Baths of Diocletian

The Baths of Diocletian were ancient Rome's largest bathing complex, built between 298 and 306 under emperor Diocletian. Spread across roughly 13 hectares, the baths could host up to 3,000 people at once for soaking, sweating, oil massage or reading in the on-site library. Pliny the Elder claimed 40,000 slaves and Christian forced labourers worked on the site. In the 16th century Pope Pius IV commissioned Michelangelo to convert the central frigidarium into the basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, which still uses the former cold hall almost unchanged. Today the surviving halls house the Museo Nazionale Romano with its sculpture and inscription collection, while the round Piazza della Repubblica traces the curve of the ancient exedra. Step inside the basilica and you suddenly stand beneath the original twenty-metre vaults of the imperial bath.