Description
The Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana is Mantua's historic academy of sciences, letters and arts, housed in a neoclassical palazzo on Via Accademia, in the historic center: inside is the 18th-century theater of the Bibiena.
The palazzo, designed by Giuseppe Piermarini and Paolo Pozzo, holds the Teatro Scientifico by Antonio Galli da Bibbiena, inaugurated in 1769: a bell-shaped hall with four tiers of wooden boxes, built for the academy's solemn ceremonies. The library keeps more than 40,000 titles and 426 handwritten 18th-century scores, among them pages by Johann Christian Bach and Salieri.
The academy grew out of the 17th-century Accademia dei Timidi, turned into a scientific institution by Maria Theresa of Austria in 1768. Its members included Volta, Spallanzani, Beccaria and Parini, and on January 16, 1770, the thirteen-year-old Mozart played in the theater. His father Leopold wrote that he had never in his life seen anything more beautiful of its kind.
The palazzo, designed by Giuseppe Piermarini and Paolo Pozzo, holds the Teatro Scientifico by Antonio Galli da Bibbiena, inaugurated in 1769: a bell-shaped hall with four tiers of wooden boxes, built for the academy's solemn ceremonies. The library keeps more than 40,000 titles and 426 handwritten 18th-century scores, among them pages by Johann Christian Bach and Salieri.
The academy grew out of the 17th-century Accademia dei Timidi, turned into a scientific institution by Maria Theresa of Austria in 1768. Its members included Volta, Spallanzani, Beccaria and Parini, and on January 16, 1770, the thirteen-year-old Mozart played in the theater. His father Leopold wrote that he had never in his life seen anything more beautiful of its kind.