3 – POLITEAMA VERDI (ENG)

The Politeama Verdi and the Theater of the Spirited represent the essence of the 19th century. It reflects the city’s transformation in its urban structure, altering its balances and its social and cultural focal points. Where church and nobility once prevailed, new actors have emerged: squares and theaters now celebrate this shift.

In the 1800s, the Politeama Verdi became, by its size and significance, the emblem of the new bourgeois city.
Once again, the spatial element essential to fully realizing this new development was a square twice the size of Piazza Alberica. Unlike before, the buildings surrounding it were not noble palaces but rental housing. The then Farini Square was constructed on an area previously partially used as a city cemetery, and its design was entrusted to architect Leandro Caselli. His vision of the new city saw the current Matteotti Square and the Politeama as symbols of a break from the past, oriented no longer toward the mountains but toward the sea.

On the southern side of the square, two fountains recreate the works of two great Carrara sculptors: the Little Pig by Pietro Tacca (the famous original is in Florence, in front of the Loggia dei Mercanti) and the Little Horse by Arturo Dazzi.