The area, redeveloped with a project shared by the City of Tivoli and the State Superintendency, is named after the monumental marble altar of the Vestal Cossinia, dating back to the early first century AD, part of the Republican-Imperial necropolis of ancient Tibur on the Via Valeria, discovered during excavations in 1929.
The altar stands on a plinth consisting of five steps made of travertine blocks, flanked by another plinth of three steps under which a female skeleton of a little girl with an outfit consisting of an amber casket and an ivory jointed doll were found (currently preserved in the National Roman Museum).
On the altar of the elderly virgin, devoted to the cult of the goddess Vesta for as many as 66 years, the inscription within the crown, to which the infula and vitta typical of the muliebre hairstyle are intertwined, hands down the name of the virgo vestalis Cossinia, daughter of Lucius; below, perhaps added at a later date, is the name of the dedicating family member L. Cossinius Electus.
Engraved on the back are two hexameters, vivid evidence of the popular fame the priestess, from an ancient and noble Tiburtine family, who died in her seventies and remained devoted to the cult of Vesta beyond the usual period, enjoyed:
“Undecies senis quod Vestae paruit annis, / hic sita virgo, manu populi delata, quiescit. / L(ocus) d(atus) s(enatus) c(onsulto)”
(Here buried rests the virgin, by the hand of the people transported, for for sixty-six years she was devoted to Vesta. Place granted by decree of the senate).
