Image via Google Maps.
For €40, visitors to a hillside in northern Italy could enter a lost world where Julius Caesar had travelled with Cleopatra and ancient civilisations had left behind a monumental arena. There was only one problem: none of it was real. The stones were modern, made to look older; the columns were concrete and the history had been invented.
Franco Malosso, a 69-year-old Italian who also called himself Franz von Rosenfranz, is now serving a two-year-and-four-month prison sentence. But the spectacle of his fake Roman theatre was truly impressive.
A Roman “Ruin” Built with Cement and Plaster
The structure itself was painstakingly built by Malosso “von Rosenfranz” among the Colli Berici, in the region of Veneto, outside Vicenza. It has tiers of pale stone curved around a stage-like space. Columns, statues and an artificial pool complete the illusion.
Malosso promoted the complex as the Anfiteatro Marittimo Berico, or Berico Maritime Amphitheatre. He claimed it contained remains from the Neolithic, Greek and Roman periods. Reports from the time said he linked the place to Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, the Templars and even Juliet, Shakespeare’s fictional heroine from nearby Verona.
It was a bold claim, but why not? Might as well go big. And the people loved it.
A local tourism publication called Terra Berica devoted four pages to the supposed attraction. Three thousand copies were produced, and the site also appeared in an associated app. The guide carried the logos of the European Union, the Veneto region and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
It’s not clear how many people visited this site, but visitors would have paid a €40 entrance fee (or about $45).
Visitors wandered around an “archeological” site that covered about 5,000 square metres. Investigators instead found a modern construction assembled from worked blocks, cement columns, plaster statues and objects made with materials including fibreglass and paper mache. The stone had been treated or arranged to appear older than it was.
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You Can Dupe Tourists, But You Can’t Dupe Archeologists
Colli Berici, not far from the fake Roman ruins. Image via Wiki Commons.
Malosso promoted the site as ancient. His material entered a publication bearing institutional logos, and that’s how the site gained a new layer of credibility, even though no expert had established that the original claim was true.
In fact, had any expert been called to analyze the site, they would have quickly realized it’s a fake.
Professor Jacopo Bonetto of the University of Padua told El País that the materials and context made the modern origin evident to a competent specialist. He said it would be “absurd” to think that a specialist would confuse an ancient building with a modern one, even though Malosso tried his best.
Experts do not authenticate ancient sites by appearance alone. They examine construction methods, mortar, surrounding soil, patterns of wear and the site’s relationship to known settlements. An apparently weathered stone means little without a credible archeological context.
Even its name was misleading.
A Roman amphitheatre normally surrounds an oval arena, as the Colosseum does. The Arcugnano structure has a semicircular seating plan facing a performance area, making more a theater than anything else. It’s a technical detail, but it’s a distinction that even non-archeologists could have used to figure out something’s up.
Artistic depiction. Credits: ZME Science.
Malosso’s explanation was also strange.
He initially presented the site as an extraordinary discovery. After authorities began investigating, he described the visible structure as a modern model of an older theatre that he said had once existed beneath the hill. Heritage specialists found no archeological evidence supporting that account.
None of this was true, of course.
What Happened to Malosso
Some international headlines say Malosso was jailed for fraud. We checked published court record, which tells a story that’s a bit more complex.
This process could be called authority laundering.
In 2019, a court in Vicenza sentenced him to two years and four months in prison and imposed a €3,000 fine. The convictions covered illegal construction, violations involving a protected landscape and cultural heritage, and the counterfeiting of an artistic or architectural work. The Venice Court of Appeal upheld the judgment in 2020.
Italy’s Court of Cassation declared his final appeal inadmissible after a hearing in December 2021. The judgment was published in January 2022.
Malosso argued that the work had finished early enough for some offences to fall outside the legal time limit. The court rejected that argument, pointing to evidence that construction remained underway on July 20, 2016. That finding complicates reports suggesting he completed the entire attraction around 2005.
Although Malosso’s conviction became final in January 2022, he reportedly entered prison only in January 2026. His incarceration was not publicly reported until July, when a local Italian newspaper revived the decade-old case and international outlets picked it up.
The Fake Past Is Still Standing
Malosso may be in prison, but his monument has outlived the deception. The court ordered the hillside restored, yet the concrete theatre remains standing. Removing it, clearing the artificial pool and stabilising the slope could cost millions — and authorities have not established who will ultimately pay.
So, Malosso’s legacy continues. There are no more tourists to dupe, but the structure itself (and the story around it) continues.
Perhaps, in time, it will become a historic story as well.