A huge fire hit Rome's legendary Cinecitta cinema studios on Thursday night damaging the set of HBO-BBC's completed drama on ancient Rome.
The blaze, which fire-fighters have extinguished, did not damage Cinecitta''s indoor studios, where classics like Ben Hur and many of Federico Fellini's masterpieces were shot.
The company which owns the studios stressed that the priceless material held in Cinecitta's archives was unaffected and said work at the site was continuing as normal.
It said the main part of the set recreating Imperial Rome, which HBO and the BBC spend millions on, survived too.
Enormous pains were taken to be as true to the past as possible when building the set of 'Rome'. Researchers carefully studied the ruins at Pompeii, Herculaneum and Ostia Antica in order to recreate Rome's temples, statues and streets, even including authentic wall graffiti.
The studios said the fire was probably caused by a short circuit.
Cinecitta, which was known as the Hollywood on the Tiber during the golden age of Italian film-making in the 1950s and 60s, opened in 1937.
After the Second World War the studios' superb facilities were a magnet for Italian directors.
Fellini, for whom Cinecitta' was a second home, said the studios represented his "ideal world, the cosmic space before the Big Bang".
In the 1950s Italian filmmakers were joined by many American directors, who were attracted by the studios reputation for creative and technical excellence and Italy's low production costs.
A total of 48 films partially or wholly shot at Cinecitta have received Academy Awards, with 83 nominations overall. Many were collected by Fellini, who shot virtually all his productions on the lot, including La Dolce Vita, Satyricon and Amarcord. The studios also gave birth to Cleopatra by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Helen of Troy by Robert Wise, War and Peace by King Vidor and William Wyler's Roman Holiday, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.
In more recent times, Martin Scorsese filmed his 19th century epic Gangs of New York there.
Mel Gibson also chose Cinecitta' to film part of The Passion of the Christ.
