CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DATE DUE r- r n 1 1 '^'TflS -^^^—^ i«-JJS — • GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. Cornell University Library PQ 4155.S66 Commedia dell'arte 3 1924 027 470 073 Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027470073 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE THE COMMEDIA DELL' ARTE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS SALES AGENTS New York: LEMCKE & BUECHNER 30-32 West 27th Street London: HENRY FROWDE Amen Corner, E.G. Toronto : HENRY FROWDE 25 Richmond Street, W. J. Callot. THE COMMEDIA DELL' ARTE A STUDY IN ITALIAN POPULAR COMEDY BY WINIFRED SMITH, Ph.D. Beta fork THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1912 All rights reserved t\4^ Copyright, 1912 By Columbia University Pbess Printed from type, August, 1912 Press of The hew era printing company lancaster, pa. This Monograph has been approved by the Department of Eng- lish and Comparative Literature in Columbia University as a con- tribution to knowledge worthy of publication. A. H. THORNDIKE, (Secretary. PEEFACE. A small Pennsylvania town turned itself out one breathless summer day not long ago to watch an entertainment given in a large airy barn by a family of wandering geniuses, not gypsies or minstrels, certainly not "agents" as the term is generally understood, but hard-headed Yankee originals with something of their own to sell and apparently a novel way of their own of selling it. The something was a certain soap, guaranteed of the purest ; the method of advertisement was to take it as the theme of a simple farce, a theme varied by all manner of songs in its praises and allusions to its perfections, brought as by accident into the pauses of a banal dialog. In the brief play each member of the band had a part. The leader represented himself as a fashion- able doctor, the rush of whose city practice had driven him to the country for leisure and fresh air; his brother figured as a wealthy friend of the physician, a millionaire off for a holiday; the doctor's two young sons flirted madly with the millionaire 's pretty daughter and quarreled with each other about her behind their parents ' backs ; the smaller children in the roles of errand-boy, page and petted little house- maid saw to it that the audience was kept smiling at their tricks, their blunders and their comical songs. The plot, such as it was, centered only incidentally around the young people's love affairs, essentially on the doctor's scientific pursuits, the object of the vii vm PBBFACB latter being of course the discovery of a formula for an absolutely peerless soap, one which would make the dingiest complexion bloom with health and that after one application. The lovers vied with each other in helping their father to the discovery, for the millionaire, some of whose capital was sunk in the experiment, had promised his daughter and his for- tune to the lucky man. "When the elder son proved the efficacy of his particular recipe by washing away the yellowness from his father's wrinkled cheeks and leaving them firmly and evenly ruddy, when he was rewarded as he deserved by a parcel of bonds and a bride, — a climax greeted by whoops, songs and hand-springs from the younger members of the company, — is it any wonder that the audience flocked up to the stage to buy pounds of so magical a cosmetic? The lively spectacle, quivering in the dusty heat of an American July, induced in the mind of one spectator instead of the practical judgment of the majority of the audience a mood of reflective remi- niscence. Here was a scene in all its essentials similar to others enacted hundreds of times in six- teenth century Italy by traveling charlatans who chose just such a miscellaneous farcical vaudeville performance for advertising their vilely com- pounded nostrums, and yet so different were the details, the local color, the character of the audience and of the setting, that the modern situation de- manded no small effort of imagination to relate it to those older farces, with which of course it could have had not the slightest direct connection. Such PREFACE IX connection as exists lies merely in the fact that tMs rural seller of soap and Ms professional ancestors in the sixteenth century, like the actors of vaude- ville on Broadway at present, for mercenary pur- poses of their own take advantage in similar fashion of the ordinary man's need for purely recreative amusement, by consulting his thoughtless prejudices in the expression of commonplace social satire and by provoking him to uproarious laughter as he follows a simple intrigue or a series of rough jokes. The likeness therefore between the characteristics of ancient and modern farces should, I feel sure, be attributed much more to their like function— just this response to an ever-present demand for care- free recreation — ^than to any hypothetical line of evolution drawn through the centuries from the old to the recent, from the Eoman mime to the comic opera, for instance, by way of Italian commedia dell'arte and French pantomime. The following study in popular comedy has re- sulted from an effort to find material for testing the hypothesis that I have just stated and further — at first by the way — from an attempt to open up to English students of the drama a byway in their field little known to them. The commedia dell'arte, interesting and for comparative purposes important as it is, has received many tributes of passing men- tion and inexact allusion from our scholars and critics, but except for the two brilliant and vivid essays of John Addington Symonds and Vernon Lee, no study worthy the name; even these two treat- ments are inadequate, centered as both are on eigh- X PREFACE teenth century developments and taking little ac- count of earlier days and their complex problems. It seemed accordingly time to bring together in Eng- lish some of the widely scattered facts and theories about the improvised plays and to point out their significance for our own literature. Materials for such a synthesis are not lacking. The Italian professional actors, who in the Eenais- sance evolved these extempore farces, have left ao. no scanty or uncertain memorials behind them ; there abound letters telling of their struggles and suc- cesses, books of their poetical compositions for the adornment of bare plots, collections and scattered leaves of the plots themselves, and in various archives records from which we can reconstruct imaginatively some of the actual performances. Moreover Italian and French scholars have turned over and expounded and related so great a mass of these dusty documents as to smooth and make plain the way to any foreign student who may wish to investigate the subject. My indebtedness to the work of these men, particularly to that of Adolfo Bartoli, Alessandro d'Ancona, Michele Scherillo, Benedetto Croce and Armand Baschet, is naturally even greater than I can acknowledge in bibliography and footnotes. In the field of the foreign relation- ships of the commedia dell' arte there remains much to do ; France has been pretty thoroughly searched especially for the period of Moliere; on Italian comedy in Spain little that is satisfactory is as yet published; as to Elizabethan and Jacobean England I feel fairly sure that if more definite traces and PBBFACE XI names of Italian actors in London at that period are unearthed, there will be no difficulty in adding to the suggestions I have brought together, some further proof of the existence and the influence