Teatro romano di Aosta

The only facade currently visible is the southern one, standing 22 meters high, characterized by a series of buttresses and arches and lightened by three superimposed orders of windows of various shapes and sizes.

Also clearly identifiable are the semicircular steps that housed the spectators (cavea), the orchestra (whose radius is 10 meters), and the stage wall (now reduced to the foundations alone) which once rose with its rich frontage decorated with columns, marbles, and statues.

It has been estimated that the Theater could hold three or four thousand spectators. Some scholars believe that the theater was equipped with a fixed roof.

With the fall of the empire, until the 18th century, every memory of the original function of the building was lost, and its remains were recognized as such only very late: during the Middle Ages numerous buildings were attached to it, demolished during modern recovery and restoration works.

In 1864 some test excavations brought to light a series of walls, while in the 1920s a first arrangement was made for the monument, demolishing the shacks surrounding it. The complete uncovering, however, took place between 1933 and 1941, when important restoration and integration works were carried out.

Recent research conducted on the masonry has allowed the hypothesis that the currently visible structures were not all built in the first phase (1st century BC), but that they are the result of successive modifications that took place still in ancient times.