THE HISTORY AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE MUNICIPAL THEATER OF TREIA.
by Fabio Mariano
As it happened in many cities of Marche, in Treia the first theater representations were carried out from the 17th Century in the premises of the municipal palace, with provisional apparatuses and wood theater boxes. The "public theater" in Treia was originally located in the wing of the called “palace of the Abundance”, located from 1715 in the main room with detachable wood theater boxes for the representation of the comedies. The spectacles were often promoted by the local Academy of the Rebels and were appreciated very much specially by certain patricians, but all the citizens paid the expenses of maintenance and of travelling companies and between those who most lamented were obviously the poorest farmers, less inclined to appreciate such a "luxury" that burdened their taxes.
On these provisional structures and premises - a municipal palace and ex- public granary- took place the first public representations of Treia until the demolition by ruin of the wooden theater placed in the consistorial palace, the 30 of August 1780.
In 1792, when the Sacred Congregation of the Good Government - probably by security and honor reasons - dictated the prohibition decree to take the representations either in the building of the local government, or in the ex- granary, the community, pushed by the noble class, immediately organized to collect funds for the construction of a new fixed theater, in a new building destined exclusively to such aim. The local association, commanded by 21 eminent citizens, immediately met the 20 of February 1792, almost to attest the irreversible civic conscience that already considered the theater as one of the fundamental parameters for the recognition of the title of city, title that the old Montecchio (since then it recovered the old Roman toponym of Treia) had had in concession granted by Pio VI just two years before, with the papal bull of the 2 of July 1790.
The Constituional act of the “Theater congregation” comes officially stipulated the 13 February 1794 by the notary Francesco Fedeli, elected later on secretary of the association: the act forced the 31 noble partners during eight years to turn each one a sum of grain to face the maintenance costs for the theater boxes, the scene, the scenery, etc., all it to be executed in the term in a three year term from the construction of building. The theater boxes would be assigned in property to the respective families.
The preselected zone for the new theater (in the present square D. Pacifico Arcangeli) - located on the Eastern walls, near the old entrance of Cassera Door, where then raised the Church of San Martino of the 3rd Century - was in fact strategic with respect to the main axis of the urban plant and the access to the city centre. The foundation works began based on a first project of the architect of Treia Carlo Rusca that had presented a budget of 2,000 scudi. But the program underwent delays due to the opposition of some owners of bordering buildings to the church, or by the Napoleonic invasion and the uncertainty of the new political reality, that paralyzed each initiative. The Napoleonic suppression of the Confraternity of the Mercy, that celebrated the church of San Martino, facilitated the liberation of the coffer and finally - acquired its square by the Apostolic Camera by the partners - the church was demolished in August 1801, recovering the construction materials for the new collegiate church.
In the same year, the representative of the partners Amato Barbarossa granted one contract for the building work to the construction company of De Mattia, and to G.B. Bartoloni for the carpentry works. The new location of the construction pushed down the old Rusca project that was replaced by a new one trusted to the architect and painter from Moglia Giuseppe Lucatelli - refined exponent of the neoclassicism of Marche and old student in Rome of Anton Raphael Mengs - whose contribution to the typology of the new theater was fundamental, remembering its preceding works in the Theater of Fermo and specially in the Theater of Tolentino. To him is due the carastheristic solution of the vertical division of the concavity of the theater boxes, with superposed ionic pilars to all the height that interrupts the horizontal continuity of the strips of the parapets (like in the Vaccai in Tolentino), until holding up the ceiling with round lunettes with cylindrical edges. It’s a typical example of the neoclassic transition language - in the theater architecture - between the use of previous baroque balconies and the definitive election in the 19th Century of theater boxes of continuous strip.
The works started quickly and, in 1805, reached the impost of the ceiling; but once again the political vicissitudes - in this occasion the annexation of Marche to the Kingdom of Italy in the 1808 and the later occupation of Gioacchino Murat in 1813 - lessen the march of the works; the roofing anyway was finished in 1811.