of the corn- media dell' arte in England. It is not only to foreign scholars that I realize my indebtedness as I look back over the progress of this little book. Professor John W. Cunliffe, Associate Director of the School of Journalism, Columbia Uni- versity, who almost alone of American scholars is investigating the interrelations of Elizabethan and Italian drama, has taken a very helpful interest in my work. To many of my friends and to several of my fellow-students at Columbia University, to my colleagues in the Department of English at Vassar College, most of all to several members of the Divi- sion of Modern Languages at Columbia, I am under heavy obligations. Professor Arthur A. Livingston has made a number of suggestions on matters of detail. Professor Ashley H. Thorndike has been especially kind, not only in reading the manuscript twice but in offering much valuable criticism. To Professor Jefferson B. Fletcher, who first suggested the commedia dell'arte to me as a subject worth in- vestigating, and who has been unwearied in his in- terest and helpfulness throughout my study, I owe not only particular thanks on many scores, but much gratitude for very far-reaching illuminations of the wider meanings of scholarship. Finally the study I have done with Professor John Dewey has been of vital importance in helping to formulate my point of view. My friend, Mrs. J. S. P. Tatlock, and two Xll PEEKACE others, who from personal interest have read the manuscript entire, must accept this bare acknowl- edgment as a mere symbol of deeper feeling; these last two are my brother, Dr;_Preseryed.,,Smith, of Amherst College, in constant and close touch with my work and never unfruitfully, and Professor Laura J. Wylie, of Vassar College, from my under- graduate days my most stimulating critic and always an untiringly generous friend. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Peeface Chapter, I. Definition of the commbdia dell 'arte. 1 - Characteristics: improvised dialog on an outline plot, set speeches, masked clowns. Themes: satiric U.* treatment of them. Eeasons for growth of im- provised comedy in Italy: importance of profes- sional actors, etc. II. Oeigin of the commedia dell'aete: I. The mountebanks 21 Old theories: Origin in (a) Eoman Mime, (6) in mystery plays, (c) in popular medieval farces. Modern theory: the commedia dell'arte a composite of popular and literary elements. — Popular elements, found chiefly on mountebanks' stages. The mountebanks' troupes and perform- ances described (o) by Coryat, (6) by Garzoni, (c) by Grazzini; indicated by certain traces in the commedia dell'arte, e. g., the charlatan, the gymnast and others. III. ObIGIN of THE' COMMEDIA DELl'aETE, CON- TINUED : II. The Academies 67 The rise of Italian literary drama. Classical influ- ences. Theory and practice. , Academic and courtly performances. L. de'Sommi's precepts for academic theatricals. Eelation of professional to dilettanti actors. Early ^ traces of professional influence on literary drama ; Beoico, Calmo. Growth of the commedia dell'arte as a compromise, form. xiii XIV TABLE OP CONTENTS IV. Some ttpicai, scenakios 103 ^ Comedies: Massimo Trojano, 1568. Flaminio Seala, 1611 and earlier. Pastorals and extravaganzas, 1611 and earlier. Tragedies, late seventeenth century. V. The commedia dell'abtb in fobeign COUNTRIES, 16th AND 17th cbntueies : -V Feance, Germany and Austria, Spain. ^41) The Gelosi and their travels. Other traveling troupes. Influence of the improvised plays on foreign stages, especially on the comedies of MoliSre. Lope de Eueda. Lope de Vega. VI. The COMMEDIA dell 'arte in Elizabethan AND Jacobean England 170 Early Italian entertainers in England; musicians and jugglers, later, troupes of actors. Drusiano Martinelli and others. Proof that the commedia. dell'arte vpas known in England: English references to Masks, to prac- tice of improvising on a scenario: Spanish, Tragedy, Spanish Gypsy, City Wit. Did English actors ever improvise in the Italian fashion? Alleyn's theater "plats," the Dead Man's Fortune, etc. Volpone, I, 1, and a commedia dell'arte analog. Mountebanks in Masques. Summary of the relation between English plays and the commedia dell'arte. VII. The transformation op the commedia dell'arte 200 ^ Improvised comedy superseded in popularity by musical and spectacular entertainments. Survival of the Masks (a) in Italy, especially in popular theaters and marionette shows; G'oldoni's reforms, Gozzi's opposition; Gozzi's Fiabe and the com- TABLE OF CONTENTS XV e|_(6Tiii : media dell'artei {bj in Paris, 17th and 18th cen- ^, tuiies: the licensed Italian theater, Gherardij^Eio- coboni, the Foires, parades and pantomimes, ((c) in England, 18th and 19th centuries: Gherardi translated, vogue of farce and pantomime, crit- ical opposition to both. Conclusion : the commedia doll' arte as a kind of farce ; its materials and point of view ; its contributions to dramatic technic. Appendix A : Scenarios 240 Appendix B: Eelations between English and Italian drama in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries 246 BrBLIOGBAPHY 255 Index 280 ARLECCHINO, CHAPTEE I. ' ' Contemplo nella commedia dell 'arte \m pregio dell 'Italia. ' ' (_Carlo Gozzi.) Many people who have never heard of the com- media dell'arte have enjoyed Le Mariage de Figaro or Don Giovanni, or have seen Watteau's and Lan- cret's pictures of Italian comedians — Gilles and Pierrot — or have smiled at a Christmas pantomime, gay with bespangled Colombines and Harlequins. Again they may possibly have laughed at a Punch and Judy show, or have watched some Mardi-Gras carnival in which black-masked and patchwork- costumed clowns tickle with wooden daggers a kilted soubrette or a long-robed, spectacled Pantaloon. Or if they are practical folk, unused to such holiday gaieties, they may still characterize an enemy as a "miserable zany" or a campaign speech as "a mere harlequinade." Such and even more diverse, are the traces left by "Italy's pride" on the surface of our nlodern life; when we dig deeper we find roots that spread far and are interlaced with many a foreign growth. Disengaging the original stem from others as nearly as may be, we can follow it back quite clearly to about the middle of the sixteenth century when it begins to have a life of its own. The Italian stage in the Cinquecento was richer than that of any other country, rich in popular farces and moralities, rich 2 1 2 IHE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB in academic pieces imitated from the classics; they crowd upon each other most confusingly, as we try hopelessly to separate the May dance from the brus- cello, the farsa from comedy or from allegorical morality. Yet among them all the commedia dell' arte is one of the few kinds of entertainment that may be loosely defined even by those who de- spair of arriving at any satisfactory classification of lite:fary genres. Here the defimition is not to be made on the basis of subject-matter, for that is most various, but by a peculiarity of form. A commedia deU'arte was always ia part the transitory creation of the individual actors who played it ; the plot was known to each member of the troupe, so well-known, indeed, that an entrance or an exit was never missed, but the dialog was chiefly left to be struck out by the suggestion of the moment. Hence the name, — com- media deU'arte all'improvviso, professional impro- vised comedy, for only the actor profession or gild, arte, could be sure enough of itself and sufficiently at home on the stage to play without being tied to lines. Dilettanti noblemen and academicians did, to be sure, try their skill occasionally in this difficult art, as in the first recorded performance of the kind, that at the Bavarian court in 1568 ;* yet such gentle- ^ Cf . V de Amieis, Com. pop. latina, etc., 13 ; he says the name was "inventato appunto in quel tempo (i. e., the sixteenth century) per distinguere quests specie di rappresentazioni, fatte da gente meree- naria, da commedianti di mestiere, che facevano un'arte a fino di luero, da quelle di commedie erudite, scritte seoondo le norme degli autori olassici, che si facevano da letterati, aocademici, o dilettanti nelle corti, nelle sale di palazzi principeschi ed in private accademie. ' ' CHher amateur performances of improvised plays are recorded by Bartoli, Seen, inediti, el, note 6; one dates from 1686, the other from 1753. