Erected in 1842 at the initiative of the Accademia degli Operosi, the theatre originally presented the typical nineteenth-century structure conferred on it by the architect Niccolò Matas, who also designed the neo-classic façade of the neighbouring Oratory of San Francesco and the neo-Gothic one of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. Remodelled in the second half of the 20th century with the removal of the partitions between the boxes, the proscenium and the dressing rooms, the theatre owes its present-day aspect - with U-shaped plan, three orders of boxes, flies and balcony - to the work of Massimo Gasparon who, in homage to the famous family of architects and set designers Galli Bibiena, conferred on the structure the typical aspect of a seventeenth-eighteenth century hall.