Circus of Nero

The crucifixion took place near an ancient Egyptian obelisk in the Circus of Nero.

Furthermore, Tertullian says these events took place in the imperial gardens near the Circus of Nero.

He was said to have been crucified head downwards, by his own request, near the obelisk in the Circus of Nero.

The area now covered by the Vatican City had been a cemetery for some years before the Circus of Nero was built.

Peter is said to be buried in the necropolis because of its proximity to the Circus of Nero where he was martyred.

It also would have connected the Circus of Nero to the basilica and to a double row of mausoleums.

The place called Naumachia would be an artificial lake within the Circus of Nero where naval battles were reenacted for an audience.

For example, the first Saint Peter's Basilica was erected using spoils from the abandoned Circus of Nero.

The people of Rome most likely crossed the Pons Neronianus to get to the Circus of Nero.

Another, formerly in the Circus of Nero, Rome, was moved to Saint Peter's Square in the 16th century.

One chapel contains the two columns to which Peter and Paul were said to have been bound prior to their martyrdom in the circus of Nero nearby.

Construction of the basilica, built over the historical site of the Circus of Nero, began during the reign of Emperor Constantine I.

A basilica (Old St. Peter's) was erected by Constantine over the site, using some of the existing structure of the Circus of Nero.

The obelisk had stood since AD 37 on its site on the wall of the Circus of Nero, flanking St Peter's Basilica:

The Circus of Nero or Circus of Caligula was a circus in ancient Rome, located mostly in the present-day Vatican City.

He had it placed on the spina which ran along the centre of the Circus of Nero, where it would preside over Nero's countless brutal games and Christian executions.

Located where once stood the Circus of Nero, during the period of the Roman Empire, it was the site of the martyrdom of many of the early Christians of the city.

Lacus Curtius website: Circus of Nero, plan superposed with the Basilicas, showing the tomb of Peter, and text by Rodolfo Lanciani describing the largely inadvertent archaeology.

The Portica collapsed, and on its place was built the road of Borgo Vecchio, also named Carriera Martyrum after the martyrs going to death in the Circus of Nero.

Via Cornelia is an ancient Roman Road that supposedly ran east-west along the northern wall of the Circus of Nero on land now covered by the southern wall of St. Peter's Basilica.

Hülsen suggested that this structure, built close to the Circus of Nero and lying north-west of the later Mausoleum of Hadrian (today's Castel Sant'Angelo), was the naumachia the name of the church was referring to.

Caligula and Nero used the area for chariot exercises, as at the Gaianum, and renewal was encouraged by the building of the Circus of Nero, also known as the Circus Vaticanus or simply the Vaticanum.

On December 9, 1586 (the year when Domenico Fontana erected in Saint Peter's Square the obelisk once standing in the Circus of Nero), Pope Sixtus V declared Borgo the fourteenth Rione of the city.