I hadn’t been able to understand this stone when I was at the amphitheatre site in Padua, but fortunately, ChatGPT can read Italian.
“Here were discovered in 1881 the foundations and structures of the ancient Roman amphitheatre, which could hold about 5,000 spectators. Thick masonry walls, reinforced with iron clamps, supported the tiers of seating which once rose above. After centuries of burial and oblivion, the elliptical plan of the arena re-emerges here in the place where it once stood.”
Perhaps it was rather fitting for a site that’s spent most of its life hidden under the soil that even the signage prefers to reveal its secrets to me only after I’ve left, but at least I’ve now discovered when the foundations were discovered.