National theatre and the age of revolution in Italy

Inspired by the writings of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Denis Diderot, between 1796 and 1799 Italy lived through an intense period of theatrical reform trying to diffuse the concept of ‘national theatre’, financed and controlled by public authorities. This process resulted in the opening of new theatres and opera houses. During the Restoration, period the same idea found a different political declination but with similar results: an even more powerful propagating of public theatres as spaces of urban sociability. The article examines the impact of this process on Italian society since the end of the eighteenth century, identifying some specific characters of the Italian theatrical system in relation to other national cases. The network of Italian theatres during the early nineteenth century shows seemingly contradictory elements whose dynamics have to be explained: local aspirations of excellence and participation in a national circuit of opera production; market dynamics and censorship; police control and involvement in political nationalism.