BRANCACCIO THEATER

TEATRO BRANCACCIO
Via Merulana 244

1913/16 Carlo Sacconi

The original name was Teatro Morgana Morgana Theater
It has a capacity of 1,400 seats

It was later used as a cinema, as variety hall and for concerts
Among the artists who performed there, there were Louis Armstrong, Paul Anka and the Italian comedian Totò

In 1968 here performed The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and in 1971 Jethro Tull
It was again used as a theater since 1978

From 2001 to 2007 the art direction was entrusted to the actor Gigi Proietti with great success
In 2011 here were performed the musicals Beauty and the Beast and Mamma Mia but for lack of spectators the theater had to close

St. ANTHONY FROM PADUA ON VIA MERULANA

S. ANTONIO DA PADOVA A VIA MERULANA

Via Merulana 124

1884/87 Luca Carimini (1830/90). Eclectic style

It was the first monumental sacred building to be built after 1870, the year Rome became capital of Italy

“The profession of stonemason is (...) the matrix of all the architectural work of Carimini: the genuine use of materials becomes the logical consequence of such an approach. The typological repertoire of the fifteenth century, especially investigated in minor architecture child and in details, which he had used for monuments and sepulchral chapels, gave him specific formal tools to be used in various situations, allowing wide margins of freedom of invention that he cleverly exploited in the general structure of the compositions. The fifteenth century is therefore read and absorbed in typical elements that lose any real reference and are composed in different ways with many effects. Shapes are stylized with obvious geometric corrections, offering a new perspective on the originality of the volumetric composition” (Giorgio Ciucci - Biographical Dictionary of Italian Treccani)

Columns of granite from Baveno, women's gallery and ten altars with paintings from the nineteenth century last results of the Nazarene and purist painting style

MAIN ALTAR

Large fresco “Apotheosis of the Franciscan Order” by Father Bonaventura Loffredo from Alghero in Sardinia

Bas-relief “Eucharist” by Luca Carimini

5^th CHAPEL ON THE LEFT

Triptych “St. Francis with Sts. Peter of Alcantara and Paschal Baylon” by Franz von Rhoden (1817/1923) one of the last Nazarene painters

4^th CHAPEL ON THE LEFT

“Japanese Martyrs” by Cesare Mariani (1826/1901)

AUDITORIUM for the UNIVERSITY OF FRIARS MINOR

1947/56 Mario Paniconi (1904/73) and Giulio Pediconi (1906/99)