During the early 20th century, Mussolini restored the Imperial Fora as part of his campaign to evoke and emulate the past glories of Ancient Rome, but he also built the Via dei Fori Imperiali across the middle of the site.

The modern street and its heavy traffic has proved a source of damage to the buildings because of vibration and pollution.

A statue of Caesar himself riding Bucephalus, the celebrated horse of Alexander the Great, was placed in front of the temple, to symbolise absolute power.

[citation needed] This centralised vision corresponded to the ideological function, following the propaganda of the Hellenistic sanctuaries; also the choice of the Forum site carried a meaning: the future dictator didn't want to be far from the central power, represented in the Curia, seat of the Senate.

This high wall served as a firebreak, protecting the Forum area from the frequent conflagrations from which Rome suffered.

The rectangular square has long deep porticos with a surface that widens into large semicircular exedras.

The shape of the square was also different: the temple was constructed as a large apsidal hall that opened up like an exedra at the bottom of the portico.

The central area was not paved like other fora and served as a garden, with pools and pedestals for statues, so that it was similar to an open-air museum.

The wall is now part of the façade of the church of Santi Cosma e Damiano, where the holes used to mount the slabs of the map can still be seen.

The temple, dedicated to Minerva as protector of the emperor, was built leaning on the exedra of the Forum of Augustus, so that the remaining space became a large monumental entrance (Porticus Absidatus) for all the fora.

It is probable that Domitian's projects were more ambitious than the building of the small Forum of Nerva and probably under his reign they started to remove the small saddle that united the Capitoline Hill to the Quirinal Hill, thus blocking the Fora towards Campus Martius, near to modern Piazza Venezia.