piazza Venezia

Piazza Venezia is the great traffic hub of central Rome at the foot of the Capitoline Hill. It takes its name from the Palazzo Venezia of 1455 - Rome's first purely Renaissance palace and once the embassy of the Republic of Venice. From its central balcony, Benito Mussolini delivered his most important speeches from 1929; the palazzo was his office until 1943. The square is dominated by the huge Vittoriano (1885-1911) honouring Victor Emmanuel II, first king of united Italy: a marble monument so white that Romans mock it as the typewriter or the wedding cake. Beneath the equestrian statue lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with an eternal flame. Today six avenues feed into the square, and the panoramic lift up to the Vittoriano roof gives one of Rome's best 360-degree views.