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB 3 men usually confined their Mstrionic efforts to the easier "sustained" or "learned" written drama and left the improvised to professionals. This simple definition of our comedy by form alone is really the only workable one. Any attempt to limit its content results ia a confusion like that of the traveling players in Hamlet: "Tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pas- toral, tragical-comical - historical - pastoral, " — the Italians played them all, both in free improvised, and in formal written versions. Should we adopt the usual English synonym, the Comedy of Masks, we should again be inexact ; the Masks, as certain of the characters were called fr(^~"the grotesque ■^sards they wore to_heJ.gliten their comic effect, "were after"an not very different from the persons of written plays; even with the special commedia dell' arte names and costumes they often appear in regular comedies, particularly in those of late date, and therefore they ought not to be made a dis- tinguishing mark of the improvised pieces.^ A third test has sometimes been applied, the lazzi, or comic business, with which these plays were so over- loaded,* yet what lively stage is without such ap- 'AUaoci, Vramatwrgia, passim, gives a number of titles of written plays in which the Masks figure, as H Pantalone innamorato, by G. Bricoio (Viterbo, 1629) ; II Pantalone impazzito, by P. Eigelli (Viterbo, 1609). 'Lazzi is defined by Eiccoboni, Hist, du theatre italien, 65: "Nous appellons lazzi ce que Arlequin ou les autres Acteurs masques font au milieu d'une SoSne qu'ils interrompent par des fipouvantes, ou par des badineries fitrangferes au sujet de la matifire que I'on traite, et 5. laqueUe on est pourtant obligfi de revenir: or ce sont ces inutilitfis qui ne consistent que dans le jeu que I'acteur invente suivant son g^nie. " Lazzi, according to a doubtful etymologyj comes from the Tuscan 4 THE COMMBDIA DELL'aBTE peals to a primitive sense of fun? The devil in th^ Mysteries chased sinners off to Hell-mouth with blows as resounding as those inflicted by Arlec- chino on his master's rivals, and Shakespeare's Fools play practical jokes on each other nearly as often as do the Italian Zanni. Whenever even the loosest definition is laid down it must of course immediately be qualified. If im- provisation is to be the test for marking off the corn- media dell' arte, it must at once be stated that the improvisation was never more than partial. Not only was the scenario* or plot outline written in some detail, with entrances and exits noted, but each player possessed a book which he filled with com- positions either original or borrowed, suitable to his role.® One actor rarely took more than one kind of part, whether he learned or improvised it; if he were young, handsome and sentimental, he was cast word lacci, bonds, because these tricks bound the action together. Cf. ^ Re's discussion, Gior. Stor., LV, 329. ' The word scenario for the plot outline does not seem to have been used before the beginning of the nineteenth century; soggetto was the earlier word, or simply comedia. Cf. Brouwer, Ancora uiia Baccolta, etc., 393, note 4. " N. Barbieri, himself an actor and playwright, bears witness to this practice in La Supplica, Chap. VIII: "The actors study to adorn their memories with a great provision of things such as sententious remarks, figures of speech, love discourses, rebukes, desperations and ravings, in order to have them ready at need; and their studies are appropriate to the kind of part they represent. ' ' Perucci, Bell' arte rappresentativa, 364 f., lists and gives examples of "primuseite, disperazioni, dialoghi, rimproveri, saluti, paralelli. " Cf. Croee, Gior. Stor., XXXI, 458 f., a description of a MS. collec- tion dated 1734, of a "wealth of rags and literary scraps" in the form of prologs, sketches for plots, lazzi, poems, monologs for the Doctor's r61e, etc. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB 5 for first or second lover and memorized Petrarchan laments and rhapsodies : if his skill lay in counter- feiting the "childish treble of old age," he played the pedant Doctor Gratiano, or the . . . lean and slipper 'd Pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, and made np long paragraphs of nonsensical, would- be-wise saws and "counsels to youth" on the order of Polonius' farewell to Laertes; if he preferred "Ercles" vein, a tyrant's vein, or "a part to tear a cat in, to make all split, ' ' he figured as the Capitano Spavento, or Eodomontade, or Slay-the-Moors, and composed tirades full of the wildest exaggerations and the most impossible feats ; if he were merely a comical fellow, he studied out lazzi suited to the clown's part and appeared all his life as a Zanni, — Pedrolino, Arlecchino, Pulcinella, as the case might be. The actresses too had their aids to eloquence, though for the women the choice of parts was nar- rower; the prima donna was naturally the most poetical and lackadaisical, and drew for inspiration largely on the sonneteers; the seconda donna was her paler shadow; the servetta — Franceschina or Colombiaa — ^kept closer to earth, had always a ready and none too squeamish word for everyone, and in love speeches to her adorers parodied ludicrously enough her mistress's romantic flights; the old woman, who sometimes though rarely appeared, had often an unsympathetic role and got through it with the plainest words possible and few of them.® All ' The Masks were neither so few nor bo simple as this general classification might lead one to think; a broadly inclusive list is how- 6 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE these ' ' conceits ' ' are very similar to the speeches of corresponding characters in the fully written come- dies and are not unlike the language of the more affected of our Elizabethans, Nathaniel Field for instance. Even the dialects, supposed to mark off the Masks of the commedia dell' arte, are to be found in the learned plays as well, often in great variety^ Again English drama offers a parallel, for from cer- tain early moralities and interludes to Henry V and the Merry Wives of Windsor, dialects were freely and successfully used to give comic tone. Even in our own day the vaudeville stage makes capital of Irish Paddies and French barons and English dukes. Although the Masks resemble the personages of written plays who are partly responsible for their existence, they had also distinctions of their own. In the first place they were almost entirely the crea- tures of whatever actors happened to be interpret- ing a given scenario, — ^they were not poetically real- ized characters but pawns in the plot, — and secondly each one tended to assume a stereotyped habit and name, more significant, really, than anything he might do. When Pantalone de'Bisognosi came on in the long black robe and scarlet hose of a Magnifico of Venice, the audience knew at once that according ever easy to make because only the outlines of characters remain in the scenarios, all their life and variety came from the genius of the actor who filled in the outlines. Cf. a list of some twenty-five minor Masks in 0. Petrai 's Lo spirito delle maschere, and cf . Bartoli, Soen. ined., cM f., for the names of the principal actors in different rfiles. ^Cf. below, chapter II, on Beolco and Calmo. V. Verucci's Li diversi linguaggi (Venetia, 1609) contains French and the dialects of Venice, Bergamo, Bologna, Eome, Naples, Perugia and Florence. Such a mixture was iu no way peculiar to Verucci's style. