Saint-Désir amphitheatre

About

The Gallo-Roman Theatre of Lisieux is a Roman-era performance building dating from the 2nd century, located in the commune of Saint-Désir, bordering Lisieux in the French department of Calvados in the Normandy region. A group of ruins located on the present town is reported from the end of the seventeenth century and mistakenly identified as the initial location of the Roman city of Noviomagus Lexoviorum. Recent research is now leaning for a peripheral area surrounding a sanctuary, comparable in this to other sites, including the one near Gisacum in the department of Eure.

Identified in the first quarter of the 19th century, however, the performance building itself was never the subject of significant excavations and remains largely unknown at the beginning of the 21st century. The site, however, is acquired for most of its ancient right-of-way by the municipality that houses it, which protects it from the 1980s onwards, which sees the classification of the building as a historical monument and the appearance of developments. In spite of the weak work done on the building, however, it is possible to say that it belongs to the category of theatres in...