The Teatro Bibiena di Mantova (also known as, among others, the Teatro Scientifico, Teatro Accademico or Teatrino della Accademia Filarmonica) was made by Antonio Galli da Bibbiena in 1767-1769 and decorated in 1773-1775 with a facade of Piermarini designed by Paolo Pozzo (1741–1803). Constructed for the Royal Virgilian Academy of Science and Arts (now " Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana"), the theatre in

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard language, Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture ...

was designed in late

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

or early

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

style by

Antonio Galli Bibiena The Galli–Bibiena family, or Galli da Bibiena (also spelled "Bibbiena"), was a family of Italian artists of the 17th and 18th centuries, including: "Ferdinando Galli Bibiena Online" (overview), John Malyon, ''Artcyclopedia'', 2005, Artcycl ...

and erected between 1767 and 1769. With a bell-shaped floorplan and four rows of boxes, it followed the new style of theatres then in vogue. It was intended to host both theatre productions and concerts, and scientific discourses and conventions. Bibiena also provided the

monochrome A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, monochrom ...

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

es in the interior. The theatre is now considered to be his most important work. It was opened officially on 3 December 1769. A few weeks later, on 16 January 1770, thirteen-year-old

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

played a concert here, with resounding success. His father, Leopold Mozart, wrote about the theatre: "In all my life, I have never seen anything more beautiful of its kind". In 1773,

Giuseppe Piermarini Giuseppe Piermarini (; 18 July 1734 – 18 February 1808) was an Italian architect who trained with Luigi Vanvitelli in Rome and designed the Teatro alla Scala in Milan (1776–78), which remains the work by which he is remembered. Indeed, "il ...

, who constructed the neighbouring palazzo for the Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana, designed and built the

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...

of the theatre. Still used for its original purposes, it now can also be visited by tourists as one of Mantua's museums. The theatre is relatively small, with a scene 12,3 metres wide and 5,6 metres deep, and a maximum audience of 363 persons.

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