The Teatrodante Carlo Monni stands in the centre of Campi Bisenzio, on piazza Dante, opposite the town hall. It came about around 1870, when the council offered free land to anyone who would build a theatre: the town had never had one, apart from a small wooden structure, just in the years of opera's greatest success. In 1871 some well-off citizens, led by Count Giovanni Rucellai, founded the Accademia dei Perseveranti and quickly sold its shares; the council reserved the royal box for itself.
What to see
The design was entrusted to the Campi-born architect Mariano Falcini, who reused an old design of his for a theatre in Alexandria in Egypt, and the theatre, dedicated to Dante, opened in 1873. It soon made a name for itself in Tuscany for the quality of its productions, so much so that Campi was nicknamed «little Parma»; local singers such as the tenor Gino Fratesi, the bass Ugo Novelli and the baritone Rolando Panerai made their debuts here.
In 1938 the theatre was altered to show films, and in 1952 the boxes and furnishings were destroyed to turn it into a cinema: only the façade of the original building remained. After years of decline and neglect, at the end of the century the council bought it and had it restored, funding the work partly with shares sold to citizens; the theatre reopened on 9 February 2007 with Alessandro Benvenuti as its first artistic director.
Visiting
Since May 2014 the theatre has borne the name of the Campi-born actor Carlo Monni. Programme and tickets are on the official website.
Our editors' tip
The nineteenth-century audience in Campi was known for its severity: one singer, after an evening that fell short of expectations, was chased all the way to Peretola.