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 7 to convention he would speak Venetian patois, wonld be stupid, avaricious and amorous and the dupe of the young people in the intrigue.* His old crony, Gratiano, or Doctor Gratiano as he is called ia the more ancient scenarios, was oftenest from Bologna, and wore the gown and hood of that university, with in addition a mask blotched by wine stains to contra- dict slyly his dignified garb. His role varies; like Pantalone he is sometimes the husband, sometimes the father of one of the heroines of the piece, and is generally in love with another young woman. In pursuit of their ends these two old fools are willing to condescend to any disguise and are therefore unmercifully baited by the hero and his servant. Gratiano figures in early scenarios now as a charla- tan, now as a pedagog, sometimes a councillor, agaia — shade of Malvolio! — a majordomo, most often a legal authority or a doctor of medicine.* ' Pantalone 's name has given a good deal of trouble to students ; he was quite certainly not christened after St. Pantaleone, nor does he seem to have been named because he represents a Magnifioo who planted the lion of Venice in the Levant. A modern derivation from the Greek, pantos-elemon, seems still less likely; cf. Piangiani, Vocabolario etimologico, and J. A. Symonds' discussion, Mem. of Count C. Ooszi, I, 44. The name Pantalone was semi-proverbial by 1568 whatever its derivation, •Bartoli, Seen, inediti, xviii f. and 1 f., studies some of the varia- tions of this Mask. A modern rather superficial analysis of the Doctor in his later developments is Sarti'a Teatro dialettale tolog- nese; the author shows how Gratiano persisted on the popular stage in dialect farces, well on into the nineteenth century; cf. especially, lai f. The origin of Gratiano 's name is no clearer than that of Pantalone 's. The creator ef the Mask, according to the older scholars, was Luzio Burehiello who subscribed himself Ims Burchiello Gratid and who imitated an old barber, Gratiano delle Celtiohe; of. Quadrio, Storia 8 Whatever his station in life and Ms relation to the other characters, his manners and morals are much the same, his speech alternately maccaronic Latin nonsense and Bolognese riddles or gnomic sayings of evident folk ancestry, often indecent in their double meaning. The old men's almost invariable enemy, a butt who had seldom a friend in the play, was the Captain, a Spaniard usually, copied from life after the hated foreign mercenaries who crowded sixteenth century Italy. Each actor impersonating him gave a slightly different turn to his .countenance, wore his hat and his moustache cocked at a different angle and changed the color of his cape and the size of his sword, but one and all followed the general outlines laid down by the Thrasos and bravos of written plays and by the first famous Captaia of the corn- media dell' arte, cvQ&ieA. by Francesco Andreini.^" A boastful, cowardly bully, always in love and always unsuccessful, he took small part in the plot except as an object for the wit of others to prey upon, — ^in that e ragione, etc., V, 219. Aneona, eommenting on this (Origini, II, 446, note I) prefers to agree with the derivation of the Doctor from the "canonist Graziano." If Gratian were indeed the learned original of all the foolish clowns who caricatured under his name pre- tentious scholars, until "a Gratiano" became a synonym for fool, the distortion would be no more curious than that of Duns Scotus' unfortunate first name into our English dunce, or that of great-souled Hector into a verb meaning to bully. However Gratiano is not an uncommon Italian name and may have been adopted simply for its humorous suggestion of grace and favor, so ill-assorted to the character. "Senigaglia, Cap. Spavento, is the best single study of this Mask. Cf. also SeheriUo, Commedia dell'arte in Italia, Chap. IV, and Rasi Comici italiani, under Andreini, F. 9 capacity he seems to have been unfailingly delight- ful to his audiences. As he was one of the first figures to appear in the improvised plays — there is a "Spanish desperado" in the oldest known scenario — so he is one of the longest lived; under various names he trod the boards all through the seventeenth century, indeed his ghost still walks and talks in the Neapolitan marionette theater as Eogan- tino or Guappo. And everyone I suppose, knows Gautier's Capitaine Fracasse, a sympathetic attempt to clothe an old idea with flesh.^^ Of the tiresomely monotonous lovers around whom all the other personages circle, there is no need to say more than a word here. They were never Masks, that is, they played with uncovered faces and spoke the most polished Tuscan instead of some provincial dialect; they were in short in the commedia dell' arte just about what the academicians had made them in written comedies, centers of the plot and mouthpieces for love speeches.. The Zanni, however, was a Mask, or rather an infinite variety of Masks. Always of humble station, usually the ser- vant and confidant of a principal character ,^2 some- times a rascal, sometimes a dunce, oftenest a com- plex mixture of the two, almost always the chief plot- weaver, — his main function was to rouse laughter, "It is odd that G'autier named his Gascon Fracasse, for Fracasso was at first a good-for-nothing more like Puleinella than like the Capitano. The earliest Captains, those pictured in Callot's Balli di Sfessania ("little dancers"), are called Cardino, Zerbino, Cerimonia, etc. " Scala 's Burattino is, however, occasionally an inn-keeper, a bailiff or a majordomo, and Puleinella, as Croce points out, was a whole collection of persons in himself. Cf. Croce, Puleinella, passim. 10 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB to entertain at all costs.