The mausoleum was built starting in 1939 following the death of the fascist hierarch Costanzo Ciano, father of the more famous Galeazzo, to house the remains of his family and was financed by a public subscription opened by the Podestà of Livorno.
The project for the Mausoleum of Ciano was grandiose: a 12 meter high statue was to rest on a large base and an imposing 50 meter lighthouse reproducing an enormous fasces was to complete the work. The lighthouse was actually built but was demolished by the Germans who mined it shortly before abandoning Livorno, while the statue that was supposed to portray Costanzo driving an MAS is still found unfinished in the quarry on the island of Santo Stefano in Sardinia.
Today, all that remains of the mausoleum is the base on which the statue must have stood, a vaulted room supported by enormous columns, which can be accessed from an entrance in front of which is the massive lid and the red marble sarcophagus. Instead of Ciano's remains, the sarcophagus houses the vegetation and water that has collected over the course of about seventy years. The interior is covered in graffiti and writings. Two rooms open respectively on the left and on the right, next to the entrance: one was to house the stairs and the other the lift (as can still be seen from some traces) which would have taken visitors to the lighthouse.