Ferentium

Is it worth the trip?

If you are in Viterbo, yes. The theatre with its arcade is a genuinely handsome ruin in a quiet rural setting, and with the baths and the paved street it makes a compact visit close to town. Pair it with the Rocca Albornoz museum, where the theatre’s statues are.

It is not worth a long detour on its own: the town itself is mostly unexcavated, and part of the theatre you see is modern restoration. The practical catch is the opening times, which are limited and change with the season, so phone before you go.

Getting there

From Viterbo take the provincial road Teverina towards Bagnoregio; at the junction at km 7 turn right where a blue sign points to Ferento, and the site is about 1 km on, with a large car park near it. Cotral buses from Viterbo towards Bagnoregio, and the Francigena bus towards Grotte Santo Stefano, stop at that junction, which leaves a walk of about 1 km (Archeotuscia).

The site is closed on Mondays. The Ministry of Culture lists it as open Tuesday to Friday from 14.30 and at weekends from 10.30, until 19.00; Archeotuscia, the volunteer association that takes bookings for the site, gives shorter, seasonal times, with weekday visits in the afternoon only and closing at 16.30 in autumn and winter. From about 5 July to 20 August visits are by booking only, because of the summer theatre season. Neither publishes an admission price. The number both give is +39 328 775 0233 (cultura.gov.it and Archeotuscia’s Ferento page, read 24 October 2026).

History

Ferentium had an Etruscan predecessor at nearby Acquarossa (en.wikipedia); according to the Ministry of Culture, the Etruscan town on the Pianicara hill arose in the 4th century BC, after Acquarossa had been destroyed at the end of the 6th. The town is first mentioned around 123 BC, in the Liber coloniarum, and became a Roman municipium after the Social War (Pleiades; it.wikipedia). It belonged to the Stellatina tribe and to the seventh region of Italy (en.wikipedia).

The great public buildings came in the early Empire: the theatre, the forum, the baths, the amphitheatre and a shrine of Augustus (it.wikipedia), though published dates for some of them differ, the Ministry putting the baths in the second century AD and Archeotuscia the amphitheatre in the late Republic. An inscription found in the baths area records building work in the forum, among it a temple of Augustus, and elsewhere in the town, paid for by a wealthy citizen, Sextus Hortensius, and a Sextus Hortensius Clarus (Archeotuscia). The dates given for the theatre differ: the early Augustan decades, or the first two decades of the first century AD, with its stage rebuilt and redecorated in the second century (fr.wikipedia; Archeotuscia). The emperor Otho was born here (Pleiades; the Ministry), and the family of Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Vespasian, came from the town (en.wikipedia).

Ferentium became a bishop’s see, and named bishops are recorded from 487 to 649 (it.wikipedia). In the fifth century the theatre was taken into the town’s defences (fr.wikipedia). In the wars of the sixth and seventh centuries the population fell and withdrew west of the old town, and in the seventh century the see moved to Bomarzo (it.wikipedia). The town revived as a medieval commune, with a watchtower built inside the theatre, until Viterbo sacked it in 1170 and destroyed it on the night of 1 January 1172 (it.wikipedia).

Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, the “archaeologist king”, worked on the site for several years, and the most recent excavations, between 1994 and 2009, were led by the Tuscia University of Viterbo (en.wikipedia).