Alighieri Theater Ravenna

Dante Alighieri Theater: The Tradition

Once Discarded the projects by Ignazio Sarti from Bologna and Nabruzzi from Ravenna, construction of the building was entrusted to young architects Tommaso and Giovanni Battista Meduna, who had recently carried out the restoration of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. Meduna initially devised a monumental building with its facade facing the square, but in the final draft (1840), smaller, they followed the longitudinal orientation, facing towards the road of the old seminary (today Via Mariani). The foundation stone was laid in September of that year, was born a neoclassical building, not too divergent from the Venetian model, at least in its fundamentals.
Externally divided into two floors, its facade has a projecting porch, with access stairs and porch floor in less than four columns with Ionic capitals, regents a lintel, the wall of the upper floor, topped by a pediment, shows three balconies alternating with four niches (the statues were added in 1967). The side facing the square is marked by two series of niches embedding windows and doors, with a strip hanging in faux stone to enliven the walls of the lower register. The entrance hall with coffered ceiling, flanked by two rooms already allocated to the restaurant and cafes, places in the stairwells leading to the stalls and boxes. The auditorium, the traditional form of semicircle, filed originally four rows of twenty-five boxes (in the first order entry to replace the main stage audience), plus gallery, free from internal divisions. The orchestra, arranged on a slope, was less extensive than the present, to the benefit of the footlights and the orchestra pit.

The rich decorations in neoclassical style, was entrusted by the Meduna to painters Giuseppe Voltan, Giuseppe Lorenzo Gatteri, with the cooperation for the elements in wood and cardboard, Pietro Garbato and, for gilding, Carlo Franco. Giovanni Busato, who painted a curtain depicting the entry of Theodoric in Ravenna was also from Venice.