Tiers in living rock
The hill itself carved to seats two thousand years ago.
MM โ Public domain ยท Josรฉ Luiz โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท thievingjoker โ CC BY-SA 2.0 ยท Carla Brain โ CC BY-SA 3.0
No contest to hold: the Arena is a colossal games amphitheatre, this an intimate drama stage with a river view โ together completing Roman entertainment's two wings. Practically: the Arena is unmissable; the theatre rewards the bank-crossing of whoever gives Verona her full day.
By merciful burial: houses and churches collapsed over it for centuries until it vanished โ then a rich nineteenth-century merchant bought the hill and spent his life excavating, demolishing the houses to uncover the theatre for the city: Andrea Monga, perhaps Europe's first private archaeologist, his name on the entrance by right.
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Decades before the Arena, Verona built its theatre: in the late first century BC the Romans cut their tiers into San Pietro hill's own rock above the river โ the site alone explaining the choice: the audience watched the play with all Verona the greater stage behind the scaena. Tiers, orchestra and stage fragments survive in working order โ the summer theatre festival has played on them since 1948, Shakespeare in his Italian city its favourite rite โ and the climb through them terraces a whole hillside of remains: arches, passages and landings up to the monastery of Saint Jerome above, where the archaeological museum keeps the Roman city's sculpture, bronzes and mosaics, the monastery balcony closing with a view rivalling the hill terrace's. The pairing โ Ponte Pietra at the foot, the theatre in the ascent โ makes the left bank Verona's richest Roman hour.
The hill itself carved to seats two thousand years ago.
The museum's close over river and city.
Festival nights on Roman stone โ the theatre alive.
Regaste Redentore 2, 37129 Verona