Piazza dell'Anfiteatro

Piazza dell'Anfiteatro is one of the most unusual urban spaces in Italy — a perfect oval formed by the coloured houses that were built into and against the outer walls of a Roman amphitheatre in the medieval period. The amphitheatre itself is long gone, but its elliptical outline is preserved with uncanny precision in the ring of buildings that replaced it, creating a piazza whose shape cannot be explained by any normal town planning logic.

The square is entered through four arched passages cut through the encircling buildings. Inside, it is ringed with cafes and restaurants, busy from morning to late evening with residents and visitors. Best visited in the early evening, when the setting sun lights the peach and ochre facades and aperitivo hour fills the outdoor tables.

things to do sight
A story
The Roman amphitheatre that shaped this square held around 10,000 spectators when it was built in the 2nd century AD. After the fall of Rome, the arena was quarried for building materials, and medieval houses grew up against the remaining outer wall, gradually enclosing the elliptical space. By the 11th century the outline of the amphitheatre had been entirely absorbed into the city fabric — only the shape remained.