Roman Theatre of Aosta

Is it worth the trip?

Yes. fr.wikipedia calls it the best-known Roman monument of the Aosta Valley, and the reason is plain once you stand under it: a Roman wall still 22 m high, with the mountains behind. Go with the right picture in mind, though: this is one tall wall and the low remains around it, not a bowl of seating. The ticket is the combined Aosta Archeologica pass, so the trip makes most sense as part of a half-day in Roman Aosta, with the Porta Praetoria a short walk away and the forum cryptoporticus and the museum on the same ticket.

The theatre reopened in July 2026 after a restoration that closed it from 2022 (en.wikipedia), and the Region’s own pages give its opening hours again.

Getting there and what it costs

The theatre is in the centre of Aosta, inside the Roman walls near the Porta Praetoria; the entrance is on Via Charrey (Lovevda). No car park is mapped near it, but there are public transport stops 120–220 m away (OpenStreetMap). The hub page for Aosta covers trains, buses and the other stops.

It opens daily, 09.00–19.00 from April to September and 10.00–13.00 and 14.00–17.00 from October to March, with last entry 30 minutes before closing, and closes on 25 December and 1 January. There is no single ticket: entry is on the Aosta Archeologica combined ticket, €10, which also covers the forum cryptoporticus, the early Christian church of San Lorenzo, the MAR museum and the MegaMuseo, gives one entry to each and is valid for six months. Groups of 25 or more, groups with a guide and members of listed schemes pay €8, ages 19–25 pay €3, and under-18s, disabled visitors with a companion and teachers with school groups go free; buying online adds €1 (Regione autonoma Valle d’Aosta: valledaostaheritage.com, Lovevda and the MidaTicket ticket office, read 20 October 2026 – check before travelling, since prices move). Lovevda describes the site as accessible, with no architectural barriers.

The amphitheatre

Immediately north of the theatre stood the amphitheatre, built around the middle of the 1st century AD (the operator). The Wikipedia articles on the theatre date it to the reign of Claudius; it.wikipedia’s article on the amphitheatre leans to the Julio-Claudian period without settling it. The two buildings filled three blocks between the Porta Praetoria and the north-east corner of the walls, a single entertainment district inside the town, which the operator notes was unusual for a Roman city.

Its arena was sunk below ground level, so that the lower seating rested on an earth bank, while the upper part stood on two storeys of 60 arcades with Tuscan half-columns, built of bardiglio, a local marble quarried near Villeneuve (it.wikipedia). By a hypothetical estimate it held about 15,000 people (it.wikipedia). Carlo Promis measured it in the 19th century; a re-examination in 2004 made the ellipse longer than he had thought, 94.5 m by 73.9 m, and excavations at the Balivi Tower in 2008–2009 found traces of a block of houses that stood there before it, so it, like the theatre, came after the founding of the town (the operator).

After the games ended it was used as a quarry and became known as the palatium rotundum. In 1247 the viscount of Aosta, Godefroy de Challant, built a convent on its ruins for canonesses of St Catherine from the Valais; eight arcades of the upper storey survive in the convent’s walls, now at ground level because the ground has risen around them, and the arena is the convent’s orchard (it.wikipedia). A fresco of 1496 over the convent’s entrance can be seen from Via Anfiteatro (it.wikipedia). The Sisters of St Joseph have lived there since 1831 (it.wikipedia). The amphitheatre is not regularly open, but the sisters let visitors see the remains (the operator), by asking at the porter’s lodge at Via Anfiteatro 4 (it.wikipedia).

History

The colony was founded in 25 BC, and published dates for the theatre differ: Pleiades puts it around then, the Wikipedia articles some decades later, because remains of earlier buildings were found on its site, and the operator dates the start of work to AD 20–30, under the Julio-Claudian emperors, with the amphitheatre following. The site was chosen close to the Porta Praetoria, the town’s main entrance, so that crowds could come and go easily (the operator; it.wikipedia).

As the Empire fell and Christianity spread, the theatre was abandoned and small buildings went up around and inside it, hiding everything but the top of the façade; it went by names such as magnum palatium and hôtel de justice (the operator). it.wikipedia credits the medieval houses built against the façade with having preserved it. By local tradition, when it was proposed in 1833 to quarry the theatre for stone for the new town hall, the prior and historian Jean-Antoine Gal walked to Turin to ask the king to stop it (it.wikipedia). Carlo Promis began the first excavations in 1838, and the walls found were attributed to a praetor’s palace (it.wikipedia; fr.wikipedia).

From 1931 the façade was freed of the sheds around it and consolidated under Pietro Barocelli, and Giorgio Rosi excavated the theatre in the second half of the 1930s (the operator); it.wikipedia dates the main works to 1933–1941. Excavations in the 1960s found houses of the 2nd or 3rd century AD and the bases of six columns of a portico along a street (it.wikipedia). The façade spent 20 years under scaffolding before it was handed back to the town in 2009 (the operator; fr.wikipedia), and the theatre is now part of the “Aosta Est” redevelopment project for the eastern part of the Roman town, together with the Porta Praetoria and the Balivi Tower (the operator).