Palazzo Vecchio – Roman Theatre Excavations

Palazzo Vecchio rises over the remains of ancient Florentia’s Roman theatre. A few steps down take you into the past. The theatre held around 10,000 people and had an external diameter of 100 metres. Its seating faced Piazza della Signoria, while the stage lay towards Via de’ Leoni. Construction began with the foundation of Florentia; the theatre was enlarged in the early second century AD as the city’s population and urban area grew considerably under the empire. Unlike the amphitheatre in the Santa Croce area, it was used mainly for spoken drama, until the fifth century. It then fell into decline: materials were removed and some spaces reused for other purposes, including the Burelle, the radial masonry corridors beneath the seating. Nineteenth-century exploratory excavations confirmed its existence. Major archaeological excavations, completed in 2010, later made it possible to open the site to the public.