Greece & Rome · 1st century BC · Fano, Marche, Italy
Basilica designed by Roman architect Vitruvius identified beneath a square in Fano, Italy
Column bases found under Piazza Andrea Costa match Vitruvius' own description in De Architectura, making this the only surviving building firmly attributed to him.
Official announcement
Fano, Italy Remains excavated beneath Piazza Andrea Costa in Fano, on Italy's Adriatic coast, belong to the basilica that Marcus Vitruvius Pollio designed in the 1st century BC. Italian officials announced the identification at the city's Mediateca Montanari in January 2026.
Vitruvius wrote De Architectura, the only major Roman treatise on architecture to survive. He described the Fano building in Book V. Until now no structure he claimed as his own had been located.
In Roman towns a basilica was a large public hall used for law courts and business. It usually stood beside the forum. Fano was the Roman Fanum Fortunae, and the building Vitruvius described has been sought for centuries. The mayor of Fano, Luca Serfilippi, told the press that researchers had been looking for it for over 500 years.
The remains match Vitruvius' description
The excavation is preventive archaeology, carried out ahead of the redevelopment of Piazza Andrea Costa. The work is funded by Italy's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). It has exposed the foundations and layout of a building with a rectangular plan. A peristyle of columns surrounded it, the arrangement Vitruvius set out in his treatise.
According to the announcement, there were eight columns along each long side and four along each short side. One report, by Archaeology Wiki, gave ten columns on the long side. The detailed accounts of the announcement give eight.
A final stratigraphic probe settled the identification. It found what the team called the fifth corner column. That column fixed the position and orientation of the building, which lay between two of the modern squares. According to Archaeology Wiki, the archaeologists used Vitruvius' description to predict where the column should be, and found it straight away.
Few things are certain in archaeology, but we were impressed by the precision.
Andrea Pessina, Superintendent of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Ancona and Pesaro-Urbino
The columns measured about five Roman feet across, between 147 and 150 centimetres. They are estimated to have stood around 15 metres high. They were attached to pilasters and load-bearing corner pilasters. The team interprets this system as designed to carry an upper storey.
La Brújula Verde reports that the plan reconstructed from Vitruvius' text matches the excavated remains to the centimetre.
The find follows earlier work nearby. During the renovation of a building on Via Vitruvio, excavations exposed large Roman walls and floors of high-quality marble. These pointed to a monumental public district in the area. La Brújula Verde dates those finds to 2022, while Arkeonews gives 2023. The modern buildings above limited access to deeper remains there.
What officials said and what happens next
The announcement was made by the President of the Marche Region, Francesco Acquaroli, the mayor, and Superintendent Pessina. The Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli, joined by video link. Giuli called the find "sensational" in comments reported by Archaeology Wiki.
The history of archaeological research is divided into before and after the discovery of Vitruvius' Basilica.
Alessandro Giuli, Italian Minister of Culture
After centuries of waiting and study, what for a long time was transmitted only through the written word has been transformed into a concrete, tangible, and shareable reality.
Luca Serfilippi, Mayor of Fano
Pessina said the identification gives a key for interpreting remains known for years. These include the building beneath the former convent of Sant'Agostino. He said it also gives a key for relating other structures in the town to one another.
Acquaroli said the discovery obliges the city to rewrite part of its history. He called for the ministry and central government to help make it a driver of development for Fano and the Marche.
The results so far come from the official announcement. No scientific publication has been named. Work in Piazza Andrea Costa will continue in the coming months. The aim is to establish how much of the building survives and to examine its wider archaeological setting. The team will then decide how to conserve the remains and whether they can be opened to visitors.
Sources
- Archaeologists Confirm Remains Found in Fano Belong to Vitruvius’ Legendary Basilica, Built in 19 BC (La Brújula Verde)
- Archaeologists Confirm Fano Discovery as Vitruvius’ Legendary Basilica: A Turning Point for Classical Architecture (Arkeonews)
- Basilica designed by Vitruvius unearthed in Italy (Archaeology Wiki)
- Remains of Vitruvius Basilica Identified in Italy (Archaeology Magazine)
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