Access VeronaPink stone, a green river, two thousand years deep.
The Roman theater's seating on the hillside, the river and the old city beyond
STONE SEATS ON THE HILLSIDE

Roman Theatre

A Roman theater cut into the slope across the Adige, with a medieval church sitting in its seating and an archaeological museum in the convent above.

Carla Brain, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

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A Roman theater cut into the slope across the Adige, with a medieval church sitting in its seating and an archaeological museum in the convent above.

The parts to look at

  1. I
    Stage buildingThe low remains of the stage wall at the foot of the slope, facing the river
  2. II
    The caveaThe semicircle of stone seating rows rising up the hillside behind the stage
  3. III
    Santi Siro e LiberaThe small church standing inside the upper seating, reached by a baroque double staircase
  4. IV
    Upper loggia archesReconstructed arcades of the galleries that once crowned the seating
  5. V
    Museum in San GirolamoThe former fifteenth-century convent above the theater, with Roman mosaics, sculpture and everyday objects
  6. VI
    The great terraceThe museum's terrace, with Roman stonework displayed against the view over the river

A theater facing the city

Verona's Roman theater sits on the slope of the Colle San Pietro, on the left bank of the Adige, looking back across the river at the old city. It is a different building from the Arena: that was an amphitheatre for games, this was a theater for plays and recitations, built into a natural hillside.

The Roman theater's stone seating below the church of Santi Siro e Libera
The Roman theater's stone seating below the church of Santi Siro e LiberaAndrea Bertozzi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The excavated theater and the Archaeological Museum in the convent above it are visited together, and the climb between them is the point. Each level looks down on the one below, from the stage ruins to the seating, the church and finally the museum terrace, with Ponte Pietra and the roofs of the city spread out beyond.

Built, buried and dug out

The theater was built in the late first century BC, around the time of Augustus. Before work began, walls were raised along the Adige between Ponte Pietra and the Pons Postumius to hold back floods. The stage building ran about seventy-one meters, and the seating was roughly a hundred and five meters across, climbing in terraces towards a temple on the hilltop.

The theater's cavea with summer stage seating in place
The theater's cavea with summer stage seating in placeCarla Brain, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

In the Middle Ages the theater fell out of use and disappeared under the city. People built houses directly on the Roman substructures and used the ancient passages and stairways as lanes. In the tenth century a church was built over one of the arches of the upper seating.

In 1834 Andrea Monga, a wealthy Veronese merchant and antiquarian, bought the buildings on the site and began clearing them. Between 1834 and 1844 about thirty houses came down. The city acquired the area in 1904, and further excavation up to 1914 brought the whole seating back to light.

The church in the seats

The arcades of the upper terraces above the theater
The arcades of the upper terraces above the theaterCarla Brain, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

The church of Santi Siro e Libera was founded in 913, according to the Italian account, by Giovanni, bishop of Cremona, and given in 922 to the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria in Organo. It stands on Roman substructures at the top of the old seating, which is why it seems to float above the ruins.

The garden of the archaeological museum on the hillside
The garden of the archaeological museum on the hillsideJosé Luiz, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The church was remodeled in Gothic form in the fourteenth century, keeping its portal and porch, and changed again from 1613 by a lay confraternity. Between 1697 and 1703 the two-branched staircase was added to reach the front. Inside are wooden choir stalls carved by German craftsmen between 1717 and 1720, and the tomb of the painter Giambettino Cignaroli.

The museum in the convent

The Archaeological Museum was set up in the 1920s in the former convent of San Girolamo, a late fifteenth-century house of the Gesuati friars; sources give both 1923 and 1924. Its rooms, including the small cells of the old convent, hold sculpture, inscriptions, altars, bronzes, glass, terracotta lamps and pottery found in Verona.

A stone relief in the archaeological museum
A stone relief in the archaeological museumAndrea Bertozzi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The convent church of San Girolamo was built in 1432 between two cloisters. Its floor and walls now carry Roman mosaics, and its early sixteenth-century ceiling is made of eighteen painted wooden panels. Among the mosaics are a third-century Bacchus with his panther, found at Piazza Bra, and scenes of gladiators in combat, with the fighters' names written beside them.

What you actually see

At the bottom, look for the tuff-block walls of the stage building, where traces of the mechanism for the stage curtain survive. Andrea Monga also assembled a single sphinx from fragments of several different ones found during his digs, a small example of how nineteenth-century excavators pieced the site together.

Relief of a Roman lictor in the museum garden
Relief of a Roman lictor in the museum gardenJosé Luiz, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Climbing the seating, notice how the rows follow the slope of the hill itself, with the old passages and stairways still threading between them. The arches of the upper galleries have been partly rebuilt, and from the top the full width of the theater and its relation to the river become clear.

The hillside of the theater and museum from across the Adige
The hillside of the theater and museum from across the AdigeFalk2, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The great terrace of the museum is the reward for the climb. Roman stonework is set out along it, and the view takes in Ponte Pietra, the cathedral quarter and the bend of the Adige below the old city.

Summer on the old stage

The theater is still used for performance. The Estate Teatrale Veronese, a summer season best known for its Shakespeare productions, has been held here every year since 1948, on a modern stage installed over the ruins. Other performances share the same summer stage.

A well in the cloister of the former convent
A well in the cloister of the former conventJosé Luiz, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Note In summer the modern stage and its equipment sit over the ancient one, which changes how the ruins look by day. Performances are separate evening events, so check the season calendar and book ahead for an evening under the hill, where the city lights come up across the river.

How to visit

Allow about ninety minutes for the theater and museum together, and wear shoes with grip for the steep stone steps. The museum itself is not wheelchair accessible, though a ramp gives access to the theater seating. The civic museums close one day a week, so check before going.

Frescoes above the door of Santi Siro e Libera
Frescoes above the door of Santi Siro e LiberaSyrio, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Cross Ponte Pietra to reach the entrance on the riverside road. The funicular has an intermediate stop serving the museum, and afterwards the stairs or the funicular continue up to Castel San Pietro for the widest view of the city, and the ancient city as a whole is covered in Roman Verona.

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