Brescia’s impressive archaeological complex cleverly reconstructs the city’s Roman past from fragments first discovered in the 1820s. It consists of three parts. Above ground, a (very) ruined Roman theatre stands next to an erstwhile Roman temple known as the Tempio Capitolino that was commissioned by Emperor Vespasian in AD 73. The temple was partly reconstructed in the 1850s with six Corinthian columns and a series of cells.
A third underground wing known as the Santuario Repubblicano was opened in 2015, revealing a 1st-century-BC sanctuary with preserved mosaics and frescos that predate the other Roman structures on the site. To enter the Santuario you must spend four minutes in a decompression chamber while a short introductory film is shown. One ticket covers all three sites.