*' One of the means lie took to this end was the use of some patois, gen- erally Bergamask, not infrequently Neapolitan; another was his curious costume and mask; the most effective of all were his actions, his surprisingly dexterous gymnastic feats, his multifarious dis- guises and his ahsurd songs and lassi. Popular horseplay of this sort is invariably made up of very old traditional jokes, so it is not extraordinary to find that some of Zanni's names point back to a remote antiquity. Arlecchino 's origin has by some adventurous souls been traced to that fearful spirit of the night, Hellequin, who with his mesnie rode the air in the wildest medieval imaginations,** hence, they say, his more than himaan agility and careless deviltry. Pulcinella, it appears from the latest investigations, "Eieooboni, Eist. du theatre italien, CSiap. II. All the characters in the improvised plays of course aimed chiefly to rouse laughter, but Zanni tried harder and succeeded better than the others. " For the French Hellequin cf . Eaynaud, in Etudes romanea dediees d Gaston Paris, 51 f ., and O. Driessen, XJrsprung des Harlelcin. Dante mentions Alichino among his grimly comic devUa, Inferru), XXI, line 118, and XXH, 113 f. Cf. Wesselofsky, AlioMno e Aredodesa, Gior. Stor., XI, 325 f. Eenier, Arlecchino, Fanfulla della domenica, Anno XXVI, no. 12, gives a sensible summary of the problem, showing that the tradition of the diabolical Charivari existed in Italy as well as in France, and admitting that the "transition from the devil-clown to the Zanni- Arlecchino" is very hard to trace. All that we know is that Arlec- chino appeared on the stage at least as early as 1574 when Ganassa played the part in Spain, and that he figures prominently among Scala 's Zanni, before 1611. Whether the protection accorded to Zanni in Paris by AchUle de Harley affected the name of the ItaUan clown as some have thought, seems exceedingly doubtful; of. Sand, Masqttes et Bouffons, I, 73, and Bartoli's criticism, Seen, inediti, clxxiv. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 11 has an ancestor at least as illustrious as Arlecchino, preferable perhaps as being historical instead of mythical ; his name at least, whether or not any con- clusions may be drawn therefrom as to character resemblances, is the same as that of a restless and grotesque patriot of thirteenth century Verona, Pul- ciaella dalle Carceri.^^ It may be a stretch of imagination to see a popular memory of this adven- turer preserved in the Pulcinelli of carnival songs, whether of the fourteenth century or of Sicily to-day; the facts are that such Pulcinelli are men- tioned as long ago as 1363 and that it was probably from them Silvio Fiorillo took the name and idea for the Mask he created in the early seventeenth cen- tury. From that time on Pulcinella takes his part in numerous scenarios and written plays ; Scala does not use him, but he appears in other plots, now as peasant, now as merchant, or as painter, soldier, thief or bandit, always as the successful lover of Co- lombina.^® In Gr. B. della Porta 's outline, La Trapo- laria, he is a silly old burgess, who among other per- formances disguises himself as a Turkish slave-girl. TainelH, in Gior. Stor., LIV, 59 f., makes the connection between Puloinella dalle Carceri and the Pulcinelli of carnival songs. The best study of this Zanni in comedy is Croce's Puloinella, etc. The name may possibly mean little cock, as some have thought from the birdlike mask worn by Puloinella. Or there may have been an actor who gave his name to his creation long before Fiorillo : Croce has dis- covered a Joan Polcinella in 1484 (cf. his Teatri di NapoU, 689) and Scherillo records a Lucio Puleinella who flourished about 15'72. (Cornm. dell' arte, 57-8 and 68-9.) Cf. Easi, Comici italiani, I, 921 f., and for the modern carnival figure, PitrS, Studi di poesia popolare, 58 f. "Cf. the description of Passante's scenarios by Croce, Gior. Stor., XXIX, 211 f. For Porta 'a scenario, cf. Scherillo, Coram, dell' arte, Chap. VT. 12 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB With Arlecchino and Pulcinella are to be grouped Brighella, Pedrolino, Mezzetino, Cola, Trappolino, and innumerable other Zanni, hard to classify be- cause they vary with every actor of the role. None of them wears scT bizarre a suit as Arlecchino, whose many colored patches are reminiscent of his original rags, yet they all have some ludicrous peculiarity of dress and they are all as adroit as Arlecchino in their use of comic tricks and gestures. Ability to move quickly was the first requisite for the clown; on this he had to depend for the effectiveness of his instantaneous maskings and unmaskings, and the appearances and disappearances that so mystified slow-witted old Pantalone and Gratiano and propor- tionately delighted the audience. Brains, too, had to move as quickly as muscles if Zanni were to fulfil his function of embroiling as much as possible his master's rivals and even, with pretended stupidity, his master himself and the heroine. Sometimes he did this by disguising two lovers of the same lady in the same style and sending them to meet under her window where a fight was sure to ensue ; frequently, by ventriloquism in the manner of Ariel,^'^ he imi- tated different voices and led on his impatient dupes to their own confounding ; again he would dress him- self as a ghost or a lunatic or ia a gown exactly like that of the heroine or her maid, and so cause either terror or confusion ;^^ still more remarkable he was able in his own person to play several parts, even on " Cf . scenario published by Toldo, Gior. Stor., XLVT, 128, and that published by Martueci, Nuova Antologia, Ser. II, No. LI, 223 f. "The ghost motif is found most often in the early plays; cf. Seala's Gior. I, Act I, Gior. VII, Act I, and elsewhere in his book. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 13 occasion simultaneously.** The ancient repertory of practical jokes was drawn upon again and again, — blows, trips, stumbles, starts of causeless frigbt, pretence of stupidity, misinterpretation of orders with laughable results, puns and satiric repartee, all these ways of rousing mirth, ways still thriving on our vaudeville stage, were the chief stock in trade of the commedia dell'arte?'^ Just when the tricks came to be conventionalized and listed for the benefit of their performers is not very certain; Scala's book contains few evidences that the lazzi had become by 1611 as stereotyped as the "conceits," whereas Perucci about a century later draws up a long table of apparently well-known " Cf . Arlequin Ung&re du Palais, Gherardi, Theatre, etc., I, 61 f . ; Arlequin dressed half as a man and half as a woman, bobs in and out of two adjoining booths, alternately offering Paseariel linen and lemonade, and in his double rSle, abusing himself and even aiming blows at himself in the most ridiculous way. Similar double parts are still to be seen to-day in the popular theatres of Italy and Spain and are not unknown in city vaudevilles. The device is, I suppose, merely a kind of objectification of a mock-serious debate virith oneself, of the sort that Shakespeare often used in the comic soEloquies of his clowns; Launcelot Gobbo's remarks. Merchant of Venice, II, 2, offer an excellent chance for a dramatisation of the two disputing elements in the boy's own mind. '"Old jokes constantly reappear in the scenarios. For example the central incident of Scala's Cavadenti is the same as that introduced in a minor part of Boccaccio's ninth novella (Decameron, Gior. VIII) which in turn goes back to the medieval Comoedia Lydiae; of Francia, Gior. Stor., XLIX, 201 f., especially 224. In one of the later eigh- teenth century scenarios (of. Diet, des theatres de Paris, VI, 196 f.) ■ Gratiano and Pantalone are hung in two baskets at an equal distance from the ground because they had confided in the promise of a servant to introduce them to her mistress through the window. The same joke was played on Virgil and Hippocrates according to a medieval tale. Cf. Comparetti, Virgilio nel medio evo, II, 109. 