Teatro all'Antica (o Teatro Olimpico)

The so-called Teatro all'Antica di Sabbioneta, or Teatro Olimpico, was built between 1588 and 1590 on a project by the architect Vicentino Vincenzo Scamozzi (1548-1616). The client of the work was Vespasiano Gonzaga, linked to Habsburgs of Spain. Scamozzi's theater can be considered one of the first examples among theatrical buildings of modern age: the first ever theater in Europe inserted in a purpose-built building. Modern theater has also been defined by historiography for the presence of innovative elements for the time, such as the independent facade, diversified entrance system, mixtilinear shape of the cavea, inclined orchestra, backrest equipped with dressing rooms for the comedians and for the musicians. A theatrical space poised between tradition and innovation that genially synthesized the theatrical culture of the sixteenth century and opened to the future. The theater has an elegant structure. The aforementioned cavea mistilinea is surmounted by a Corinthian peristyle frescoed with monochrome Caesars, crowned with statues of mythological divinities and closed at the sides by niches and busts placed in intercolumni blinds.