Little Theater of Villa Altieri, Bologna

Currently, it is difficult to discern the fabric of which the Little Theater of Villa Altieri was part, as the context was heavily modified in the 1960s. In 1958, the last owners Giuseppe and Anita Galli sold the entire area (villa, garden, and farm) to the Province of Bologna, which decided to build the permanent headquarters of the Agricultural Institute there.

The villa, which had suffered severe damage during the last conflict and was by then in very poor condition, was demolished. Moreover, to make space for the new facilities, much of the park was destroyed and the pond that was part of it was filled in. The ensemble, once called “Casino Rubbiani,” was a pleasant summer retreat consisting of the main residence, gardener’s house, and farmhouse.

The two-story villa featured a facade with a large loggia on the ground floor overlooking the carefully designed park paths and flowerbeds, rich in special plants. When in 1891 Raffaele Altieri purchased the entire property from Giuseppe Rubbiani, the theater was already an integral part of it. Historical photos (owned by the Altieri family) show what can be described as a charming green theater, still intact at that time.

A tree-lined avenue led to the theater entrance, flanked by two stone lions. Two tiers of brick steps, shaped like a bell, enclosed the cavea and connected to the stage framed by two fluted columns with Ionic capitals. In the center of the proscenium arch, a large mask hid the prompt box, while tall boxwood hedges acted as wings, and the audience space was surrounded by trees.

Today, the layout of this theater appears significantly altered, despite retaining the essential lines of its original shape. On the stage, now without the boxwood wings, some tall trees have grown, including two beautiful Lombardy poplars, which, judging by their size, might be about sixty or seventy years old (recall that this tree was introduced to our area in the early 1900s). Also, the stone lions that once marked the cavea entrance have disappeared, and one of the proscenium columns is broken. Having lost some integral elements, of which only historical photos preserve the memory, and lacking reliable documentary sources, we can only formulate hypotheses about the origin of this layout.

One clue is the height of the boxwood wings, visible in a photograph taken between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Assuming they were planted when the theater was established, we could date its foundation to around the first half of the 19th century. (Lidia Bortolotti)