Many people know Verona for its historic centre and for its most famous monuments, such as the Arena and Castelvecchio. But few know that just a few meters below the road surface there is a world of history and ancient art, which offer us glimpses of how the Veronese lived in past centuries. If you are visiting Verona but want to get off the beaten track, immersing yourself in an ancient history that will take you back in time several centuries, underground Verona is definitely worth a visit. Like many other cities, Verona is built on various layers, and each of these holds the remains of great past civilisations that bring to light a piece of history that made Verona the city you can admire today. The various finds are not connected to each other by a single route but are located throughout the city, often beneath private buildings. For this reason, we recommend that you book your visit a little in advance in order to allow the guides to obtain the various authorisations necessary for access. Below we recommend a number of unmissable finds!

It is an entire Roman domus belonging to a patrician family, spread over an area of 400 square meters. You can still clearly see the perimeter of the house and the division of the various rooms: the remains of the impluvium (basin for the collection of rainwater), the columns of the peristyle (portico), the atrium (i.e. the inner courtyard), the triclinium (dining room) and cubicle (bedrooms). Large sections of the mosaic floors are still intact, as well as residues of the hypocaust, the underfloor heating system.

The Capitolium was the main temple of the city, where Jupiter, Juno and Minerva were venerated. At the time the temple stood on a raised platform, approximately two meters high, and was located on one side of the forum (today Piazza Erbe). In fact, in this square, under the Maffei Restaurant, the remains of the Capitolium are still evident. It consisted of a rectangular pronaos with three rows of columns, the remains of which can still be seen today.

Immediately behind Piazza Erbe, under a well-known restaurant in Verona, are the remains of the curia and the basilica, important public administration buildings of the time, which stood near the forum. In addition to these, you can also see the ruins of the external façade of a public building, probably linked to the imperial cult. A section of Roman road has also remained well preserved, of which you can still observe the pavements and the cloaca as well as the base of a medieval tower.

The Leoni Door was one of the doors that allowed passing through the Roman walls of Verona. It was built in the 1st century BC together with the city walls. In front of it, two meters below the road surface, part of the Roman road that crossed the gate and the base of the gate itself, surrounded by two towers, were found. These remains can be admired from above, without having to go down to them.

Not far from Piazza dei Signori is the International Centre of Photography of the Scaligeri Excavations. Here there is a museum space that includes an archaeological area, with remains ranging from the 1st century BC to the 15th AD

Among the most notable finds are the mosaics of two domus and a well-preserved paved street where the pavement and the sewer system can still be seen.

In addition to the Roman remains, here you can also see the signs of the changes that shook Roman Verona between the 5th and 6th centuries AD: houses built with reused materials, traces of the fire that seriously damaged the city, Lombard tombs in a small cemetery and the bases of medieval towers.

At the archaeological museum of Corte Sgarzerie you can see the remains of the cryptoporticus that surrounded the Capitolium, skylights, fragments of a paved pedestrian street, some parts of pillars that supported the vault, and subsequent medieval interventions (you can still see the base of a tower and the remains of a cellar belonging to a palace above).

In various points of the city you can still admire the remains of the walls that the Emperor Gallienus commissioned to be built in 265 AD, precisely behind the Arena, at Piazzetta Mura di Gallieno and at Corte Farina, and under the road surface, in the cellars of private homes that have incorporated the structure. In the 1st century AD, Verona was no longer a provincial city of the Roman Empire, but a prosperous city thanks to its central position which allowed trade to flourish. At that time the emperor Gallienus, fearing an invasion by the barbarians, had the city walls built in just six months with salvaged materials that can still be seen in the few remaining fragments. The Arena was also included in the new walls, which until then had remained outside it. The earthquake that destroyed the outer ring of the amphitheater in 1117 also brought down the Gallienus walls and damaged the Roman Theatre and many other buildings.

Under the Duomo area you can still see the remains of two basilicas built in the 4th century BC Where the Church of Sant’Elena now stands, previously there were early Christian basilicas of which large remains of mosaics and columns that used to divide these places of worship into naves still remain. The first basilica was a small religious building, which turned out to be too small to hold all the faithful. For this reason it was destroyed and replaced by a second larger building. It is thought that the second basilica was destroyed by a fire or by an earthquake in the 7th century. The first early Christian basilica was divided into three naves, of which the longest central one formed an apse that included a podium with a set of seats arranged in a semicircle and isolated from the aisles by barriers. The second building, albeit larger, also had the same structure. At the foot of the aisles were mosaic floors, of which the few fragments that we can still admire today remain. To find out more about the history of these places, we recommend a visit to the Duomo and to its surrounding buildings.