Garibaldi Theater in Piazza Armerina
Clemensfranz - CC2.5
The Garibaldi Theater in Piazza Armerina, in addition to being a building of particular artistic value, hosts theater, jazz and classical music festivals every year, cultural initiatives and film screenings.
The date of construction is not known as the previous municipal archives the unification of Italy were destroyed. Unofficial documents report the date of construction as 1820, but it is believed that major renovations date back to this date and that the building of the theater took place in an earlier era. In 1902 important restoration works were carried out. On this occasion the new façade of the theater was created based on a project by the surveyor Pastorelli: the façade of the theater was moved forward by several meters in order to obtain an entrance vestibule, the ticket office, the caretaker's room and the café.
The facade, in Renaissance style, has two forward bodies with coupled pillars with capitals in two superimposed orders, with marble squares on the ground floor for advertising the shows and two mullioned windows on the first floor. The vestibule is decorated with ashlar work on the ground floor and small recessed columns for the foyer windows. On the first floor there are four medallions inside which are placed the figures of Giuseppe Verdi and Vincenzo Bellini and laterally those of Vittorio Alfieri and Carlo Goldoni. A decorative group created by the sculptor and decorator Pasquale Massa di Barrafranca completes the finish of the prospectus.
Inside it has the same structure from the beginning of the century with the decorations of the original wooden parapets and false ceilings.
