Palace of Justice, Rome
building housing the Supreme Courts of Justice of Italy in Rome
The Palace of Justice (Italian: Palazzo di Giustizia), colloquially nicknamed il Palazzaccio ('the Awful Palace'), is the seat of the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Judicial Public Library of Italy. It is located in the Prati district of Rome, facing Piazza dei Tribunali, Via Triboniano, Piazza Cavour, and Via Ulpiano.
History
Designed by the Perugia architect Guglielmo Calderini and built between 1888 and 1910, the Palace of Justice is considered one of the grandest of the new buildings which followed the proclamation of Rome as the capital city of the Kingdom of Italy. The foundation stone was laid on 14 March 1888 in the presence of Giuseppe Zanardelli, Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Great Seal, who had insisted on a prestigious location in the Prati district, where various other new court buildings were already going up.
The alluvial soil on which the building sits required a massive concrete platform to support the foundations. Despite this, instability problems developed after the Palace was completed, and settlement led to a need for a painstaking restoration project which was begun in 1970.
The excavations for the foundations unearthed several archaeological finds, including some sarcophagi. In one of these was found the skeleton of a young woman, Crepereia Tryphaena, together with a superbly crafted articulated ivory doll, now conserved in the Centrale Montemartini museum.
On 11 January 1911, twenty-two years after construction began, the building was officially opened in the presence of the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III.
The building's unusually large size, astonishing decorations, and long period of construction created the suspicion of corruption. In April 1912 a parliamentary commission was appointed to inquire into the matter and it presented its findings the following year.
The public source identifies “Palace of Justice, Rome” as building housing the Supreme Courts of Justice of Italy in Rome. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Palace, Justice and Rome.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2047650. Authority coordinates are 41.904, 12.470. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1888, 1910, 1970 and 1911.
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This entry incorporates text from “Palace of Justice, Rome” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.