Morlacchi Theater;;The Teatro Morlacchi;the major theater in town;is in the historical center of Perugia;in Piazza Morlacchi;next to the University Faculty of Literature and Philosophy.;In 1777;the Perugian bourgeoisie;animated by Annibale Mariotti;decided to build a new theater in emulation of the nobles;who had built their own theater;the Teatro Pavone.It was with this intent that ninety families constituted an association;the “Society for the construction of a new theater”;and bought an old convent previously occupied by some nuns and confided the project to the Perugian architect Alessio Lorenzini.Lorenzini endowed the Theater with a horseshoe-shaped floor plan and five orders of boxes for an audience total capacity of one thousand and two hundred seats.;The ceiling and the stage curtain were decorated by Baldassarre Orsini;while Carlo Spiridone Mariotti executed the sixteen cameos of the vault and the medallions with Icarus sacrificing to Bacchus the Poetic Drama;Tragedy;Comedy and the Pastoral Drama;Giovanni Cappelli decorated the parapets of the boxes and painted a Bacchic scene on the proscenium ceiling;while the stuccowork was executed by Giovanni Battista Cronici.In 1874;the theater was completely renewed and reopened to the public with the performance of the Aida.The work of restructuring was done by Francesco Moretti;Matteo Tassi;Lucio Angeloni and the architect Guglielmo Calderini;while Mariano Piervitori executed a new allegorical representation depicting Arts and Literature on the ceiling;and Tempera-painted the stage curtain with a local historical theme illustrating the Return of Biordo Michelotti to Perugia in 1398.;Morlacchi Theater has hosted many high level actors;like Irma Gramatica;Virgilio Talli;and Oreste Calabrese.Its activity had been constant up to the beginning of the 20th century;but suffered a decay period under the years of fascism;to the point of being subjected to requisition by the German troops during their occupation of the town in World War II;who used it for performances for their soldiers.At the end of the war;the theater was severely damaged;therefore the Municipality—to which it was handed over between 1951 and 1953—financed the work of restoration;which consisted of the remaking of the roof and ceiling and modifying the stage;the orchestra pit and the marble floors of the atrium and foyer.;Currently the Theater audience has a total of 785 seats available.The stage is 20 meters wide and 10;5 meters long.Its proscenium is 10;5 meters wide.;Francesco Giuseppe Baldassarre Morlacchi (Perugia;14 June 1784-Innsbruck;28 October 1841)—to whom the Theater is dedicated—was an Italian opera composer and one of the main personalities responsible for the spreading of Italian opera abroad.