Planetario e Museo Astronomico

Rome keeps its window on the sky inside a rationalist monument. The city Planetarium, whose story reaches back to 1928, projects the night sky onto a 14-metre dome in EUR.

Why it matters

The Eternal City spends its capital on antiquity, so its city-run planetarium is a reminder that Rome also collects the sky. The institution dates to 1928 and belongs to the pioneering generation of planetariums outside Germany. It was later installed in a great hall inside the Museo della Civiltà Romana, the museum of Roman civilisation. After an overhaul of its projection technology, the planetarium reopened on 22 April 2022. Its dome spans 14 metres and has 98 seats, placing it among Italy's largest planetariums. The city's astronomers have used it for public-facing astronomy programmes.

What to notice

Past planetarium programmes have covered the Voyager probes, the night sky and the planets, with live astronomical sessions and events combining astronomy and music. The complex also includes an astronomical museum.

Context and history

The Rome institution belongs to the first generation of planetariums — optical machines that projected the stars artificially onto domes for public audiences — and its self-declared 1928 origin places it among the pioneers outside Germany, where the genre was invented. The modern planetarium continues this lineage in the great hall of the Museo della Civiltà Romana in EUR. It was re-equipped in the early 2020s and reopened in April 2022. It forms part of Rome Capitale's civic museum system, whose astronomers also produce educational projects beyond the dome, including audio guides and virtual museum tours.