ABSTRACT

The art of scenography was thus set in place when Greek theatre became established as an essential social practice, quickly becoming a trade tantamount to that of a painter. The inventions of the Greek and Roman theatres, although seeming to disappear during the Middle Ages, were revisited, examined, evaluated and developed during the Renaissance. However, with regards to the organisation of theatre spaces and the craft of scenography, the knowledge of ruins and especially the reading of Vitruvius’ treaties, as well as those of Democritus and Anaxagoras on perspective, led to a renewed interest in the physical organisation of theatres in the sixteenth century. The spectator, seized by the technical marvels of perspective, witnessed a dramatic space that pointed to a different world where other represented men, characters in other words, seemed to the experience stories both familiar and strange.