Centro internazionale di fotografia Scavi Scaligeri, Photography museum in central Verona, Italy
The Centro Internazionale di Fotografia sits at an archaeological site several meters below street level near Piazza Erbe and Piazza dei Signori. The space displays contemporary photography exhibitions among Roman ruins, including remains of residential buildings, mosaics, and sections of ancient roads.
Archaeological excavations between 1981 and 1983 uncovered Roman patrician houses with geometric mosaics, animal figures, and a well-preserved section of Roman road. These findings form the foundation of the museum and reveal daily life in the city during Roman times.
The courtyard above the centre was once a vegetable garden, then a cemetery, and later a metalworking and textile-trading yard. The underground route passes a Roman cardo paved in limestone, a mosaic with ducks and dolphins, and two Lombard tombs from the 7th century, one cut into the apse of a Roman hall.
The centre occupies the excavated underground level of the Tribunale courtyard, a short walk from Piazza delle Erbe, Piazza dei Signori and the Arche Scaligere. Two large glazed portholes in the courtyard let you see the archaeological remains from street level before going down. The exhibition route runs among the ruins themselves, so allow time to move between the Roman rooms, mosaics and the paved cardo.
Underground exhibitions are surrounded by Lombard tombs, Roman sewage systems, and other remains of a city built in layers over thousands of years. This layered history is experienced nowhere else in the city as clearly as in this underground setting.
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