Teatro Comunale, Ferrara: Geometry and Layout - Debate over the Curve

The Teatro Comunale was built in Ferrara at the end of the 18th century, at a time when modern theatre was gradually leaving the space of the Duke Court and Academy to become part of the urban fabric, shifting from representing the elite to turn towards wider communities. The models of Court theatre and public theatre with several levels of boxes coexisted for a long time, until the complete codification of the “teatro all’italiana”, of which the Comunale represents one of the clearest examples. Over time there have been several renovations. However, the plan has never been strongly altered and has come almost intact to this day. This makes comparison between measured survey, and available historical sources particularly significant and interesting. The construction of the Teatro Comunale, which lasted over a decade, started under the papal domination and ended at the time of the Cispadan Republic. Around 1786, at night, the dwellings on the so-called Isola del Cervo were demolished, to start the construction of a first project by Giuseppe Campana. However the built theatre follows the design by Cosimo Morelli, which includes several oval curves for the shape of other spaces such as the courtyard for carriages and the hall. His design also recalls the neighboring oval church of San Carlo designed by Aleotti. From the written sources we can see that the question over the shape that the curve of the theatre cavea should have followed has been intensely debated, in parallel with the measured survey of the Ferrara Theatre and the analysis of the actual geometrical layout. The comparison between the documents found at the Biblioteca Ariostea archive in Ferrara and the data obtained from the metric analysis allow us to state with absolute certainty that the solution of the oval adopted in the construction of the Ferrara Theatre is neither the one called AA nor the one called BB.