I was recently on a trip to Rome where I obviously took a tour of the Colosseum. One thing that interested me was knowing when the stadium fell off in regards to gladiator battles and Colosseum culture as we know it. I learned that the arena at times was used as a theater for plays, it once hosted the cities homeless, so on and so forth. It ended up serving a multitude of community desires or needs before it became a exhibit that costed money for tourists to enter.

My question is, what happened between the end of the Colosseum as we know it and it becoming a tourist spot ran by the government? I want to know how the Colosseum went from a relic to one of the largest exhibits in the world. My guess was the push for a modern Italian history in the wake of Mussolini, but I am not sure.