14 THE COMMEDIA jokes, as the "laszo of fear," "of weeping and laugli- ing," "of knocking at the door," "of the slipper," and "of crying loudly. "^^ The process of recogniZ' ing, labeling and classifying the lassi must have begun in the Cinquecento, for in Porta 's scenario just mentioned, there are noted the "trick of going back to knock" and "of hiding" and "the I-don't- know-you dodge," all as though familiar to the actor. Presumably they made the basis of a book of reference like those of the set speeches for the other players. Zanni had also, however, written compositions of his own; he often spoke the prolog or epilog to the comedy, and in the course of his love affairs with the servetta he had need of "com- plaints" (for beatings as well as for slighted love) "passions," serenades and sonnets.*^ No one firmly defined character is behind these speeches of course ; they merely express incoherently enough, sentiments and opinions appropriate to the cleverest, the most plain-spoken, the most satirical and the most cynical of the Italian Masks, for whom the insensate rap- tures of a lover are only food for mirth.*^ ^ For other lazzi ef . Croce, Gior. Stor., XXXI, 45S f . "^Bocchini, Corona Maccheronica, I, 6 f., preserves a number of speeches for the servants' r61ea, for "Zagna" as well as for Zagno; cf. II, 28 f., for a typical Petrarchan cursing sonnet, burlesqued, to be used as a clown's serenade. For the servetta cf. Scherillo, Comm. dell'arte, Chap. II and Guillemot, Eevne Contemporaine, 15 mai, 1886, 97 f. "One Zanni thus expresses the unromantie view of love to his master: "This love has made you timid, from a brave man it has turned you into a coward, from a wise man into a fool, from sensible to silly, from a Spanish charger it has changed you to a mule, for from the hour you feU in love you have made nothing but trouble, singing your sonnet nonsense through the streets, your Petrarch in THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aBTE 15 Yet a love intrigue, usually doubled and even tripled, i¥" the life of ^ tllg' Italian plays as of the -^Elizabetlian?* In eYerycaseihe commedia dell'arte tends to be"moi"e^lively^niore exaggerated, more dis- heveled than her formal sister, but allowing for the difference in their dress, the resemblance between them is strikiug. It is the style of drama familiar to us in the Comedy of Errors, the Two Gentlemen .of Verona, some of Chapman's, Middleton's and Jonson's comedies, in short the less serious plays of our great age which combine material from the novellas with borrowings from Plautus and Terence. Only, be it remembered, the English imagination is colder even in the sixteenth century than the Italian, English taste more hesitant to report or to enlarge upon immoral complications and to jest with ribaldry. If the Decameron is truly the fount of all Italian comedy as it certainly is of many single plays, it is the Decameron unexpurgated, unsoften ed, not r efined as Shakespeare refined it in All's Well. In the improvised farces especially, a~~popular amusement above aU things and at least in its begin- nings an amusement for men alone, the unsavori- ness of the fable was intensified by actiag and by jokes far more impudent than the English stage knew in its most imregenerate days.^^ your fist." (Gl' amorosi inganni, by V. Belando, Paris, 1609, Aet I, 60. 13.) " The complication of plot as a characteristic of Renaissance drama is well illustrated by a comparison of Cecchi's Swdli to the Casina of Plautus, Gior. Stor., XXII, 417 f. * The better Italian actors were constantly having to apologize for 16 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE Not that there was not always an underlying theme of at least apparent dignity! Those comnaonplaces of fashionable Eenaissance discussion, the opposi- tion of love to fortune or ttf friendship or to duty, were worked out in the academic plays under the guise of a rivalry between father and son or between a pair of youths for the favor of one mistress; or in the story of a father's recovery of his long lost children, or in the winning back of a faithless lover by a constant maiden. Thejiommedia deU'arte took these themes and twisted them to suit its purpose of merrymaking; shameless old men and still more shameless young people attempt to get their wills through a series of outlandish maskings and tricks, and^^guises like those of Viola in Twelfth Night and Imogen in Cymheline occasion mistakes quite other than those permitted by Shakespeare's sym- pathy for his heroines. In all these intrigues it is the subplot group of characters, the servingmen and maids, who set the tone for the piece as well as plan most of its complications; endowed with more wit their profession. Cf. N. Barbieri's Supplica and P. M. Ceeohini'a Moderns eommedie, passim. Basehet, Comediens italiens, eta., gives an account of the diffi- culties the Italians had with the authorities in Paris, because of the immorality of their plays. Priests, like the Jesuit Ottonelli, launched execrations at the abandoned character of their country's theater and urged in vain a more decent comedy. Ottonelli says the most harmful plays are those given indoors, but this is only because robbery and other ill deeds could more easily be committed in a hall than on the piazza; ef. Bella Christiana moderatione, 457. The priest further accuses the commedia dell' arte in particular (p. 29), "I Zanni Covielli, Pantaloni . . . e simili . . . voglion cavare il Eidicolo dall'- oscenita. ' ' Cf. also Bartoli, Seen, inediti, xiv. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 17 , than sentiment they go about to attain their ends wilBTa fertility and a straightforwardness of bold invention that often plunges them and their betters into_5aQst embarrassing situations. Therefore, while ^ among the pairs betrothed at the end of the play there is always at least one couple from below stairs, "coming toward the ark," their concession to matri- mony does not mean that a romantic tone predomi-. nates at the climax, it rather intensifies the effect of the whole as a piece of parody. Improvisation, with the Masks and all the farcical quips accompanying them, was by no means con-, fined to "right comedies." To the scandalizing of critical theorists in the academies, the Italian actors lightened their serious plays by bits of quite as lively clowning as any in their farces. Laughter, yet more laughter, was the end and aim of the professional entertainers, and they cared only enough for the sacred critical canons to make a few such concessions to decorum as would bring them popularity among well-educated audiences. So they generally passed off laszi in tragedies as acts of madness, not unlike Hamlet's freakish doings and like them when first presented, undoubtedly highly amusing to the house.^® Scala's Mad Princess was evidently very popular and successful for he has preserved larger extracts from her ravings and a fuller account of her wild deeds than of those of most of his hero- ines.^^ A hundred years later several madmen '" Corbin, The EUzahetJum Hamlet. There were comic mad scenes in Marlowe's Dr. Faustus and Tambwlaine as first acted, scenes omitted in the printing. Cf. A. H. Thorndike, Tragedy, 90. "Seala, Gior. XLI; cf. Gior. XXXVIU, La pazzia d' Isabella, 3 18 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB make a scenario in which they figure extravagant enough for the comic opera stage.