Greeck-Roman Theatre in Catania
The ancient Greek-Roman Theater of Catania is located in the heart of the historic center of the Etna city.
According to the testimonies, the current appearance of the theater dates back to the 2nd century AD, when it was built close to a pre-existing structure of the Greek age.
The visible theatrical structure belongs to the large constructions of the Antonine era genre, consisting of a complex scene, originally decorated with marble columns which were later made monumental with the addition of niches and false perspective environments that were to create the illusion of a wider depth , a richly structured pulpitum decorated with marble, the orchestra with a diameter of about 22 meters originally covered in opus sectile with a pattern of circles inscribed in squares, damaged several times and badly restored one last time in the 4th century, and often flooded from a spring of spring water exchanged in the past with the Amenano, the two parodoi strongly damaged by the work carried out to obtain rooms and even drains for black water, one of the carceris made in the eighteenth century a private building, the large auditorium with of 98 meters consisting of twenty-one series of seats, divided horizontally by two praecinctiones and vertically by nine c one and eight ladders. The two precinctions separate the three parts of the cavea: ima (resting directly on the slope of the Montevergine hill), media and summa (the latter communicated by the ambulatories that open outwards through various vomitoria to the various wedges and between them with a dense system of stairs).
