Sabbatini also
describes footlights
—a short parapet in front of the stage with lights hidden
behind it. These did not come into common use for over a century. As
time went on, more and more lamps and candles were used, built up in
great banks against huge reflectors. The heat was overpowering and, for
both actors and playgoers all through the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, the risks of being burnt to death were by no means negligible.
Sabbatini could also, of course, turn his hand to architecture, and built
at least one theatre, the Teatro del Sol at Pesaro. The history of Baroque
theatre is full of such versatile geniuses, often moving from city to city
and country to country, who regarded architecture only as an extension
of their work as scene designers. Aleotti, who built the Teatro
Farnese, was one of the reputed inventors of flats, or ‘wings’. Gaspare
Vigarani and Giacomo Torelli, who introduced Baroque scenic effects into France, both also designed theatres in Italy—Vigarani the court theatre at Modena in 1654, Torelli the Teatro della Fortuna at Fano in 1661. We have seen how Vigarani founded a theatrical dynasty in Paris. The Burnacinis
achieved the same sort of position in Vienna. Greatest of all, in talent as
well as in numbers, were the Bibienas, whose story includes the whole
development of Baroque theatre from its origins in seventeenth-century
Italy to its consummation a century later in Germany. They may fittingly
lead us forward to that period by beginning a new chapter.