Friday, June 21, 2024 at 6.30 p.m., as part of the 2024 Music Festival, the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the Metropolitan City of Milan, with the participation of Milan's Municipality, the Teatro alla Scala and the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, hosts a Concert of the Academy's Orchestra conducted by Alessandro Bonato at the Parco Amphitheatrum Naturae in Milan, to share with institutions and citizens the progress of PAN's construction works.
The Academy's Orchestra Concert constitutes the inaugural event of the ‘Mystic Gulf’ in the centre of the Arena and the beginning of the countdown to the Park's definitive reopening to the public in a year's time
Leading the Orchestra's students is Alessandro Bonato, fresh form his recent great success at the Piermarini, on the podium of the same young ensemble. On the music stands pages by Verdi, Mascagni and Puccini, from the Intermezzi of Suor Angelica and Cavalleria rusticana to the Ouverture of I vespri siciliani to the Symphonies of Giovanna D’Arco and Nabucco.
The PAN project – Parco Amphitheatrum Naturae. A new archaeological park for Milan's Amphitheatre.
The project is being implemented from 2019, promoted by the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the Metropolitan City of Milan, and aimed at the expansion, enhancement and reconfiguration of the Milan's Amphitheatre Archaeological Park.
Although the monument was the most majestic public building in Mediolanum, it was prematurely dismantled from the end of the 4th to the beginning of the 5th century A.D., until it completely disappeared from the urban landscape. The only trace that has survived to this day is the toponym via Arena, which defines a road along the eastern boundary of the Archaeological Park.
The latter, established in 2004 thanks to a Programme Agreement between the Ministry of Culture and Milan's Municipality, covered an area of approximately 12,500 square metres within the block defined by Via De Amicis, Via Conca del Naviglio and Via Arena before the work currently underway began. Upon completion of the work currently underway, a green space of over 22,000 square metres will be reestablished in the city.
The project idea, developed by Arch. Antonella Ranaldi, Superintendent in Milan from 2016 to 2022, and Arch. Attilio Stocchi, intends to re-propose the plan of the Roman Amphitheatre, now completely lost in elevation, through a green architecture that, integrated with the archaeological remains, will allow the monument's volumes to be perceived visually.
The occasion of the project work was extremely important to investigate large portions of the monument's foundations and to learn more about its structure: it was built during the 1st century A.D., following an ellipse with a major axis 150 m long and a minor axis 120 m long, oriented according to an East-West and North-South alignment respectively.
An unpublished element that emerged from the excavations are the surviving structures belonging to an underground level, composed of two main corridors that ran along the axes of the ellipse and intersected at right angles at the centre of the arena. Together with other underground rooms found near the eastern end of the monument, they must have been functional for the passage of gladiators and the organisation of shows.
Numerous archaeological finds have also come to light during recent investigations. More than a thousand coins, fragments of the monument's rich marble decoration and objects reminiscent of gladiator fights, such as iron weapons and wild animals' remains.
Having completed the archaeological excavations, the underground infrastructures and structures are now being completed, which will allow the park to be used not only for the enjoyment of the archaeological evidence, but also for the organisation of open-air performances.
