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.

[1] 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.

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.

[4] 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.

[1] Above the façade looking towards the River Tiber it is surmounted by a great bronze quadriga, set there in 1926, the work of the sculptor Ettore Ximenes from Palermo.