Description
Catania's Odeon is the small Roman theater next to the large Ancient Theater, in the historic center between Via Vittorio Emanuele II and Via Crociferi: a semicircle of tiered seating for about 1,500 spectators, where people listened to music and dance and where performances for the nearby theater were rehearsed.
It dates from the 1st–2nd century AD and was completed in the following century. It is part of the same archaeological area as the Greek-Roman Theater, which borders the Odeon and has an entrance right on its side.
The cavea, facing southeast, rests on eighteen walls arranged like the spokes of a wheel. Between one wall and the next open long, narrow vaulted rooms: there were originally seventeen, and sixteen remain. Open to the outside and closed by doors, they were shops, according to tradition.
At the bottom is the orchestra, paved in marble. The first row of steps rests directly on it; a narrow corridor separates it from the upper tiers, divided into wedges by small stairways.
Outside runs a continuous row of arches, with a rare detail. Under each arch is a straight lintel of lava-stone blocks, set lower than the point where the arch springs: it supports nothing and is purely decorative.
Between the 5th and 7th centuries the Odeon was abandoned and turned into dwellings. In the 15th century the Carrera family took its stones to build the nearby church of Sant'Agostino; then the monument disappeared beneath the houses.
Paradoxically, what saved it was an act of vandalism. At the end of the 19th century Baron Sigona di Villermosa, owner of the palace built against the Odeon, blew up the vault of an arch one night because it kept him from enlarging his house.
The scandal spurred Paolo Orsi, superintendent of antiquities, to expropriate the area and free the monument from the buildings covering it. Today the Odeon now and then goes back to its old job, with summer performances.
It dates from the 1st–2nd century AD and was completed in the following century. It is part of the same archaeological area as the Greek-Roman Theater, which borders the Odeon and has an entrance right on its side.
The cavea, facing southeast, rests on eighteen walls arranged like the spokes of a wheel. Between one wall and the next open long, narrow vaulted rooms: there were originally seventeen, and sixteen remain. Open to the outside and closed by doors, they were shops, according to tradition.
At the bottom is the orchestra, paved in marble. The first row of steps rests directly on it; a narrow corridor separates it from the upper tiers, divided into wedges by small stairways.
Outside runs a continuous row of arches, with a rare detail. Under each arch is a straight lintel of lava-stone blocks, set lower than the point where the arch springs: it supports nothing and is purely decorative.
Between the 5th and 7th centuries the Odeon was abandoned and turned into dwellings. In the 15th century the Carrera family took its stones to build the nearby church of Sant'Agostino; then the monument disappeared beneath the houses.
Paradoxically, what saved it was an act of vandalism. At the end of the 19th century Baron Sigona di Villermosa, owner of the palace built against the Odeon, blew up the vault of an arch one night because it kept him from enlarging his house.
The scandal spurred Paolo Orsi, superintendent of antiquities, to expropriate the area and free the monument from the buildings covering it. Today the Odeon now and then goes back to its old job, with summer performances.