The rediscovery of the site of ancient Pollentia is due to the Earl Giuseppe Franchi of Pont and the architect Carlo Randoni, who identified the ruins of some of the main public buildings (amphitheatre, theatre, forum) at the end of the 18th century.
The city was supposedly surrounded by a vallum (moat and embankment) and a wooden piling, with masonry gates and towers, as in the nearby Augusta Bagiennorum.
The typical urban layout marked by orthogonal streets is no longer legible in the modern building structure following the works ordered by the nineteenth century King Charles Albert of Savoy; so far only a few traces of the decumanus maximum have been found, corresponding to the current Via Regina Margherita.
Moreover, a couple of blocks with portions of floors and, the remains of a domus (stately house), a spa and a pavement street outside the city came to light near the ruin called Torrione.
Outside the town stood the amphitheatre (second half of the first century AD), whose plan is still recognizable today in the so-called "village of the Coliseum"; it had a considerable size as its cavea could accommodate over 10,000 people, it measured 132 metres x 98 metres. The plan included four rings of powerful masonry. The outer staircase was supported by a series of compartments, some of which are still used as cellars in today’s houses.
Some surviving masonry of the theatre and the small temple, probably dedicated to Bacchus, placed in the centre of the “atrium” behind the stage have been traced in the basements of private dwellings.
