Brixia (Brescia)

BRIXIA (Brescia), ancient Regio X, modern Italy.

COORDINATES: 45º32’23.79’’N // 10º13’35.67’’E-

TIPOLOGY: Roman theatre. Urban.
DATE: First III A.D.
TRANSFORMATIONS:
CAPACITY:
CAVEA: Facing south. Built against hillside. 86 m. diameter including outer wall that not complete the semicircle.
ORCHESTRA: 24 m. diameter.
STAGE BUILDING: Proscaenium 1,25 m. high. There´s aulaeum remains (10 holes). Pulpitum 49 x 9,3 including proscaenium wall. Scaenae frons had three doors enclosed in niches with curved sides and flat backs.
LOCATION: Close to Capitilium and Foro.
MY BEDSIDE TABLE: Tosi, Giovana; “Gli edificio per spettacoli nell’Italia romana”. Roma, Quasar, 2003.// Sear, Frank; “Roman theatres: an architectural study”. Oxford University Press, 2006.// Ciancio Rossetto, Paola; Giuseppina Pisani Sartorio (eds); “Teatri Greci e Romani: alle origini del linguaggio rappresentato”. Rome: SEAT, 1995. // “Teatri antichi nell’area del Mediterraneo”. Palermo, I Quaderni di Palazzo Montalbo, 2004.

OUT OF PRINT: I found Brescia´s Roman theatre in silence, an early Sunday morning, nobody in the streets, only a whisper cradling the big theatre ruin that made me remembered Giussepe Ungaretti´s verses: “The sun kidnaps the city / it doesn´t look yet / even the tombs do not resist much”