The Teatro della Pergola is a historic opera house on Via della Pergola in central Florence. Cardinal Giancarlo de' Medici commissioned it, and Ferdinando Tacca, son of the sculptor Pietro Tacca, designed it. It was built in 1656, and its interior was finished in 1661. It was the first theater with superposed tiers of boxes instead of raked semicircular seating, and it is considered to be the oldest in Italy.
Its present look dates from a remodeling of 1855 to 1857, which created a horseshoe auditorium with three rings of boxes and a gallery. The Sala Grande seats 1,500.
It was a court theater for the Grand Dukes of Tuscany and opened to the public after 1718. It hosted premieres of works by Donizetti, Verdi and Mascagni.
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