Across the river on a hill in the northeast of the city. Rigaste
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The Roman Theater of Verona is an open-air theater built in the 1st
century BC. at the foot of the Colle San Pietro, on the left bank of the
Adige. It is one of the best-preserved theaters in northern Italy, so
much so that it is part of the exhibition route of the city's
archaeological museum of the same name, as well as a theater space and
venue during the summer months for the Veronese Theatrical Summer,
editions of which have been running continuously since 1948.
During the urbanization phase of Roman Verona inside the Adige Loop,
new spaces were vacated on Colle San Pietro, the site where a
prehistoric Venetian settlement once stood. Thus, the plan of
monumentalization concerned the southern slopes of the hill, which also
included the construction of a theater built in the last years of the
1st century BC. In fact, this place had obvious advantages in terms of
terrain and the scenographic value it acquired compared to the newly
founded city, thus becoming an ideal place to create a large city stage
on several levels, which started from the theater building on the bank
of the river could close to the top of the hill through the Roman
temple.
However, before its construction, it was necessary to
build embankment walls between the Pietra and Postumio bridges, parallel
to the theater itself, in order to protect it from possible river
floods. The construction of the stone embankments was also useful in
providing a solid foundation for the theatre's foundation and preventing
future landslides, as well as in order for a connecting road between the
two bridges to run through it. Among the preliminary work on the
construction of the building, a deep pit was also dug around what was to
be the auditorium of the theater, in order to isolate it from the hill
and drain rainwater into it, which was diverted towards the river
through underground channels.
The construction of the Roman
theater continued for several decades, given the size and grandeur of
the building, of which, unfortunately, few archaeological remains
survive. However, some hypotheses about how it must have been presented
in some drawings and sketches by Giovanni Caroto and Andrea Palladio as
early as the sixteenth century, albeit with some inaccuracies. The last
stage of the work concerned the construction of terraces above the
theater, which formed part of a single project for the monumental
arrangement of the Colle San Pietro, and a monumental building on the
top of the hill (most likely a temple), of which several traces were
made during the renovation of the castle of San Pietro in the 19th
century.
In the Middle Ages, the building fell into disuse and
then fell into ruin, so much so that an entire district was built on its
remains, using the structure of the theater itself. In fact, the houses
stood directly on Roman foundations, and some of the ancient entrances
and stairs of the theater were still used to access the surroundings,
while the cavea was cultivated using a semi-natural slope.
Archaeological excavations and its restitution did not take place until
the nineteenth century, thanks to the work of Andrea Mong, a wealthy
merchant who practiced archeology. He bought the entire area on which
the ancient building stood, and between 1834 and 1844 directed the
archaeological excavations at the site: among the work carried out were
the demolition of about thirty houses that stood above the remains of
the Roman theater, the excavation of the terrace, followed by the
opening of a deep cavity to drain water, discovery of the remains of an
ambulatory inside the monastery, identification of two side stairs and
part of the cavea, rediscovery of the structures of the odeon.
In
1904, the area was finally bought by the municipal administration, which
continued the archaeological excavations until 1914, thanks to the
contribution of Ricci and Ghirardini, who returned the entire cave.
After the restoration of the steps, ten arches of the closing loggia of
the cave were reassembled, as well as an arch of the Ionic order. Under
the leadership of Antonio Avena, the archaeological museum was moved
inside the monumental complex, and in the 1930s a picturesque pit was
excavated and other surviving buildings were demolished. Finally,
between 1970 and 1971, the final works took place, including the
picturesque pit in its eastern part, with the relative opening of the
gallery below the proscenium.
The outer façade, which faced the newly built Roman city across the
river, had a uniform appearance, punctuated by semi-columns that changed
the architectural order on each floor: Tuscan order on the ground floor,
Ionic order on the second level, and finally, on the top floor, located
on the same level with the galleries that closed the cave, there were
semi-columns with richly decorated capitals that supported the
entablature that covered the facade. Inter-columns were instead
characterized by smooth closed walls or arched openings.
Two
monumental side façades connected the theater to the hill, which must
have looked not too dissimilar to the main façade overlooking the Adige.
Interior
The stage building of the theatre, standing 10 meters
north of the embankment wall, was 71 meters long and was built in opus
quadratum. It consisted of two side parascenes, a rectilinear wall and a
front stage, which was divided into three large niches, one of which was
curved and the other two were square. Three large niches framed the
three entrances to the stage. The parascene spaces and the spaces
between the afterstage and the proscenium were equipped with various
rooms used for maintenance and storage. Unfortunately, all these
buildings have survived only a small height, but in Roman times their
height reached the top of the cave. In front of the stage is a
proscenium, bounded by a pulpit behind which there was a curtain.
Cavea is 105 meters wide and lies mostly on the Colle San Pietro: in
fact, only the side parts had radial walls built using the opus
caementicium technique. To exclude the danger of rainwater penetration,
a deep cavity was dug in the rock, running along the entire perimeter of
the cavea. The stands were divided into two horizontal sectors by
parapets, which, in turn, were separated by stairs. Two more staircases
starting from the first floor and the vomitorium connected with them
allowed one to get to the steps directly from above. Cavea consisted of
two galleries superimposed on each other, partially carved into the
rock, of which little remains.
Above the cavea and the superimposed galleries above, three
impressive terraces were formed, located on three different levels and
123 meters wide, and the depth varied from 20 meters for the first to
1.50 meters for the intermediate and up to 7 meters for the last. The
first terrace is almost completely destroyed by the monastery, which
houses the archaeological museum, although the remains of a nymphaeum
remain at one end. Instead, the intermediate terrace consists of five
niches, decorated with semi-columns and windows; of these niches, four
of the side niches are semicircular in shape, while the central one,
exactly aligned with the theater, has a rectangular plan. Finally, the
last terrace is characterized by a single niche, flanked by a series of
Tuscan semi-columns supporting a frieze and Doric architraves.
This series of terraces ended in an esplanade on which the castle of San
Pietro stands today, but in the classical era there was a Roman temple,
traces of which were discovered during construction work in the castle
just mentioned.