Teatro Flavio Vespasiano

Rieti's nineteenth-century theatre, named for Emperor Vespasian, opened in 1893 after decades of setbacks. Its horseshoe auditorium is crowned by a dome fresco depicting the triumph of Titus.

Why it matters

After an initial project stalled in 1838 and a second building remained unfinished, Milanese architect Achille Sfondrini completed the theatre. It was inaugurated on 20 September 1893 with Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Gounod's Faust. The municipality calls it its most prestigious monument, and the state included it among Italy's national monuments in 2024.

What to notice

The horseshoe auditorium has two sections of stalls, three tiers of twenty-two boxes and a loggione; after restoration, it holds about 535 seats and includes the restored Sala degli Specchi. Stucco portraits of European composers line the box balustrades, with Giuseppe Verdi on the royal box. Antonino Calcagnadoro painted the five allegories of Dance, Comedy, Drama, Tragedy and Opera on the pendentives in 1916. The ceiling's Allegory of Music dates to the opening year. After an 1898 earthquake damaged the dome, it was rebuilt and frescoed in 1901 with a neo-Pompeian procession celebrating the Flavian victory in the Jewish War, depicting Vespasian and Titus.

Context and history

In 1838 a shareholders' company commissioned theatre specialist Luigi Poletti, but a canonical veto of the proposed Piazza del Leone site stopped the project. A new society commissioned Vincenzo Ghinelli in 1853; construction of the Teatro Velino began in 1854 on gardens along today's Via Garibaldi, financed by the Cassa di Risparmio. Work resumed in 1882 after a government ban on wooden theatres forced the closure of the old Teatro dei Condomini. Sfondrini laid the first stone that December and reshaped the interiors on the model of Rome's Teatro Costanzi. The name honours Vespasian, whose family originated in the Sabina.