The Sferisterio di Macerata is an open-air theater located in the historic center of Macerata close to the city walls, adjacent to the Porta Picena, more commonly called Porta Mercato. It is a semicircular arena originally intended for the game of ball with the bracelet, very popular in central Italy in the nineteenth century and subsequently adapted to a place for concerts and opera houses, considered to have perfect acoustics by singers and conductors and home to several cultural festivals. The Sferisterio di Macerata was built, like most of the historic Marche theaters of the eighteenth-nineteenth century, thanks to the initiative of a group of wealthy private citizens, the Cento Consorti, headed by Guarnieri Pacifico and the Gonfaloniere Nicola Ranaldi, who, eager to donating to the city a new structure for public entertainment, they taxed themselves to finance its construction. As the inscription on the facade recalls: «To adorn the city, to delight the public. The generosity of a hundred spouses built. MDCCCXXIX "