Baths of Diocletian: tickets, opening hours and Michelangelo's cloister

Updated on October 1, 2026

The Baths of Diocletian, opposite Termini station, were the largest public baths of ancient Rome, built in the early 4th century between today's piazza della Repubblica and piazza dei Cinquecento. Some of their great halls now house one of the sites of the National Roman Museum: the large cloister of the charterhouse, designed after Michelangelo, the small cloister, a museum of Latin inscriptions and the Aula Ottagona. You visit with the National Roman Museum's €15 single ticket, which also covers Palazzo Massimo, just opposite, and Palazzo Altemps (prices checked in October 2026). Allow an hour and a half to two hours.

Highlights

Michelangelo's large cloister

With four 100-metre galleries carried by 100 travertine columns, it is one of the largest cloisters in Italy. Begun in 1565, a year after Michelangelo's death and probably to his design, it is lined with statues, stelae and sarcophagi; in the middle of the garden stand a 1695 fountain ringed by cypresses and seven colossal animal heads found near Trajan's Column.

The small cloister

Built over part of the baths' old swimming pool, it displays under its arcades key documents of Roman religion: the inscriptions of the Arval Brethren, a college of priests, and the pillars recording the Secular Games of 17 BC, which mention the poet Horace.

The Museum of Written Communication of the Romans

On three floors, about 900 inscriptions tell the daily life of Rome, from the emperor to the slave: the epitaph of a fishmonger, the sarcophagus of the head of a gladiators' barracks, lead pipes bearing Vespasian's name, bricks stamped by a factory of Trajan.

The Aula Ottagona

Square outside and octagonal inside, this hall of the baths keeps its umbrella dome and the metal frame of the planetarium it housed from 1928 to 1987. It hosts the Museum of Rescued Art, temporary exhibitions of works stolen or sheltered and then recovered. Separate entrance on via Giuseppe Romita, with a €5 ticket for the hall alone.

The basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli

Outside the museum, Michelangelo turned the frigidarium of the baths into a church, and its great vaulted hall survives intact. Entry is free, on piazza della Repubblica; look on the floor for Francesco Bianchini's meridian line, traced in 1702.

Infos pratiques

Tips

The single ticket costs €15 full price and €2 reduced, and gives one entry to each site of the National Roman Museum over 7 days; the MNR Card at €30 (€20 reduced) allows unlimited entries for a year (prices checked in October 2026). Tickets are non-refundable. Entry is free for everyone on the first Sunday of the month, as in all Italian state museums. In October 2026, the natatio, hall VIII and the Protohistory Museum are closed until further notice, and halls X, XI and XI bis have been temporarily closed since 29 September while an exhibition is dismantled: the visit focuses on the cloisters, the inscriptions museum and the Aula Ottagona. Check the official website before you go.

How to get there

Viale Enrico de Nicola 78, 00185 Rome. Metro Termini (lines A and B), piazza dei Cinquecento exit, or Repubblica (line A). The Aula Ottagona has its entrance at via Giuseppe Romita 8; the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli opens onto piazza della Repubblica.