^® Ifjjmatics were made to bear theburden ,of ridiculaus lassijji^ tragedies andtragicomedies, peasajats.and magicia.m hadjto jgerf orm^a ma j or share of them in pastoEaJs and extravaga,nzas imitated from the Bpanish, for only by seeing the horse-play assigned to such in- ferior characters could a possible objector with his Horace in his pocket, be persuaded that the actors knew their rules as to the observance of dramatic propriety. No definition of the commedia dell' arte howeve^; summary would be complete without at least a glance at one of the .fundamental perplexities connected with' it : why, it will occur to everyone to ask,' dith Italian players alone develop a peculiar kind of comedy out of all the elements of farpical amuse- ment found singly or in partial combination on the stages of other countries? Improvisation, masked fools, acrobatic tricks, intrigue plots, satire and music are widespread in the sixteenth century thea- ter, but only the Italians combined them all on out- lines roughly resembling regular plays. The phe- nomenon has been variously accounted for, most often by ascribing to the Italian race superlative mimetic excellence. But such a would-be explana- tion begs the question and falsifies the facts ; surely summarised below, chap. IV. The pazzie device was used in written plays as in improvised, cf. Portia's La furiosa. ^Un pazgo guarisoe I'altro, Wiener. Sitzungsberichte, phil.-hist. j Klasse, CXLIII, part 16. The play is of Spanish inspiration,— DonJ' Quixote figures in it, — and it is closely allied to a written comedy of the same name by G. Gigli (pr. 1704). THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 19 it takes much greater mimetic power to represent adequately Othello or Alceste than to play Pantalone or Gratiano. More truly, I think, the materials making up the commedia dell' arte should be recognized as nothing but the contents of a kind of general property-box, tricks of the trade demanding not so much great as superficial readiness of technic. Just why the Italians were able to use these professional tools more freely and effectively than their foreign rivals is ultimately perhaps inexplicable. Yet one reason for the fact is pretty certainly that drama- tists of great talent were rarer in Italy than else- where and that such men as did write for the stage were entirely aristocratic and academic in training and sympathies ; consequently a large proportion of literary plays are narrow in their appeal and imita- tive and unconvincing in their art. Another and even weightier cause for the formation of the im- provised pieces is to be found in the position of pro- fessional actors ; these bands were attached to noble patrons longer than in other countries, owing to the relatively late establishment of public theaters in Italy, and since educated Italians very early had become persuaded of the value of the drama and the importance of its presenters, all the players had been allowed great liberty in the matter of reper- tory. Naturally such willingness on the part of their public to take what was offered it at the theater would in the long run lower the average of the art by bringing to the surface the mediocre resources of merely mercenary troupes and individuals, and 20 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB therefore the habits of improvising dialog, of using masked characters and old jokes, would be formed and set. In so confused a situation no one reason for the origin of the commedia deU'arte can be singled out as decisive, though it is perfectly easy to see that its peculiarities sprang from tenacious and by no means unique folk customs and that under academic supervision they were pruned and trained by the skilful hands of the professional actors who later spread them broadcast over Europe. CHAPTER II. Not a little nonsense lias been written about tbe "evolution" of the commedia dell'arte. Of the three main theories that attempt to account for our farces the hoariest and most outgrown is that con- cerning their putative Eoman father, surely a ghost that by now ought to be permanently laid; next in respectability as in age is the hypothesis that makes the Masks direct descendants of comic personages in the mystery plays; finally a modern student^ takes pains to trace back what he considers commedia dell'arte motifs and figures into the folk literature of the middle ages and from this material to deduce a medieval profane comedy which he asserts must have existed perhaps for centuries, side by side with the sacred representations, until it flowered into the sixteenth century professional plays we know. On the whole dispassionate criticism is tendijag to abanr.. donor radically to, modify these ..theories in such a w-ay as to make the actor class itself and in the very Cinquecentd, responsible for its peculiar product. Exactly what this responsibility was and how it caused the formation of improvised plays, I shall, complex though the process be, try to explain in this chapter and the next, after showing briefly why the older hypotheses have become untenable. The theory concerning the derivation of the 'Stoppato, in La commedia popolare in Italia (1887). 21 22 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE Italian masked plays from tlie Atellanae took its rise among the classicists of the Eenaissance, admirers of antiquity so enthusiastic that they traced every element in their own experience back to a Latin prototype. Such irregular performances as the im- provised farces, no matter how amusing, were naturally regarded askance by the sticklers for dramatic propriety until the suggestion that the Eomans had enjoyed something similar put an end to embarrassment by giving a reason for admiring and encouraging these pieces. Niccolo Eossi in 1589 reluctantly admits the apology: "I would never call those things comedies which are carried about by wretched mercenary creatures, — containing Gianni of Bergamo, Francatrippa, Pantalone and such like buffoons, — if we could not compare them to the mimes, the Atellanae and the planipedes of the ancients, ' '^ and Minturno still earlier likens carnival farces of Cava which he had seen, to the ' ' Comedie Atelane" that made hearers in old days "laugh themselves lame."^ For about a hundred and fifty years such state- ments continued to be made without much attempt at proof, until lucky accident stimulated and fortified the theorists. A grotesque statuette representing a beak-nosed, hunch-backed individual, was unearthed at Herculaneum in 1727, which by a slight stretch of imagination could be identified with Maccus, sup- posed a type character in the Atellanae and often compared to one of the masked clowns on the Italian ' Discorsi suUa commedia, 34. 'Arte poetica (1563), II, 214. THE 23 stage.* Riccoboni, encouraged by tbis find, very soon published a fairly elaborate argument for the Eoman connection, supporting his assertions by references to the classics, calling Arlecchino for in- stance a survival of one of the "Mimi centunculi," and tracing the Zanni to the Sannio naentioned by Cicero.^ A little later Du Bos definitely reads back the commedia dell' arte into the Atellanae, a proceed- ing that underlay Eiccoboni's line of thought, though evidently it was with him unconscious : ' ' The Atel- lana (says Du Bos) was a kind of piece -very like the common Italian comedies; that is those whose dialogs are not written. The actor therefore of the Atellanae performed his part just as he pleased and flourished it as his fancy directed."