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Hi bloggers 

Have you ever been to Palestrina? Palestrina is an Italian town in the province of Rome. It is located on the main Via Prenestina, to which it gave the name, because the old name of the city was "Praeneste".

There are many legends about the foundation of Palestrina. Different traditions report Telegono as the founder, son of Ulysses and Circe, or the eponymous hero Prainestos, son of King Latino and grandson of Ulysses.
Historians like Cato and Virgil, however, bind the city to the figure of Ceculo, believed as the Son of God Vulcan and found, when he was a baby, near some fires that would have made him blind.

Praneste, was a very famous town in the ancient times because of the Sanctuary of Fortuna, a sanctuary dedicated to the Roman goddess "Fortuna Primigenia".

The sanctuary is is a great architectural achievement and one of the masterpieces of Roman architecture of the Republican era, is influenced, in the scenic arrangement terraces, by Hellenistic accomplishments, but it is built using as a base the construction technique of the cement.

The temple consists of a series of artificial terraces arranged on the rocky slope. On the "terrace of semicircles" preserves a well that has been identified with one in which, according to the historian Cicero, the noble from Palestrina, Numerio Sufficio, would have found his destiny written on wooden boards.
Presumably, the oracles were drawn up within the same well from a probable female figure, kept in the shadows. Inside the well it was sank a child who, upon receipt responses, handed the tablets to those who had asked the questions.

Another thing to visit in Palestrina is the Archaeological Museum, housed in the Palazzo Barberini Colonna, built on top of the sanctuary of Fortuna.

It houses numerous artifacts: busts, sarcophagi and funerary foundations, statues and everyday objects from the city's necropolis.

Of particular importance there is the great and large Nilotic Mosaic (around 80 BC, dimensions: 5.85 x 4.31 meters), coming from a classroom of the Republican Forum of Palestrina and representing the exotic landscape of the river Nile and one of the few examples of preserved mosaic of the Republican era.

Thank you!
Guenda

Information:

The Archaeological Museum is located in Palazzo Barberini, p.zza della Cortina
Tel.06/9538100 Fax 06/9538100

Opening hours:
9:00 to 20:00 museum, and the archaeological area is opened until sunset

Ticket:
Full price: € 5.00
Reduced: € 2.50 (from 18 to 25 years)
Free: under 18; disabled; teachers and students of architecture, archeology, art history, cultural heritage, science education, art schools, etc.
Free admission for all visitors on the first Sunday of each month.

Palestrina can be reached along:
- The Rome-Aquila highway A24, Tivoli exit, then follow signs to Palestrina;
- The Rome-Naples highway A1, exit S. Cesareo or Valmontone, then follow the signs to Palestrina;
- The road N 16 Prenestina (37 km from Rome);
- The road N 6 Casilina.

By bus:
- Taking the bus COTRAL departing from the terminus of Anagnina (metro A)