Piazza dell'Anfiteatro
You pass through a narrow archway — one of four cut into the ring of medieval buildings — and the city suddenly exhales into an oval. The shape is not accidental. Beneath your feet, some three metres down, lie the foundations of a Roman amphitheatre that once seated around 10,000 people.
The buildings enclosing the square follow that ancient ellipse almost exactly, their facades a palimpsest of centuries: Roman stonework absorbed into medieval walls, archways bricked up and reopened, the whole ring now lined with cafés and small shops. A cross is inlaid into the central paving, its arms pointing to the four gateways.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to time it for early evening, when the light turns the facades a deep amber and the square fills with an easy mix of children on bikes, locals cutting through on errands, and tables spilling out from the restaurants. Igor Mitoraj's large bronze head draws a queue of photographers most afternoons — arrive before the dinner crowd if you want the square to yourself.
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Book directly at the providerHow Piazza dell'Anfiteatro came to be
The Roman amphitheatre was begun in the 1st century AD under Emperor Claudius and completed during the Flavian period. Over the following centuries it was fortified during the Gothic Wars, stripped for building material, and gradually buried under terraced houses. The inner space served at various points as a powder magazine, a salt store, and a prison known locally as the 'grotte' — the caves.
In 1830, architect Lorenzo Nottolini cleared the buildings that had accumulated inside the oval and opened up the central arena. By October 1839 it was inaugurated as Piazza del Mercato, a working market square. The elliptical ring of buildings he left standing still traces the exact footprint of the ancient structure, and one original Roman arch — the lowest of the four gateways — survives intact.
Who and what shaped it
People who shaped it
Landmark buildings
Plan your visit
On the map
When to go
May and September are the most comfortable months to linger here: warm enough to sit outside, cool enough to walk. July and August can push well above 35°C by afternoon, though the cafés around the perimeter offer shade. Winter days are short and can be chilly, but the square is rarely crowded and the light on the stone is clear and low.
Right now
Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.