Teatro Romano (Roman Theater & Archaeological Museum)

Description:

• If you're in the Florence area during the summertime Estate Fiesolana music concerts, by all means try to get a ticket for a night of music under the stars in this 1st-century-B.C. Roman Theater. The cavea, of which the right half is original and the left rebuilt in the 19th century when this area was first excavated, seats 3,000. This archaeological area is romantically overgrown with grasses, amid which sit sections of column, broken friezes, and other remnants of architectural elements. A grove of olive trees grows in the center. Beyond the theater to the right, recognizable by its three rebuilt arches, are the remains of the 1st-century-A.D. baths. Near the arches is a little cement balcony over the far edge of the archaeological park. From it, you get a good look at the best stretch that remains of the 4th-century-B.C. Etruscan city walls. At the other end of the park from the baths are the floor and steps of a 1st-century-B.C. Roman Temple built on top of a 4th-century-B.C. Etruscan one. To the left are some oblong Lombard tombs from the 7th century A.D., when this was a Gothic necropolis.

  Among the collections in the Museum, recently reopened after a prolonged rearrangement, are the bronze "she-wolf," a fragment of the back of what was probably a statue of a lion, lots of Etruscan urns and Roman architectural fragments, and Bronze Age remains found atop the hill now occupied by San Francesco. The Constantini collection of beautiful Greek vases includes significant works from Greek colonies in Apulia that span the 8th to 4th centuries B.C., as well as many red- and black-figure vases and amphorae, 7th-century-B.C. Corinthian vases, and some black Bucchero ware.

• © Frommer's 2013

Awards:

Frommer's

•  Highly Recommended 2010