Italians consider re-flooring the colosseum in Rome.

The engineering plans are still in the works, and the budget at this point is 18.5 million euro.

The 10 million euro the Italian govt has pledged is just a partial payment.

If the final cost is under 30 million euro, I will be surprised.

They could create the world’s biggest Roomba to keep it clean.

But why stop there? New statues in all the openings ... maybe animatronic? Restore the seats, maybe heated and with cup holder armrests.

And now’s the time to also repair the earthquake damage, rebuilding the upper sections that are currently missing, right? hi Why stop at the flooring - just spiff it up, all shiny and new. Or ... NOT!

They've ruined parts of it with their previous restoration attempts so they should leave it alone. It shouldn't be a Disneyfication of the monument, it should be kept as it is with only essential maintenance to prevent significant deterioration.

I don't agree with this plan. First, sometimes it is a good idea to rebuild an ancient building, but you must have enough original materials to not build over the original construction. For example, the Parthenon in Athens was blown up about 300 years ago because the Turks used the building to store military ammo for weapons. The Venetians caused the blow up.
I have been to the Parthenon three times, the first time in 1985. I can tell you that work crews with a large crane have been painstakingly replacing columns where they originally stood. You can see that much of the blown out middle of the building has now been rebuilt, largely with original materials.

I don't see this happening with the Colosseum. Much of the building materials of the Colosseum and Forum were taken for other projects over the years. In fact, some of the stone for St. Peter's Cathedral and the plaza in front were taken from damaged building in the Forum.

I was so disappointed when we visited for the second time in '19. It seemed they had temporarily (?) refloored a large portion - to provide a stage setting for various music/theater presentations. Lighting, scaffolding, seating etc really detracted from the experience we had in '16.

I know one of the new big tour offerings is the underground -and there is less underground without the floor. But the sense of size and depth of the entire complex is changed.

I heard a radio report about it that I unfortunately cannot pinpoint to share--I thought it was on The World. The interview was interesting because the archaeologist on site was able to describe what it is like being there without constant crowds. Also of note was his opinion on whether we must keep sites in perpetual ruin, or if it is sometimes better to show sites as they actually were in their time. I remember how gobsmacked I was to learn that Greek statues were brightly colored, for example. I don't feel like at least a partial floor will ruin my experience, quite the contrary.

So maybe constructing just a new floor is a compromise between not updating the site, and completely razing the Flavian Colosseum and replacing it with a completely new structure. The new place could have indoor plumbing, concession stands and cafés, souvenir stands, underground parking, etc. But would that be better?

The Roman theater in Orange, France is used for performances. It’s in better shape, with hard stone seating and a tall, semi-deteriorated stage backdrop. But it hardly looks renovated, and doesn’t need modern upgrades.

The ancient (much older than the Colosseum) palace of Knossos on Crete had a section o of a inter up and “restored” by the archaeologist who discovered the place about 100 years ago. The archaeological ethics and philosophy has changed since then, and the curators now have the ironic situation of having to conserve the ancient parts in ruin, and the 100-year-old part that’s not exactly authentic, but old in its own right. There’s a lot of controversy as to how accurate the restoration part is, and who’s to say just how a new Colosseum floor is to be done? A retracting floor would certainly be more modern than ancient Romans would recognize.

Tongue in cheek, Francis? 😉

Good heavens, it's not as if the thing needs more visitors overrunning the joint? Tickets were already at a premium, or were before the pandemic, anyway. When the virus is in the rearview mirror, pretty sure it'll still be Rome's most-visited pile.

The fundamentals of Italian theory about restoration (and there isn't a non Italian one) is summarized in the 3 R principle.
Any work must be recognizable, repeatable and reversible.

Many cheered because of the Reopening of the Mausoleum of Augustus as if it was a Roman monument neglected for decades; today we see a theater/arena built and rebuilt in the centuries up to the 19th century using some roman bricks and the roman foundations of an old tomb. It was the last thing to restore on the list for a good reason. The whole operation is basically a marketing scam. They have built the mother of all tourist traps; a scam made possible by a private company who wanted to link its name with the name of Augustus. If it was a book we could call it: "Why private companies should pay taxes and should not pay for restorations, for dummies".

