The Arena del Sole, "a place for day-time shows", as reported on the inscription above the entrance, was inaugurated on 5 July 1810.

The open-air, stone theatre was built on the initiative of Pietro Bonini, a businessman who dealt in poultry, on the site of the sixteenth-century convent of the Domenican nuns of St. Maria Maddalena, which was abandoned at the time of the suppression of religious organisations during Napoleonic occupation of Bologna.

Some parts of this ancient convent are still visible today: the cloister for example, serves a theatrical use in summer.

The architecture was of neoclassic inspiration, antagonist to the baroque, considered as classist, and the Jacobean ideology that attributed to the theatre a crucial role in the cultural and political education of the people. 

Throughout the 1800s and the early 1900s, from Easter until the end of September, the Arena was visited by many great companies.

To quote just some of the great performers who appeared on its stage: Tommaso Salvini, Eleonora Duse, Giovanni Emanuel, Irma Gramatica, Ermete Zacconi, Ermete Novelli, Ruggero Ruggeri, Dina Galli, Virginia Marini, Lyda Borelli, Ettore Petrolini, Maria Melato, Paola Borboni, Marta Abba, Renzo Ricci.

From 1916, the theatre was fitted with removable roofs which were continually improved and which, besides enabling a winter programme, also made it possible the movie projection which was intensified in the 1930s as an anticipation of the drastic transformation of the theatre into a cinema in 1949. The rest is recent history.

In 1984 the Municipality of Bologna purchased the building. The theatre hosted two seasons, 1984-85 and 1985-86, under the artistic direction of Yuri Lyubimov.

Its radical restructuring began in 1986 as a result of the efforts of the City Council and the Emilia Romagna Region, and resulted in the theatre's rebirth in 1995 under the direction of Nuova Scena-Teatro Stabile di Bologna.