The story of Verona Arena

Imagine sitting on these stones in Roman times. The Verona Arena is among the best-preserved ancient amphitheatres to survive into the modern era, and one historian concluded it was finished by approximately 30 AD, earlier than the Colosseum. Gravestones found in Verona tell of the men who fought here.

The secutor Aedonius fought eight times before he was killed at only twenty-six, while a retiarius named Generosus, from the gladiatorial school of Alexandria, fought twenty-seven times without defeat and died of natural causes. In 312, when Constantine besieged the city, the amphitheatre became a bastion for the defenders, because it rose higher than the city walls. Its remarkable condition owes much to restoration work that began in the 16th century.

Since 1913, opera seasons have filled it every summer, interrupted only by wars, and in 2026 it hosted the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics.