underground funerary chambers, currently not accessible.
In the area behind the Tomb of the Pancrazi, the remains of a large villa emerge, built at the end of the 1st century AD and inhabited until the early 6th century when Demetriade, descendant of the Anicii family, had a basilica dedicated to St. Stephen the Protomartyr erected in a sector of the villa, a destination of pilgrimages still until the 13th century, whose remains are still partially visible.
