Sassari, Civic Theater

The complex is located in the area previously occupied by the ancient civic building dating back to the Middle Ages. The poor condition of the building and the new building momentum that the city experienced during the reign of Cario Felice decreed the end of the old construction, the start of work for the erection of a new building (1826) and an adequate civic theater (inaugurated in 1829) to replace the rooms used for this purpose in the same area.
The conditioning that the new building underwent by the surrounding building context and the privilege granted to the theater structure determined the lack of functionality of the Civic Palace with the subsequent transfer of the headquarters first to the Palazzo d'Usini (1879), then to the current Palazzo Ducale (1900). At the beginning of the twentieth century, the theater itself declined in functions and structures and only in the middle of the century was radical restoration work carried out.
The Civic Theater was built starting in 1826 and inaugurated in 1829. Giuseppe Cominotti's project reflects the model of the Carignano theater in Turin, with three orders of stages and loggione.
The façade overlooking Corso Vittorio Emanuele II is designed according to neoclassical-purist canons. Four giant ionic pilasters mark the prospectus, concluded by a triangular tympanated pediment. The same setting can be found on the side overlooking Via Sebastiano Satta, which in the middle part houses the access to the theater. A cylindrical lunette decorated with festoons and wreaths crowns the building on the same axis. The interior has a horseshoe plan. Due to the poor state of conservation, the original wooden structures and the rich decorative apparatus were demolished in 1947. The theater was reopened in 1967, but radically restored due to a fire that destroyed its original wooden structures. Today it is home to chamber music concerts and theatrical performances, in particular those in the Sassari vernacular.

History of studies
A review of studies can be found in the bibliography relating to the fact sheet in the volume of the “History of Art in Sardinia” on nineteenth-century architecture (1992).

Bibliography
S. Naitza, Architecture from the late 17th century to purist classicism. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992, sheet 69.