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Colosseo (Anfiteatro Flavio)

Historic site · Celio, Italy

The Flavian amphitheatre, on the western edge of the Caelian. Roma Capitale's tourism office gives it as 189 metres long and 156 metres wide, over 48 metres high, covering 24,000 square metres and able to hold about 50,000 spectators, with an arena of 76 by 46 metres. Four superimposed architectural orders rise on the outside, the lower three of eighty arcades each. No current opening hours are given here. Times and last admission change with the season; the Parco archeologico del Colosseo publishes them at colosseo.it, and tickets are sold at ticketing.colosseo.it.

History

The Parco archeologico del Colosseo records that the building, called the Colosseo after a colossal statue, was raised in the first century AD at the wish of the emperors of the Flavian dynasty; Roma Capitale gives construction as begun in 70 AD under Vespasian and completed in 80 AD under Titus. A fire in 217 destroyed the timber-and-rope hoist machinery in the hypogeum. In 438, with the abolition of the gladiatorial games at the wish of Valentinian III, the amphitheatre went into a slow decline, so much so that in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance it was worked as a quarry for materials, some of them used in building the basilica of Saint Peter.

Visit

Piazza del Colosseo, 00184 Roma RM

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