Excavation of the Roman town began in the 19th century but it was a well-known location in the Grand Tour and Joseph William Mallord Turner made a drawing of the "Cigognier", which shows the old town behind. Archaeology benefitted curiously from the first and second world wars when foreigners interned in Switzerland, and local unemployed, were engaged to excavate the main buildings of the Roman city and to renovate and open to the public the theatre, "Cigognier" and the gates and one tower of the wall. With the advent of the national highway scheme a programme of rescue archaeology was set up under the association "Pro Aventico" under the remarkably capable direction of Professor Hans Bogli, after whom the Roman museum has since been named. Work uncovered a remarkable palace building, much of the centre of the Roman town, and outside the walls a canal and roadway leading from the nearby lake and cemeteries and aqueducts outside the line of the Roman walls.