Locus ovatus in formam amphitheatri constructus. Dal Teatro Greco di Villa Adriana al Teatro Olimpico di Palladio

Abstract

In 1579, at the end of a career studded with prestigious assignments, Andrea Palladio designed for the Olympic Academy a “theater on an ancient model but small and unspeakably beautiful”, as Goethe wrote in his Journey to Italy. A planimetric form, a social function and architectural details, however, severely shows it off from the Vitruvian body of rules of classical theater, enhancing its originality and making it an invention rooted in late-Alexandrian architectures visited and surveyed by Palladio at the Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli.