Luigi Pirandello Theater in Agrigento
The Luigi Pirandello Theater is the theater of Agrigento which is accessed through the atrium of Palazzo dei Giganti , seat of the Municipality of Agrigento, natural continuation of Piazza Pirandello.
It was built in 1870 by the engineer Dionisio Sciascia and by the architect Giovan Battista Filippo Basile.
The facade, in neoclassical style , has two orders. On the first order there is an arched portico with the emblem of the city in the center and is characterized by three pairs of Ionic-style columns, placed on the sides of three large windows. On the second order there are six medallion bas-reliefs depicting as many authors of theatrical art. In the atrium there are two marble plaques dedicated respectively to the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the playwright Luigi Pirandello from Agrigento, Nobel Prize for literature, and to the naming of the theater after the famous author. A third bronze plaque, on the other hand, depicts in bas-relief Dante Alighieri, father of the Italian language and author of the Divine Comedy, with the Pirandello pine behind him, to mean a symbolic continuity between the two exponents of Italian literature.
L he interior of the theater, the ceiling and the front of the boxes, has valuable decorations made by some of the most famous painters of the nineteenth century, including the Milanese Giuseppe Belloni, Luigi Sacco, Antonio Tavella.
One of the most significant decorations of the theater was certainly the curtain, representing the valiant Akragantine athlete Esseneto who returns victorious from Elea and painted by the Messina painter Luigi Queriau. The work was lost or destroyed during the long period of closure. In 2007 the producer Francesco Bellomo from Agrigento donated a new curtain, made with the same techniques of the time, which reproduces the original fresco.
The bust of Zeus, formerly placed in the Villa Garibaldi, is exhibited in the foyer of the theater. bust dedicated to Luigi Filippo, that of Luigi Pirandello and numerous plaques.
