AMELIA
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Teatro Sociale
Loggia del Banditore |
Going down to Porta Posterola, an old customs-house with two perpendicular entrances, one can have a wide view on the Rio Grande Valley and on the dam called "La Para" of the 13th century.
Near Piazza Matteotti where's the Town Hall, is the most curious of the many
charming town streets, the "Vicolo Baciafemmine" that is "the kisswomen alley", on the continuation of via Archileggi. It's named this way because it's so narrow that, if you meet face to face somebody else, you might quite accidentally have a show of affection.
Underneath Piazza Matteotti we suggest you to visit the monumental Roman Cisterns, a rare example of hydraulic works built around the second half of the 2nd cent. A. D.; composed of ten rooms whose average dimensions range between 18.80 and 19.60 m. in length and between 5 and 5.10 m. in width.
In all 59.90 x 22.00 m..
In the Municipal Palace is also the altar-piece of the Madonna con Bambino by Piermatteo d'Amelia, one of the greatest painters of the 15th cent. in Umbria, to whom is to be ascribed the "Annunciazione Gardner" in Boston, but known especially for having frescoed the Sixtine Chapel before Michelangelo.
Nearby is the Teatro Sociale built in the second half of the 18th cent.. The interior, horse-shoe shaped has, besides the stalls, three tiers of boxes resting on the original wooden structures, and a gallery at the top.
Designed by the architect Gian Antonio Selva, the same who designed ten years after the Fenice in Venice, for which the theatre in Amelia served as a model (for the plan and the architectural development).
In 1880 many alterations were carried on. The stuccos and frescoes were the work of the famous perugian painter Bruschi who painted also the noteworthy curtain showing The Barbarossa besieging Amelia. Actually it was Frederick the Second who did it.
In Piazza Marconi, the Loggia del Banditore œ stresses the importance of the square, whose elegant paving dates back to the 18th cent.. From the square you can admire the Petrignani Palace and the Nacci Palace.
The Petrignani Palace, now the property of the Commune, was built in the second half of the 15th cent. in Renaissance style. The façade, in bricks, is realized in four horizontal levels parted by the five vertical axis of the windows. The rooms of the piano nobile have vaulted ceilings decorated in tempera, the work of the Zuccaris' school; the main room is named "the Zodiac room", because of the twelve lunettes at the base of the vault depicting the months of the year and their zodiac signs.
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