Discover Teatro de la Sena

The auditorium is a horseshoe in timber, with three tiers of boxes rising around it and a shallow stage -- the standard Italian opera-house plan, executed small.

The construction is wood throughout, which is what these theatres were, and is the reason so few survive: they burned.

Selva's handling is restrained and neoclassical, with painted decoration on the box fronts and ceiling rather than heavy plasterwork.

The theatre sits inside the Palazzo della Ragione, entered from the palace's portico on Piazza Maggiore, so from the square there is nothing to see -- the whole thing is internal.

The palace's own portico, of the sixteenth-century rebuilding, is what fronts the square.