Welcome to the site Napoliforme

It is the third largest arena in the Roman world, after the Colosseum in Rome and the amphitheatre of ancient Capua, and a testament to the extraordinary technique achieved by Roman engineering.Located near the crossroads of the roads coming from Naples, Capua and Cumae, the amphitheatre is designed in three superimposed orders, with four main entrances and twelve secondary entrances and a cavea for about 40,000 spectators. It is dated to the time of the Flavian imperial dynasty because of the inscriptions on the outside of the four main entrances, but its origin could be Neronian. The amphitheatre is also the centre of city life, and the galleries under the outer ambulatory contain places of worship and the headquarters of professional associations, identified by the inscriptions found there. The suggestive rooms of the underground reveal the complex organisation of the services necessary for the functioning of the performances. On the arena are the trapdoors used to lift the beasts' cages and the materials needed for the games, manoeuvred by the machines housed in the basement. Closed by a wooden board when not in use for the shows, the trapdoors also provide ventilation for the spaces below.The arena preserves the memory of the martyrdoms of Christian saints, and it was here, according to a tradition that developed between the 5th and 6th centuries AD, that the torture was prepared for Gennaro - the patron saint of Naples - and his fellow believers Festus, Desiderius, Sossio, Proculus - the patron saint of Pozzuoli - Eutyches and Acutius, who were condemned to be devoured by beasts. But the beasts refused to attack them and the martyrdom, postponed, took place in the Forum Vulcani, the Solfatara, where the Christian saints were beheaded (305 AD). In memory of the presence of St. Gennaro, a small church was built in the basement in 1689, which was destroyed at the time of the 19th-century excavation and replaced by a small chapel visible in the ambulatory.