THE ALLEYS OF THE OLD TOWN
	The '30s mark an historically important moment for architecture, and not only in Italy. A well-structured and magniloquent complex by Piacentini belongs to this period (1935) and stands right opposite the ruins of the ancient Roman Theatre. Brought to light in 1938, the latter was built between the first and the second century A.D. thanks to the munificence of Quintus Petronius Modestus, emperor Traianus's procurator and flamen who was born in Trieste. Lying on the slope of the hill, in the Greek fashion, the amphitheatre was able to hold about six thousand spectators and the fixed proscenium, which used to be decorated with statues that today are, in part, preserved at the Museo Civico di Storia ed Arte, at the time looked onto the sea. In the ancient Via Donota, which runs behind the Roman Theatre, the ruins of the tower and the medieval gate of the same name can be found. Proceding to the left is the Tor Cucherna the best preserved tower of the fourteenth century walls. The entranceway to the small yard of San Cipriano opens at the end of the street. The church belongs to the adjacent Benedictine monastery of San Cipriano, which ever since the fifteenth century has given hospitality to the enclosed nuns of the Cella of Trieste, founded in 1278. A gentle deviation leads to the tiny church of San Silvestro - which today belongs to the Helvetic and Waldensian Rite - a unique example of linear Romanesque of balanced proportions as well as the most ancient, totally preserved, house of worship. It is held to have been built on the spot where two local martyrs, Eufemia and Tecla, used to live. Immediately next to it, there is the most attractive and imposing Baroque, façade in Trieste: S. Maria Maggiore, also called "dei Gesuiti". Started in 1627, on the plan by the Jesuit Giacomo Briani, it was completed in 1682. The tradition to ascribe the construction of the building to the better known Father Andrea Pozzo is to be referred to a subsequent and important extension of the church. Behind San Silvestro, through the alleys of the Città Vecchia (the Old Town), the Arco di Riccardo, an Augustan gate of the walls erected in 33 B.C. rises in the Piazzetta Barbacan. Not far from here, in the Via Madonna del Mare, the ruins of the ancient homonymous basilica, destroyed in 1783, deserve being admired. Here, two layers of mosaics lie one on top of the other. The original one, with geometrical patterns, is made up of white and gray tesserae. The upper mosaic, on the contrary, is polychromous, with a variety of often original geometric and phytoform patterns, among which is a noteworthy series of inscriptions representing the first documents on the oldest christian community, the "sancta ecclesia tergestina", and the close spiritual and material relations with the Aquilieia community. Near the Roman Theatre, the Antiquarium is a further place of particular interest where brought to light in the course of recent excavations. Further up is San Giusto Cathedral, which with its stones, ornaments and vestments is an open book on the city's history.