All the main Venetian theatres were owned by important patrician families; combining business with pleasure in the Italian, if not European, city with the most crowded and competitive theatrical culture. When most opera in Europe was still being put on by courts, "economic prospects and a desire for exhibitionistic display", as well a decline in their traditional overseas trading, attracted the best Venetian families to invest in the theatre during the 17th century. The Grimani were dominant, owning what is now called the
Teatro Malibran, then called the
Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo, as well as the
San Benedetto theatre, and other houses. The
Veniers owned
La Fenice, still the main opera house. The
Vendramin owned the important
Teatro di San Luca or
Teatro Vendramin, founded in 1622, later renamed the
Teatro Apollo, and since 1875 called the
Teatro Goldoni, which still thrives as the city's main theatre for plays, now in a building of the 1720s. In the age of
Carlo Goldoni, the greatest Venetian dramatist, only the San Luca and the Malibran still put on spoken drama, and his desertion of the Grimani for the Vendramins at San Luca in 1752 was a major event in the theatrical history of the period, ushering in perhaps his finest period, in which as well as his comedies, he played a significant role in the development of the
opera buffa. The Vendramins, who had considerable direct involvement in the management of the theatre, however they did not take their involvement as far as
Vincenzo Grimani, who was a cardinal and opera librettist. ==Notes==