In 1815 the Count of Macerata, Filippo Spada, interested himself in the theater, he was fond of architecture and a georgian academician, who designed the foyer of the mainhall and the theater boxes and - dates the series of the works - it’s reasonably also attributed to him the plan of the facade of the theater, with evident references to the neoclassic neorenaissance schemes of Valadier, Roman architect well known for the works of its Villa La Quiete near Treia. The scheme of the facade is done by Spada raised on tall Doric style posts of giant dimensions. Between its facades, windows are inserted with frontons on braces that, in the second order, enrich themselves with triangular tympanums; whereas over the frieze, under the dig of the attic raised by urns are inserted the words “Apollini Et Musis”. The backspace of the facade about the axis of the north-south mainroads that invigorates the old city, has created a lateral little square that extends the perception of the perspective of the theater.
This finishing step of the construction, initiated the 17 of August 1815, was carried out the 20 of August 1817 when De Mattia and Bartolomi were paid 1,124 scudi for the job done, whereas the facade would be finished later, not before 1821.
Then, they thought about the scenery and the theater elements. To the painter of Macerata Spiridone Mattei was charged the execution (for 125 scudi) of a series of four representing stage scenes with a background of canonical motifs for the theater of the time (the Real Room, the Street, the Room, the Underground), finished in 1820 for the inauguration. This one took place the 20 of January 1821 – in a not yet finished theater - with a first public representation. A different stage scene (the Rustic Room), build by Mattei, was prepared for the occasion.
After the event they continued with the decorative elements: in July 1828 the painting of the ceiling and the theater boxes were trusted to the painter Francesco Falconi; in October of the same year Pacifico Lausdei finished gilding the dividing posts of the theater boxes (bases and capitals). Under project of Patrizio De Mattia, between 1835 and 1839, premises under the scene were built, which gave to a street of the Eastern circumscription, that soon would be destined by the City council to public fish market. In 1844 other four scenaries were ordered to the remarkable theatrical designer from Senigallo Enrico Andreani.
After the Italian Unification a new democratic spirit invaded the region, recently liberated from the Pontificial States. They managed to solve the problem of a greater popular participation in the benefit of the theater spectacles. This new conscience was also translated in Treia to the decision of extending the seats of the theater room. With such purpose, in 1862, was called to study a possible solution the well-known architect Ireneo Aleandri, always respecting the limitations of the available space.
Aleandri elaborated a new project respecting the horseshoe curve with absidial bulbe – in French style - made by Lucatelli, shortening transversally the base by the enlargement of the proscenium, with the added one of the proscenium theater boxes. The architect drafted an addition to the structure of the concavity of the theater boxes obtaining a new fourth order of paradise, maintaining nevertheless the lucatelian structural scheme of the connection between the vertical posts with the ceiling vault, a solution already experienced by him in the Ferocia Theater of San Severino. He increased, this way, the capacity of the seating places up to 44 theater boxes and the paradise.
The reform works were completed in 1865 with the new decoration of typical Renaissance taste of the vaults, built by the treiens artist Tobia Lausdei to whom it was ordered in April 1863. To the floral and symbolic motives, Lausdei added pictures of famous writters and musicians in the windows of the ceiling.
In 1865, the accomplishment of the main drop curtain was trusted to the Roman painter Silverio Capparoni - student and collaborator of Francesco Podesti in the Vatican- , where he represented the well-known picture of the historian Tommaso Minardi about Corrado d’Antiochia and the siege of Montecchio, donated by the Marquess Nicola Luzi di Votalarca to the City council and placed in the square of the Georgica Academy in the occasion of his sixth centenary, because it reminisced the historical resistance of the city of Treia to the Swabian in November 1263, and moreover, in the surroundings of the place of Cassero where this one took place indeed. A stone, placed in the reconstructed Cassara Gate in 1809, recalls the historical fact.
In 1881 the new “Theater Society” of citizens is constituted with theater boxes in the theater, that would be called Local Theater, since then.
The theater of Treia still conserves good part of its technical elements: the scene, drums and pulleys, a “thunder machine” and some cars for the movement of the five facades, whereas unfortunately few of the numerous painted scenes collections present in documents have survived to the passage of time.
In december 1961, with the Decree of the Public Administrations Ministry, the theater of Treia was recognized of special artistic interest by Law n. 1089 of 1939, thus sanctioning officially the historical-documental value of the architecture of the theater of Marche.
After the sporadic interventions of conservation that continued between 1962 and 1982 –with the reprehensible demolition of the old brick ground - today the theater has finally been the object of a total restoration, with regional funding, which is still to be inaugurated. |
|
