Roman Theater of Catania
The Roman Theater of Catania (Teatro Romano di Catania) consists of site with the ruins of two open air semicircular Ancient Roman theaters, located between Piazza San Francesco, via Vittorio Emanuele, via Timeo and via Teatro Greco in the center of Catania, region of Sicily, southern Italy. The site consists of the larger theater and a smaller semicircular theater, an Odeon. The structure is part of the .
History[]
This structure was probably built in the second century AD and only fully excavated in the 19th-century. The theater follows a common design to many ancient roman theaters. It is built with seats rising along the hillside, where spectators would have faced south and towards the sea. It likely had a scaenae frons decorated with marble columns, that gave it depth and complexity. The orchestra or stage section had a diameter of nearly 22 meters. The auditorium (cavea section) originally measures 98 meters deep, consisting of 21 rows of seats, divided into wedges or cunae, seating nearly a maximum of 7000 spectators, smaller than the theaters at Taormina and Siracusa by a 1 to 3 thousand seats.[1] Below the seats are the vomitoria or exit passageways.
The theater ceased to be used between the 5th and 6th centuries. While archeology on the site began in the 18th century under the Ignazio Paternò Castello, Prince of Biscari,[2] the site was not cleared until 1959 of houses that had been built into the structure. Some of the marbles and artifact recovered during excavations and restorations are in display in the adjacent Casa Pandolfo and Casa Liberti.[3]
References[]
- ^ Descrizione di Catania e delle cose notevoli nei dintorni de essa, edited by Francesco Paternò Castello (1841), page 175.
- ^ Paternò Castello (1841), page 172-173.
- ^ Polo Regionale di Catania entry on theater.
Coordinates: 37°30′09″N 15°05′02″E / 37.50257786850635°N 15.083905917481955°E
- Buildings and structures completed in the 2nd century
- Roman sites of Sicily
- Buildings and structures in Catania