Faesulae – Fiesole

Is it worth the trip?

Yes, if you are in Florence. A city bus runs up from the city, and the theatre is the reason to come; the temple and the Etruscan wall are a few steps further on and worth them.

Two caveats. The baths have been heavily restored since they were dug up, so take them as a plan of how a Roman bath worked rather than as untouched ruins (it.wikipedia, the operator). And from November to February the area shuts at 15.00 and all day on Tuesdays, which is easy to miss on a day out.

Getting there

Bus 7 runs from Piazza della Libertà in Florence to Fiesole (it.wikipedia). Get off at the terminus, “Fiesole, Piazza Mino”, cross the road and walk behind the cathedral of San Romolo to via Duprè: the entrance and ticket office are where via Duprè meets via Portigiani (the operator). By car the operator recommends the road up via di San Domenico. There is no car park of its own: there are paid bays in the streets round the entrance and free car parks in the town, and a mapped car park lies about 100 m from the area (the operator, OpenStreetMap).

From April to September the area is open every day, 09.00 to 19.00; in March and October every day, 10.00 to 18.00; from November to February 10.00 to 15.00, closed on Tuesdays. The ticket office shuts half an hour before closing, and the area is closed on 25 December. The area alone costs €7 (reduced €5), theatre included; with the Archaeological Museum it is €10 (reduced €6), and €12 (reduced €8) adding the Bandini Museum. Reductions are for ages 7 to 18, groups of ten or more and university students; children up to six go free. A multimedia guide is included, against an ID document left at the desk, and the museums are part of the FirenzeCard (museidifiesole.it, read 23 October 2026 – check before travelling, since prices move).

The theatre

The seating is what you come to see. Its tiers, divided by narrow stairways into wedge-shaped sectors, rest on the rock of the slope in the middle; at the two ends, where the hill gave out, they stand on vaulted structures over the side passages that led into the orchestra, and those passages survive (it.wikipedia, de.wikipedia). Spectators came in through them and through entrances at the top of the seating (the operator). Behind the top, where the structure above has gone, a curving gallery lies exposed, linked to the tiers by four passages (de.wikipedia).

In front of the seats is the semicircular orchestra, which keeps traces of its coloured floor, described as mosaic (it.wikipedia) and as marble slabs (de.wikipedia). Of the stage building only some walls and foundations remain (the operator, de.wikipedia), and the foundation of the stage wall still shows where its three doors for the actors were (it.wikipedia). Behind the stage, nine pillars of a portico survive, much restored (it.wikipedia). Fragments of the marble that faced the stage wall, carved with plant motifs and mythological scenes – among them Dionysus with a panther – are in the Archaeological Museum (it.wikipedia, the operator).

Two things to know. The stage building survives only at ground level, so what you see is the auditorium rather than a complete theatre, and not all the seating is ancient: the theatre was partly rebuilt after it was dug up, and of its wedge-shaped sectors only the right-hand part is original (de.wikipedia, it.wikipedia). And it is still a working venue. In summer it hosts the Estate Fiesolana festival of concerts, drama, dance and film; the 2026 season, the festival’s 79th, ran from 8 June to 12 September, with most performances starting at 21.15 or 21.30 (the festival’s page). An evening ticket, sold by the festival rather than by the museums, is another way to see it.

The theatre was long dated to the time of Sulla, whose veterans were settled at Faesulae, because its building looked archaic (it.wikipedia); de.wikipedia still allows that an earlier form, now unknown, may go back to then. A stratigraphic excavation behind the seating in 1958 found material from the first years of Augustus’s reign in the layers laid down before it was built, and it is now dated to the last quarter of the 1st century BC (it.wikipedia), which makes it one of the very early Roman theatres (de.wikipedia). It held about 3,000 spectators (de.wikipedia, fr.wikipedia), and after its rebuilding seats about 2,000 again (de.wikipedia). The decoration of the stage was renewed more than once: de.wikipedia dates a frieze on the front of the stage to the reign of Claudius, and the marble facing of the stage wall was redone around the 3rd century AD (it.wikipedia), the century up to which the theatre is known to have been in use (it.wikipedia, the operator). In a later phase a structure with three niches, read as a nymphaeum (a fountain house), faced the seating (it.wikipedia).

From the end of the Middle Ages until the early 19th century the theatre lay buried under rubble and earth, with trees planted on the slope and a path running across the top of the seating, as a study published in 1877 describes it (de.wikipedia). Some years after von Schellersheim’s digging ended in 1814, the remains he had exposed were covered over again to stop local people taking the stone (de.wikipedia). Work on the theatre began again in 1873 for the Comune (de.wikipedia), and the commission set up in 1877 brought it back to light and restored it (it.wikipedia). The digging there ended in 1882, and the theatre was partly rebuilt in 1900 so that it could be used again (de.wikipedia). The tiers and the front of the stage were restored again in 2004–06 (it.wikipedia).

History

Faesulae began as an Etruscan town, called Viesul, Viśl or Vipsul (Pleiades), and by the 4th century BC it had become the leading centre of the middle Arno valley (it.wikipedia). The Romans conquered it in 283 BC (Pleiades).

The town took the losing side in Rome’s civil wars. Having backed Marius, it had to take in a colony of Sulla’s veterans, against whom it rose in 78 BC; in 63 BC it supported Catiline, who gathered the conspirators’ army there before the battle of Pistoia (it.wikipedia; Pleiades). After that it was firmly Roman, and the monuments of the archaeological area went up: the temple, rebuilt after the fires of those wars, the theatre and the baths (it.wikipedia). Both the theatre and the baths were restored in the 3rd century AD (the operator).

The town prospered until the 3rd century and fell into crisis in the 5th (it.wikipedia). Stilicho defeated Radagaisus and his army at Fiesole in 405 or 406 – published dates differ (it.wikipedia, en.wikipedia) – and Procopius records Goths and Byzantines contesting the town between 539 and 542 (it.wikipedia). From the end of the 6th century the ruined theatre, baths and temple became a Lombard cemetery (it.wikipedia).

Digging began in the 18th century and went on in 1809–14 under the Prussian baron von Schellersheim (it.wikipedia, de.wikipedia). The Comune of Fiesole bought the land in the 1870s – 1870 in de.wikipedia, 1873 in it.wikipedia and fr.wikipedia – and from 1877 a municipal commission directed by Demostene Macciò excavated and restored the theatre (it.wikipedia). The Etruscan temple beneath the Roman one was identified in excavations of the 1950s (it.wikipedia, de.wikipedia).