 The two very large bronze statues of lions sitting next to the theatre's monumental stairway entrance were created by Giovanni Rutelli's son, sculptor artist Sir Mario Rutelli and Benedetto 
Civiletti.Construction started on 12 January 1874, but was stopped for eight years from 1882 until 1890.Finally, on 16 May 1897, twenty-two years after the laying of the foundation stone, the fourth largest opera house in Europe at the time — after the Royal Opera House in London, the Palais Garnier in Paris, and the K. K. Hof-Opernhaus in Vienna— was inaugurated with a performance of Verdi's "Falstaff" conducted by Leopoldo Mugnone.