Italian Conman Built Fake Roman Amphitheatre, Fooled, Charged Tourists For Over A Decade

An Italian conman who convinced tourists and even local authorities that he had uncovered an ancient Roman amphitheatre has now been sentenced to prison after his elaborate deception finally unravelled. Franco Malosso von Rosenfranz claimed he had discovered the so-called Berico Maritime Amphitheatre in the north-eastern Italian city of Vicenza after a landslide in 2005. The 69-year-old confidently presented the site as the "oldest and largest" Roman amphitheatre and described it as being "among the most spectacular in the world."

To make his story even more convincing, von Rosenfranz claimed the monument was built in 393 AD, that Julius Caesar had visited it after returning from Egypt with Cleopatra, and that Juliet Capulet, the fictional heroine from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, had once lived in an ancient church at the site. He reportedly charged tourists €40 per person to hear the fabricated history.

However, the carefully crafted narrative quickly fell apart under scrutiny. Julius Caesar had died more than four centuries before the amphitheatre was supposedly constructed, while Juliet's story is famously linked to Verona, not Vicenza. Investigators also discovered that the "ancient" structure had been built using modern materials, including fibreglass, papier-mâché columns, stucco blocks and plaster statues dating back to the early 2000s.

The deception proved remarkably successful, even fooling local government officials, who featured the site in tourism promotion guides and a mobile app.

The scam finally began to unravel in 2016 when Italy's Carabinieri launched an investigation with the help of archaeologists. Satellite imagery exposed the truth, revealing that von Rosenfranz had flattened a hill before constructing the fake archaeological site. Earlier satellite images confirmed that no ancient monument had ever existed there.

Reacting to the revelation, Vicenza's deputy mayor Jacopo Bulgarini D'Elci described it as "one of the most incredible hoaxes since Orson Welles's War of the Worlds".

This week, von Rosenfranz was sentenced to two years and four months in prison after being convicted of illegal construction, forgery of works of art, and producing artefacts without authorisation. He was also fined €3,000, while the Municipality of Arcugnano has sought €560,000 in damages.