While the round temple of vesta struck on this particular coin is most likely an idealized image, there was a real model in Rome. The real one sits at the southeast corner of the Roman Forum, beside the Regia and the House of the Vestals. Strictly it is an aedes, not a temple, as it was never inaugurated by the augurs, which meant the Senate could not lawfully meet inside it. Roman writers are careful about this and modern usage generally isn't.

Tradition credits the legendary second King of Rome, Numa, with the foundation. Archaeology finds structures on the site going back to the early archaic period, and the association with the Kingship suggests it belongs to the earliest cultic core of the city.

As it was built to honor Vesta, the temple had no cult statue. Instead, there was a hearth. The fire itself was the presence of the goddess, tended in unbroken continuity by the six Vestal Virgins, ritually extinguished and rekindled each March 1st, the Roman New Year. Letting it go out at any other time was a grave prodigy and the responsible Vestal was flogged.

Despite its importance, the structure was burned repeatedly. First during the Gallic sack of 241 BC, 210 BC. Then during Nero's fire in 64 and again under Commodus in 191. Julia Domna rebuilt it for the final time, so the surviving structure is Severan. Visitors today can see the marble podium roughly fifteen metres across with twenty re-erected Corinthian columns.