A Roman theater found under a house

The Roman theater of Lecce was found in 1928 during renovation work inside a private house, and excavations up to 1938 uncovered a building for at least 6,000¹ spectators with a cavea about 75 meters across.

1928: a renovation that hit a theater

The theater came to light in 1928, during building work in a private house, and the main excavations ran until 1938.

What emerged is an Augustan-age theater with orchestra, cavea, pulpitum and sculptural decoration, sized for at least 6,000¹ people, with a cavea about 75 meters in diameter. That is not a fragment: it is a building, in the middle of an inhabited block.

The mental picture worth holding is a homeowner in the 1920s opening a floor and finding rows of seats underneath. The city above had grown over it so completely that nobody knew.

1900: the amphitheater, and 2 thirds still buried

The amphitheater was excavated from 1900 under Cosimo De Giorgi and declared a national monument in 1906, and only around a third of it is visible today.

The remainder lies under Piazza Sant'Oronzo and the buildings that ring it. What you see from the square is a slice, and the arena continues beneath the cafés on the far side.

It was built in the Augustan age with later work under Hadrian. Lecce is the only city in Puglia with both a Roman theater and a Roman amphitheater visitable in its historic center, and the theater is much the quieter of the two.

The capacity figures are not on the official page

4 different capacity figures circulate for the amphitheater, 12,000², 14,000², 20,000² and 25,000², and none of them appears on the official page of the body that manages it.

They contradict each other by a factor of 2, which is the giveaway. A number repeated between travel sites without a source behind it is not a measurement, and this page does not print one.

What is documented is more modest and more useful: around a third visible, the rest under the square, national monument since 1906.

2001: a blocked drain, and a museum

The Museo Faggiano began in 2001 when the owner, Luciano Faggiano, started work on the sewer pipes of his house in via Ascanio Grandi and uncovered archaeological layers instead.

The house became a museum, now run by the cultural association Idume. It costs 5 euro full, 3 euro for ages 8 to 16 and is free under 8, open every day 9:30 am to 8 pm (09:30 to 20:00 on Italian signs), 2026 prices in euros.

The official page does not detail which periods the stratigraphy covers, and the lists of eras that circulate in guidebooks are not repeated here. It is the most cited case in the world of a museum created by accident while fixing a drain.

The pattern: Lecce keeps finding things by accident

3 of the sites in this story were found by people who were looking for something else: a theater in 1928 during a renovation, an amphitheater exposed by works from 1900, and a house museum in 2001 under a pipe.

That is what a continuously inhabited Roman town looks like from below. The layers are not in a zone reserved for archaeology, they are under the plumbing.

It also explains why so much is still buried. Digging out the rest of the amphitheater means removing Piazza Sant'Oronzo and the buildings on it, which is not a decision anyone is going to take.

How to see the 3 of them in one morning

All 3 sit inside the historic center, so the walk between them is short: the amphitheater in Piazza Sant'Oronzo, the theater a few streets away, and the Museo Faggiano at via Ascanio Grandi 56.

Order them by crowd rather than by importance. The amphitheater is open to the square and gets everybody; the theater, found in 1928 and never on the main square, is where you can stand alone.

The museum is the one with fixed hours and a ticket, 9:30 am to 8 pm every day at 5 euro, so it fits around the other 2 rather than the other way round.

For the rest of the city, see Lecce.

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