Creator of Roman amphitheater hoax near Vicenza is now the one paying the price

VICENZA, Italy — An Italian man who built an artificial ancient Roman amphitheater, billed it as the real thing and charged visitors 40 euros to see it is behind bars after losing a prolonged legal battle.

The Berico Maritime Amphitheater covers nearly 54,000 square feet of formerly wooded land in Arcugnano, a hilly community south of Vicenza that is among the popular areas for U.S. military personnel to live with their families.

But the claim of owner Franco Malosso that the structure dates to 393, during the reign of Emperor Theodosius the Great, was more than a little stretch of the truth.

He also said the site had ties to both Julius Caesar and the fictional Shakespeare character Juliet Capulet and held neolithic, Greek and Roman remains.

The country’s top court rejected Malosso’s final appeal and upheld convictions by two lower courts on charges of illegal construction, forgery of artworks and creation of unauthorized artifacts, Italian media reported this week.

The 69-year-old Malosso, who dubbed himself Franco Alessandro Molosso Maltarel von Rosenfranz, is now reportedly serving a prison term of two years and four months in Liguria, near the border with France.

A self-styled philanthropist, entrepreneur, orchestra conductor and historian, Malosso claimed that a 2005 landslide unearthed what he had touted as among the oldest and largest amphitheaters in the world, according to Italian media.

Somehow, he managed to convince local officials to include it in an EU-funded tourism guide and app for the Vicenza area.

But the “ruins” were in fact built from artificially aged modern materials like fiberglass, concrete and plaster, investigators found after local authorities became suspicious about a decade ago.

The semicircular structure of tiered stone seats was built into an excavated hillside on protected land without the proper planning or permits, authorities said. In addition, it’s technically a theater, whereas an amphitheater is round or oval.

City officials tipped off Vicenza prosecutors to the hoax in 2016, Italian media reports.

Part of Malosso’s defense was that the forgery couldn’t have deceived anyone because it was so ham-fisted. Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation rejected that argument, Vicenza Today reported.

A column in Italy’s Il Foglio Quotidiano said that if Malosso had erected the site legally and not tried to con anyone into believing it was ancient, he could have been hailed for his fake ruins, which the newspaper likened to Las Vegas attractions.

Instead, the ruse made Arcugnano “the laughingstock of Italy,” former Mayor Paolo Pellizair told Il Giornale di Vicenza.

The phony archaeological site is still standing but has been under seal for years, the paper reported. The top court ruled that it would have to be demolished and restored to its original state.

The city council will have to evaluate how to deal with it, Mayor Simone Cuomo said, adding that the illegal construction does not create a positive image for the community.

“We’re not happy to accept this legacy from the past,” Cuomo said. “We’ll do everything we can to ensure it doesn’t jeopardize the future.”