The Mausoleum story shows that the lack of public money (and public decency) has severely weakened the 3 R, the whole thing was aimed at telling a (fake) story, not at making the layers of buildings built over/with the Mausoleum easily recognizable by tourists; tourists that will spread their eyes thinking at the first mighty Roman emperor while standing where bulls pooped and actresses worked as prostitutes to make ends meet. Ozymandias anyone?

Is it the same with the Colosseum? It's obvious They want an arena they can use, but The re-flooring will be reversible. That's a fact. If our nephews will be better than us, they'll be able to throw that stuff away.

I'm speaking of course not as an Italian, but as a curious, amature, historian/tourist. That said, I don't know the politics behind the way Italians view their antiquities or the full story behind Diego Della Valle's involvement with the Colossium: Or TIM's involvement with the Mausoleum of Augustus. As a Tourist, I'm delighted that the Mausoleum of Augustus is now open for visitors. I see little harm in reconstruction so long as they do follow the Three R Rule and it is clear to even a casual visitor what is original and what was added during the re-construction. There appear to be many sites, possible tourist attractions, all over Rome that have the potential of being opened up for tourism. And this would be a win-win, in the sense that more sites would ease the concentration placed on the current known and open sites. I think the Italians should embrace this, instead of fighting it, and see these sites as the gifts from the past, that they are. What if the Pons Aemilius (Ponte Rotto) was made pedestrian friendly? Sites like Temple of Hercules Victor and Temple of Portunus have been reworked and opened since we last visited. And the Arch of Janus still awaits. What a lovely site this would be, as the Forum Boarium, and an entire new site to visit.

Don't worry, nobody is actually fighting the Disneyfication of archaeological ruins. If they had the money they'd paper the Bible Belt with billboards advertising the new thrilling chance of being buried inside Rome's catacombs, "Just 80 inches away from the early Christians! Book your spot now and Rest in peace with true believers!`"

Gotta say, I'm not all that interested in what's been done to the Mausoleum of Augustus. As far as I've read to date, "they" have little solid idea what the thing looked like when it served its original purpose. Apparently, there's very little of that original purpose left.

Yet, isn't an open site "better" then a closed site? When in Lyon, France, I was a bit disappointed that they never did anything with the Amphitheater, on the Croix-Rousse. This is a very significant place of Roman history, but isn't open to the public. I guess I'm somewhat exhausted, using my imagination, to reconstruct ancient places. I would love it if there were at least a few, re-built as best as can be known to the state it was in ancient times, so that the experience is more REAL, and less imaginary. The Ara Pacis, is a reconstuction, of bits and pieces found, and not on its original site, and most of it is a re-creation. I have to say though, that it was refreashing to see and be in a complete structure. It gives me a different experience to be in a complete structure. A ruin, restricts the experince to see and feel just how small they really were. People worked in tiny spaces and tiny rooms. The colluseum would have been an amazing place to those people, so large and so open, as to be something of a high, just to go there. We do the same thing, 2100 years later. :)

I’d like to see the missing part of the outer wall and facade rebuilt to how it was in 100 AD. It would be stunning to see it in its former glory and the remaining structure would be untouched.

Or a new, better-than-the-original Colosseum could be erected, elsewhere in Rome, looking like the old one in its prime, and suitable for concerts, sporting events, naval battles, lectures, whatever. Just not executions and torture, it’s been done already.

What if the coliseum was "brought back to life." Its BEEN brought back to life over time. Why not now, bring it back to us living right now: What is wrong with that? Rebuild it totally, right up to the top levels and then include the sails. . A century or two from now, they may say we did wrong... Well the hell with them. This is our only world we live in. So, why not make the best of it? An epiphany I had, was to understand the land owners in Italy. Discover something and then you are screwed, less it be a full, beautiful sculpture, no one has seen before, then you are rich. Yet its just bits and pieces that are worthless and you can't use your land for years. You can't farm it anymore and no one is going to pay you for the land use you thought you owned. Its terrible to live on top of this stuff. So many things, go hidden, and not talked about. I have come to understand this. There is no reason for any Italian to tell you they found something on their farm.

Just build a replica in Vegas and leave the original alone.

Well the hell with them

One of my teachers used to say that we don't own those ruins and the artwork of the past. Our nephews asked us to take care of those treasures on their behalf.

In the 18th Century Caravaggio was considered a minor painter, but they kept on preserving and restoring his works for us.