Oltre l'illusione: le macchine del teatro Farnese di Parma (1628). Fonti per una ricostruzione virtuale

Mercury and Mars (1628) was written by Claudio Achillini, set to music by Claudio Mon- teverdi, and furnished with scenery and machinery by Giovan Battista Aleotti and Francesco Guitti. The performance was staged for the inauguration of the Farnese Theatre in Parma and on the occasion of the wedding of Odoardo Farnese and Margherita de’ Medici. Mercury and Mars is an example of Baroque spectacle, but also of interaction between different forms of en- tertainment (tournament, stagecraft, music) and professions (painter, architect, engineer, sce- nographer, stage technician, musician, poet). Behind the illusionistic effects of stagecraft are the naked machines designed by stage engineers and operated by skilled machinists. While in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, mainly wood or plastic was used to reconstruct the study objects that no longer exist, today the new digital technologies offer useful tools for historical restoration. The aim of this work is to illustrate the analysis and crossing of sources before the reconstruction of the sea machine.