Palestrina and the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia

Find out the our tour to Palestrina and the amazing Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, dedicated to the ancient Italic Goddes Fortuna.

The Santcuary of Fortuna Primigenia in Palestrina

The Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia is the second stop of our Palestrina tour.
This is a monumental architectural structure built on the slopes of Mount Ginestro towards the end of the second century BC, dedicated to the Italic Goddess Fortuna, which was the Goddess Mother and one of the oracular Deities.
We will visit the structure of the ancient monastery, divided into six artificial terraces connected by ramps and accessed by stairs. As the faithfuls of the past, we will ascended the various levels by way of the stairs, passing five cleansing baths along the way before reaching the fourth terrace, with its sacred well and the statue of the Goddess Fortuna nursing the infants Jupiter and Juno, where the Oracle could be consulted.
On the sixth and final terrace we will find the small circular Temple of Fortuna, with an effigy of the Goddess, made with stones of different colors inside.On the ruins on the temple was built the Renaissance Palazzo Colonna after Barberini.

The National Archaeological Museum of Palestrina

The Renaissance Palazzo Barberini, built on top of the ancient Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia is now the National Archaeological Museum.
The Museum hosts the evidence of the greatness of the town over the centuries. We will visit all the three floors of it, which contain very important witnesses of the cult of the Goddess Fortuna, a rich compendium of funerary artifacts of the nearby necropolis and many artistic evidences, as the famous large Nile Floor Mosaic, designed in the Hellenistic style, which came from the ancient Basilica located in the Ancient Roman Forum.

In addition:
The tour of Palestrina can also include the very heart of the city, which was built along the pass on the slopes and summit of Mount Ginestro and dominated the Valley of the Lot, thus controlling two important routes, the one between Etruria and Campania and that between the Apennines and the Tyrrhenian Sea.
We will start the tour in Palestrina in the piazza of the Cathedral Basilica, dedicated to Saint Agapitus, patron Saint of Palestrina, which was built on pre-existing Roman ruins (open on request): here once stood the ancient centre of the town, the Civil Forum, made up of several buildings, including a large four-aisled basilica with its famous Nile floor mosaic which has been preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Palestrina.