The Roman Age

Romanisation in the Veneto Region was a gradual process that did not involve the military. The Roman city of Vicetia, like other cities in Veneto, thus developed uninterrupted on the site of the existing urban nucleus.

After communities in Northern Italy were granted citizenship in 49 B.C., Vicenza became a municipium with its own magistrates, a territory to manage and all the public structures it required for its new role.

The most important building, the theatre, can still be recognised in today’s urban fabric, thanks to later constructions on the site of its ruins that have preserved its layout and part of the walls.

Elements of architectonic decoration and statues belonging to a celebration cycle of the imperial family Julio-Claudia date its main building phase to the central decades of the 1st Century B.C.

The cloister houses a collection of funeral, votive and public inscriptions, mainly from Vicenza and from the province of Vicenza, but also from the areas around Padua, Verona and Alto Adige.
The biggest group is the Tornieri collection, put together between the end of the 1700s and the start of the 1800s.

The large pictorial mosaic from Piazza Biade, late 4th Century A.D., features panels with scenes of heroic hunting and heroes fighting animals inserted into a busy decorative weave.