Vicenza: He ran a fake Roman theater built with weathered stones—now in jail

He ran a fake archaeological site, the so-called Berico Amphitheater ( which was actually a theater), located in Arcugnano, near Vicenza, and organized tours (with tickets costing up to 40 euros) and events: the man in charge, 69-year-old Franco Malosso (who went by the name Franco Malosso Von Rosenfranz), nearly five years after the 2021 Supreme Court ruling that definitively convicted him of building code violations and the forgery of works of art, has been sent to prison, where he must serve a sentence of two years and four months. He was admitted to the Ventimiglia prison several months ago, but the news was made public today. The case was reported by Francesco Brun in the *Corriere del Veneto*.

Malosso, the manager of this theater built with stones crafted to look ancient, had already been convicted in both the first and second instances for building code violations and art forgery. “According to the Court of Cassation,” reports the *Corriere del Veneto*, “the appeals filed by Malosso, represented by attorney Marco Ellero, were deemed inadmissible. These concerned the statute of limitations for building and environmental offenses, which the Court of Cassation held are instead perpetual; the lack of certainty regarding the designation as a ‘wooded area’ and landscape protection restrictions, which the Court found to be untrue; the claim that the forgery was ‘gross,’ such that it could not mislead anyone—another argument that was rejected; and finally, the claim that the sentence was too severe, though here too the Court of Cassation upheld the appellate court’s decision. As explained by attorney Ellero, following the ruling, the judges were presented with the option of probation, which would have spared Malosso from prison. However, this request was ultimately rejected.”

Malosso was also fined three thousand euros. It is unclear, however, what will become of the so-called “amphitheater”: the trial court had in fact ordered Malosso to pay damages to the municipality (which in turn issued a demolition order requiring the site to be restored to its original condition) and to restore the hillside where the fake archaeological site stands to its original condition before it was excavated (the hillside is, moreover, subject to landscape protection restrictions), thereby removing the bleachers that had been constructed to look ancient. The same applies to the concrete columns, the plaster statues, and the artificial pond. “The preliminary investigation,” as the Vicenza Review Court had already established in December 2016, “has ascertained and documented, with images of irrefutable clarity, both the grandeur of the structure—enriched with sculptures and columns—and the absence of any urban planning, environmental, or archaeological permits, as well as the recent construction of the structure […] This is a recent construction and not pre-existing structures of archaeological value.”

In any case, the curiosity surrounding the Berico Amphitheater was short-lived: Malosso’s announcement of the alleged discovery dates back ten years (it had been presented as an extraordinary find), and immediately thereafter, still in 2016, the Carabinieri and the Vicenza District Attorney’s Office launched an investigation, confirming that there were no ancient structures at the site and that the structures were modern. Shortly after the initial report to the authorities in October 2016, the Berico Amphitheater was sealed off. However, there was still time to publicize the attraction that had been discovered out of the blue: in fact, also in 2016, the tourism promotion consortium “Vicenza è” had to recall a guidebook—which had already been published—that devoted several pages to the fake Greek theater.

Vicenza: He ran a fake Roman theater built with weathered stones—now in jail

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