The Teatro della Fortuna is Fano's main theatre, where opera, drama and dance are performed. The name comes from Fanum Fortunae, the Latin name of the city, the temple of Fortune.
What to see
The building began in 1299 as the palace of the Podestà: on the lower floor a triple loggia, on the upper a vast hall with frescoed walls, of which fragments remain with sacred scenes and the coats of arms of the Commune and of Galeotto I Malatesta. An epigraph on a pillar records the architect, «Magister Paulutius me fecit»; according to tradition Egidio Albornoz promulgated the Egidian Constitutions here on 29 April 1357. The first documented theatrical performance in the palace dates from the carnival of 1491; from 1556 a restoration turned it into the Sala della Commedia and then into the Teatro della Fortuna. The first box theatre was the work of the Fano-born Giacomo Torelli, completed in 1676 and inaugurated in June 1677: five tiers of twenty-one boxes, each carved differently, with sumptuous scenery and machines for every effect. In 1718 Ferdinando Bibiena carried out its restoration. Closed in 1839 as dilapidated, it was replaced by a new theatre designed by Luigi Poletti, built between 1845 and 1869.
The theatre was badly damaged by bombing in 1944 and reopened in 1998 after a long restoration. The main hall, the Sala Poletti, recalls the Neoclassical style of Poletti's theatre: the ceiling has a concentric crown with the repainted copy of the original fresco of the Fasti di Apollo by Francesco Grandi, who also designed the curtain with the Entry of the Emperor Caesar Augustus into the ancient Colonia Iulia Fanestris. A second hall, the Sala Verdi, designed by the architect Gianni Fabbri, is used for concerts, conferences and cultural events. In the first atrium remain lunettes by Gioachino and Mariano Grassi and a few fragments of the sixteenth-century frescoes of the loggia of the palace of the Podestà.
Visiting
The theatre is in Fano, in what was the palace of the Podestà. The sources consulted give no opening hours or visiting arrangements: the programme and any visits should be checked.
Our editors' tip
According to tradition, Emperor Leopold I of Austria wanted to build the theatre of Vienna on the model of Torelli's in Fano.
