Fosse Ardeatine

Useful Information

Location:	Via Ardeatina 174, 00179 Rome. (41.8571741, 12.5099516)
Open:	All year Mon-Fri 8:15-15:30, Sat, Sun 8:15-16:30. Museum closed 15 min earlier. Closed on 01-JAN, Easter Sunday, =1-MAY, 15-AUG, 25-DEC. [2026]
Fee:	free. [2026]
Classification:	Rock Mine
Light:	Electric Light
Dimension:
Guided tours:	self guided
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Associazione nazionale famiglie italiane martiri (ANFIM), Via Ardeatina 174, 00179 Rome, Tel: +39-06-6795629. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

23-MAR-1944

partisan attack in Via Rasella.

Description

Fosse Ardeatine (Ardeatine Caves) is today a sort of war memorial dedicated to an event on 23-MAR-1944, when partisans attacked German soldiers in Via Rasella. At the junction of Via Rasella and Via del Boccaccio, an 18 kg TNT bomb concealed in a rubbish cart and a rigged mortar shell exploded. At this moment the 11th Company of the 3rd Battalion of the ‘Bozen’ Police Regiment, one of four South Tyrolean police regiments, was marching by. Of the 156 members 33 were killed and 67 wounded, also, two Italian civilians died, one of them an eleven-year-old boy. The attack was carried out by 12 partisans of the Communist-dominated resistance organisation Gruppo d'Azione Patriottica (GAP, Patriotic Action Group).

It was a typical reaction of the German Wehrmacht during World War II, for each soldier killed, 10 Italians were executed. They actually started to execute Italians who had been previously sentenced to death, but there were not enough such prisoners. There were prisoners serving long sentences, people deemed "worthy of death", and civilians who had been rounded up in the Via Rasella area on suspicion of involvement. Finally, they added Jews also in Nazi custody. Ultimately, 335 were executed, which was actually a mistake. At first, it was unknown "who" was actually executed, and so Professor Attilio Ascarelli and his team exhumated the bodies and identified 326 of the 335 victims.

Today there is a park, a huge, quite modern combination of cemetery and monument, and the Il Museo dei cimeli (Museum of memorabilia). Located behind the monolith, it reconstructs, with the use of documents, books and articles, images and objects, the historical context.

But the question remains, why is this site listed on showcaves.com. The underground part, the Fosse Ardeatine (Ardeatine Caves) is actually an underground passage of some dimension, which was a tufa quarry named cave di pozzolana (Pozzolana Quarry). The origin of the structure and its use are not published by the operators, they concentrate on the massacre. As far as we know the quarries were used to quarry limestone tufa which is rather soft, and thus it was easy to quarry and easy to work with. It is possible to visit the main passage which is called Il Mausoleo which contains some smaller monuments. The dead bodies were relocated to the large building named Il monolite (The Monolith), a huge rectangular chamber without any decorations and small windows. The 335 victims of the massacre are buried in tombs inside, but there are 336 tombs, one is dedicated to the memory of all the other victims of Nazi and Fascist massacres.

This underground structure was the site of the executions, which is actually rather unusual. Such Nazi retributions were normally made on public space, to induce fear in the public. The only possible explanation is the timeline, Hitler ordered retribution within 24 h, which made the organization quite difficult. It’s also the reason why the number was wrong.