Best Tickets for the Mamertine Prison
The Mamertine isn’t part of the state-run Forum and Colosseum. It’s looked after by the Church, so the standard Colosseum ticket won’t get you in. You book it on its own, or on a combo that pairs it with something bigger.
Mamertine Prison entry + audio guide
Book a timeslot, turn up at the door on Clivo Argentario, and go down the stairs into the two stone cells below the church. It comes with a phone audio guide in six languages.
Colosseum, Roman Forum & Mamertine Prison + audio guide
The prison added to the main Roman circuit: the Colosseum, the Forum and the Palatine, then down into the Mamertine cells, all on one audio-guided booking. The way to fit it into a Colosseum day without carrying two tickets.
Omnia Card: Vatican + open bus 24h
The prison as one stop on a bigger day: the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel, the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, and a 24-hour hop-on hop-off bus, the Mamertine among them.
Highlights
Tickets & Prices
There’s the standalone entry and three combos. Prices sit on the cards below, and the entry categories are the same whichever you pick:
- Adults pay the full rate.
- EU students under 25, and children aged 6 to 17, pay a reduced rate.
- Under-5s go free.
- The first Sunday of the month runs at a reduced rate, bought on the day at the door.
The ticket office takes card only, so bring one if you’re buying at the door.
Choose your ticket:
- If the prison is all you’re after, the standalone drops you straight into the Tullianum. But most visitors are doing the Colosseum too, and the combined Colosseum, Forum and Mamertine ticket folds the prison into that same day for one booking.
- If you’re skipping the Colosseum, the SUPER combo covers the Forum, the Palatine and the extra SUPER sites, with the Mamertine folded in.
- Every version is a fixed-slot ticket, and none can be refunded or moved once booked, so pick your date before you pay.
For a wider Rome trip, the Rome Tourist Card covers the Colosseum, the Vatican and more across the city.
Plan Your Visit
- Open daily, 9:00 to 17:00.
- A full audio-guided visit runs about 40 minutes. The cells themselves take nearer 15.
- The address is Clivo Argentario 1, at the Forum end of the Capitoline, tucked under the church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami. It’s an easy door to walk straight past.
- Buses 85, 87 and 232 stop on Via dei Fori Imperiali, about five minutes away.
- Nearest metro: Colosseo, on Line B, a short walk past the Forum.
You reach the two cells by stairs, and the site isn’t suitable for anyone with mobility difficulties.
What to See & Do
The Mamertine packs three thousand years of Roman history into one small underground spot at the edge of the Forum. You reach it down one flight of stairs.
The upper cell and the oculus
You come in at the Carcer, the upper cell: a trapezoidal room of big red and yellow tufa blocks under a barrel vault. It’s the newer of the two.
Look at the floor. There’s a round hole in it, the oculus, and it’s the only way into the chamber beneath. Prisoners were lowered through it on a rope.
Below is the Tullianum, the older pit, cut in a rough semicircle straight into the rock of the Capitol. The Roman historian Sallust put it plainly: a place about twelve feet below the earth, walled on every side, where neglect, darkness and stench made it hideous and fearsome.
The Tullianum, the spring and St Peter’s altar
The lower cell is the reason most people come. Water still rises through its floor, and the tradition runs that Peter drew on it to baptise the guards who held him. The name Tullianum probably comes from an old Latin word for exactly that, a spring welling up underground.
Pilgrims still come for it.
An altar to St Peter stands in the stone now. Near it, worn into the rock, is the mark the tradition calls the imprint of his head. From the seventh century the prison was turned into chapels, and San Giuseppe dei Falegnami, the carpenters’ church, rose directly over it.
It’s dim, close and heavy down there. A handheld tablet fills the cells with the faces and the stories as you go, and it’s the part of the visit that does the most work.
Insider Tips
- It’s a short stop, so slot it in beside the Forum and the Capitoline rather than crossing the city for it on its own.
- Book a little ahead to lock a slot, and double-check the date, because the ticket can’t be changed once you’ve paid.
- Start the audio and the tablet before you head down the stairs. Without them the two cells read as just bare rooms.
- The light is low and the space is tight. Photographs come out dark, and this is somewhere you take in rather than shoot.
Did You Know? Interesting Facts
- The oldest prison in Rome, credited to King Ancus Marcius in the 7th century BC.
- It held the condemned rather than long-term prisoners. Most who went down came up dead.
- Its prisoners were the state’s defeated enemies. Vercingetorix, the Gaulish king Caesar paraded through Rome, was lowered into the Tullianum by rope with his executioner and killed in the dark.
- Jugurtha of Numidia was stripped and marched in a triumph, then left to starve in the pit.
- The conspirators of Catiline’s plot were strangled down there too.
- A drain ran from the lower cell into the Cloaca Maxima, Rome’s great sewer, carrying off the spring water and the bodies.
FAQs
How to visit the Mamertine Prison?
Book a timed entry online, or buy at the door with a card. It’s a separate ticket from the Colosseum and the Forum, sold on its own or in a combo.
Which Mamertine Prison tickets include the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill?
The SUPER combo. It runs about two hours in a small group over the Mamertine, the Roman and Imperial Forums and the Palatine. The Colosseum isn’t part of it.
Is Mamertine Prison worth visiting?
If you’re drawn by St Peter and St Paul, or by ancient Rome’s darker history, yes. It’s small and quick, and it’s humbling. If neither pulls you, it’s a lot for two bare cells.
What are Mamertine Prison hours?
Open every day, 9:00 to 17:00, with last visitors going down before it closes.
Where is Mamertine Prison?
On Clivo Argentario, at the Forum edge of the Capitoline, a short walk down from the Colosseum. Look for the plain door beneath the church; it’s easy to miss.
Mamertine Prison: Paul or Peter, and were they really held here?
Tradition puts both apostles in these cells before their deaths, and it’s Peter who’s tied to the spring and the baptism story. Paul is less certain: another tradition has him under guard elsewhere in the city, at what became the church of San Paolo alla Regola.