The archaeological site is part of the Capitoline complex, the centre of which is the grand temple dedicated to the trinity of Roman gods: Juno, Jupiter and Minerva, the most important temple of the Roman city. Built over an area of over 60,000 sq. metres the temple was situated in the centre of a raised podium, 2 metres above the ground level, alongside the decumanus massimo (now Corsa Porta Borsari) and delimited on the eastern, western and northern sides by a double galleried portico (the fourth southern side, had the a flight of steps leading down to the forum).

The portico, which was used  as an archive, conserving official documents inscribed on bronze tablets or marble slabs, was sustained by a cryptoporticus - a concealed portico - in our case semi-interred. The cryptoporticus has two naves, each 4,5 m wide, with barrel vaults sustained centrally on arches  supported by  pillars, illuminated by windows  that opened onto the podium.

The archaeological excavations of the temple area began in 1983, along with the renovation of the nearby Palazzo Maffei; they continued until 2011 with the archaeological research within Monte dei Pegni, Palazzo Malaspina, in Corso S. Anastasia 3 and in the crypt of the Church of S. Benedetto.

Alongside the section of the western branch of the cryptoporticus of the Capitoline temple, a tract of a pedestrian road has been unveiled (a small cardo that connects the decumanus massimo with the decumanus beneath Via Emilei, and beyond that, the perimeter wall of a large public building. This structure extended westwards as far as the cardo beneath Via Fama.