Marina De Franceschini, Giuseppe Veneziano
«Archeoastronomia nel Mausoleo di Romolo (Villa di Massenzio, Roma)»
in Atti del 23° Seminario di Archeoastronomia Alssa, Genova 2021, pp. 98-114.
In 2019 professor Roberto Brunelli photographed the sunset in the
Mausoleum of Romulus on the Appian way in Rome, near the Circus and the
Villa of Maxentius.
Thanks to him we discovered that the Mausoleum was
astronomically oriented towards the Sunset at the winter
Solstice, in the days related to Sol Invictus.
This illumination
(hierophany) had a particular symbolic meaning linked to the
legitimation of the imperial power of Maxentius.