It claimed to be the world’s first open-air amphitheatre, with ruined columns, stone steps and statues tucked into a hill in the north-eastern Italian countryside.

In Italy, a structure promoted for years as an "ancient Roman amphitheatre" has turned out to be a fake, constructed recently using modern materials.

It claimed to be the world’s first open-air amphitheatre, with ruined columns, stone steps and statues tucked into a hill in the north-eastern Italian countryside.