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# Large-scale restoration of the Colosseum completed: to be precise, of the area beneath the lost part of the colonnade and the semicircular piazza before the arena, where Roman spectators once crowded under two galleries of marble columns up to 50 metres h
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/zavershena-masshtabnaia-restavratsiia-kolizeia-tochnee-uchastka-pod-utrachennoi-chastiu-kollonady-i-polukrugloi-ploshchadi-pered-arenoi-gde-rimskie-zriteli-tolpilis-pod-dvumia-galereiam/
- Published: 2026-03-20T10:37:25.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:26:33.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archaeology, Architecture, Heritage, Rome

The large-scale restoration of the Colosseum has been completed, or, to be precise, of the area beneath the lost part of the colonnade and the semicircular piazza before the arena, where Roman spectators once crowded under two galleries of marble columns up to 50 metres high. In these galleries people waited until they were allowed through the entrances to their seats.

The places where the columns of the two arcaded galleries stood have been recreated. The columns themselves were not rebuilt, but travertine slabs have been laid exactly where their bases once stood, to convey a sense of scale. The travertine paving of the entrance zone has been cleared and restored, which required digging to a depth of about a metre. The entire territory around the perimeter, which over the centuries had become overgrown and filled with rubble, has been put in order.

In other words, what was restored was not the amphitheatre itself but the space through which spectators made their way to the entrances, a kind of ceremonial forecourt of the Colosseum that vanished many centuries ago. Not a trace of the arches remains: over the intervening centuries they collapsed under the blows of earthquakes and through the subsidence of the ground.

Tourists will now be able to sit on massive slabs of travertine marble set exactly where the columns once stood, and to read the reproduced Roman numerals that marked the sections for spectators.

Deeper down runs the secret underground passage by which the Emperor Commodus entered the Colosseum without mingling with the crowd; last year this passage was opened to visitors.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_20118@20-03-2026_13-37-25.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_20119@20-03-2026_13-37-25.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_20120@20-03-2026_13-37-25.jpg)