Teatro del Popolo

In 1865, on a piece of land granted for free by the Municipality, a group of people gathered in an Association promoting the theatre to create a structure at Castelfiorentino. With its horseshoe-shaped plan, a seating area and three kinds of boxes, the Theatre was built according to engineer Gaetano Niccoli’s project and was inaugurated on the 26th of December 1867 with the performance of Bellini’s Norma. The need to modernize it was felt as early as the first years of the Twentieth Century, with many projects which were put into effect only in 1929, when futurist architect Virgilio Marchi improved its acoustics, visibility, stage, modernizing its lighting system, furnishings and decorations, and built the gallery: after these works, no other significant works were carried out until the 1960s. The last restoration works carried out in the 1990s were aimed at preserving the ground floor and the hall with their historic interiors, while a more accentuated contemporary connotation was given to other parts of the complex (for example, ticket office, cloakroom, foyer on the second floor), where there was the need to develop new details and furnishings.