® With A. "W. Schlegel the theory which had begun as nothing more than an apologetic analogy and had developed into an apparently proved hypothesis, 'Cf. Dieterich, Fulcinella, and Collier's Fvmch and Judy, amus- ing and inaccurate. The identification of the statuette with a figure in the Mimes or even with a stage character at all is very uncertain, nor is it safe to press its resemblance to the English Punch; there is no doubt that it looks like Punch but this, I think, is best explained by the fame of the figure at the time of its discovery and by the influence of its peculiarities on the face and figure of the English villain-clown. ^Sist. du theatre ital., Chap. I; Eicooboni, in the pride of scholar- ship, ridicules the derivation of Zanni from the Bergamask abbrevia- tion for Giovanni, a common-sense suggestion that had been made even before his time and that is now generally accepted. The pas- sage from Cicero is "Quid enim potest tarn ridiculum quam Sannio est! Qui ore, vultu, imitandis motibus, voce, denique corpore ridetur ipso." (Be orations, lib. II, parag. 61.) The allusion seems to be quite as probably to a particular actor as to a masked character type in a certain kind of farce. 'Critical Befiections (1748), I, 136. 24 THE COMMEDIA DBLL'AETE entered on a third stage, — tlie two forms of art were explained as similar expressions of similar race characteristics: "Of the many talents for art and literature displayed by the Italians, the dramatic is by no means preeminent, and this defect they seem to have inherited from the Eomans, in the same manner as their great talent for mimicry and buffoonery goes back to the most ancient times. The extemporary compositions called Fabulae Atel- lanae, the only original and national form of the Eoman drama, in respect of form were not perhaps more perfect than the so-called commedia dell' arte, in which the parts being fixed and invariable, the dialog is extemporized by masked actors."'' Modern students® have in general combined the point of view here suggested with attempts to trace the "evolution of the genre" from Eoman days to the Cinquecento and beyond, often with a weight of classical quotation that is quite appalling. Maccus, Pappus, Dorsennus, assumed to be masked person- ages in the Atellanae, are respectively compared to one or other of the Italian Masks with an industry that fails to convince only because it does not sue- ' Lectures on Dram. Art and Lit., Lecture II, 35. As usual Schlegel is inaccurate in details, he evidently had little knowledge of the commedia dell 'arte at first-hand. 'V. de Amicis, La commedia popolare latina, etc., makes the most serious effort to enlarge on Eiccoboni's thesis and to prove his state- ments more scientifically; the best modern view of this "tempting"' but "uncritical proceeding," as Symonds calls it (Mem. of Count C. Gozzi, 1, 36-7), is clearly stated in a review of Amicis' book, Gior. Stor., XLII, 219. C. G. Grysar, Der romische Mimus, is a study of the facts about the Eoman Mime, so unprejudiced and thorough as to be still authori- tative, though dated 1854:. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 25 ceed in proving that the mimes have been fairly ap- proached; in every case the Latin allusions have been interpreted in the light of the improvised comedy. The facts disinterestedly probed seem to be piti- fully meager. The fancy pictures of Maccus, drawn so sharply from the ancient statuette, and of Pap- pus, Bucco and Dorsennus, generalized so readily from imaginary etymologies of their names, disap- pear in the haze of uncertainty which surrounds the names themselves. Was Maccus, who figures in so many surviving titles as exul or miles or virgo, a type character taking the chief role in a little drama, or was he not more probably a favorite actor or reciter who satirized well-known individuals or some unpopular class in society?" Were the Atellanae farces or realistic monologs and dialogs on every- day life, like those of the Sicilian Herodas?" What part, if any, did masks, improvisation and gymnastic feats play in the mimes? No example of an "Atel- lanan farce" has lived to answer these questions definitely and as I have said most studies in this field have been vitiated by deductive reasoning based on the commedia dell' arte itself. The weight of i m- p artia l opinion now inclines to^regard the Mimes not asjarcical intrigues but as dramatic, character satir e, for that reason if for no Q.t,her widely differ- ent from their supposed offspring., . " Even admitting the unproved hypothesis that the ° Scherillo suggests that Maccus may have been an actor, La Comm. dell 'arte, 57. " Sharpley, A Bealist of the Aegean, a translation of Herodas. Cf. P. S. Allen, Mod. Philology, Jan., 1910, 320 f. 26 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE Atellanae were farces marked by improvisation and masked personages, it would be impossible to estab- lish between them and the Italian extempore plays a connection worthy the name. Eiccoboni to be sure with his comfortable eighteenth century dogmatism, assumed that the commedie dell' arte of his day were literally linked to the Mimes by an unbroken chain of similar comedies extending back through the middle ages ; he went so far indeed as to assert that scenarios of Dante's time were in existence. It is this meager statement that has been seized upon by a different school of students, those who are primarily inter- ested in proving the continuity of profane comedy through the middle ages rather than in finding its origin in ancient Eome. Of these scholars Stoppato is the most serious but with all his erudition he has not succeeded in making his argument convincing; his examples of farces, contrasti and the like, how- ever analogous some of their features may be to some of the elements of the professional plays, are still quite distinct kinds of dramatic performances. As Mr. Allen has recently and forcibly said, "If we make one thing the literary source of another . . . then we mean the first thing is the direct and ascer- tainable source of the second thing. We do not mean that vaguely and despite our utter lack of proof the first thing is in a general sort of way perhaps in its age what the second thing is in its later time."" And no amount of_good will can make the shadowy Roman Mime or the still more insubstantial medi- eval profane comedy take the definite form of the perfectly familiar commedia dell' arte. "* The Medieval Mimus, 339, note 2. THE COMMEDIA DELl'aETE 27 Neither is it possible to trace the Masks as some have endeavofe37"tg~ceTtai n dramaUcv^irre gjEt"Ea- = Mxatery4ilaj:sZloonstance to the boasting captain, the pedantic or magicianlike astrologer with his Latin lingo, and the clownish devil and his imps. These personages may offer some analogy to those of later Renaissance comedy but merely because they represent quite universal kinds of people, the soldier, the old scholar, the rustic, and fools and knaves of various stripes. „JfJ;he sacred repre- sentations had any real influence, it was not through their "characters so mugh as through the tradition of^age technic learned and handed on by the actors in these earliest .regularly organized and regularly performed dramas. Strolling professional players apparently first brought into the Mysteries in the burlesque roles of devils, next took over the parts susceptible of comic color and in the late fifteenth century became not only the chief actors but the managers of these spectacles, by that time gor- geously presented.^^ Instead then of ancestor-hunting in imperial Rome fflr in the middle ages, the commedia dell' arte might 1 ' petter try to account for itself by looking about in i the sixteenth century where it first"*comes to con- sciousness,. There, overflowing with life, alternately'' shouting and tumbling with vulgar strength and "For texts of the Sacre Bappresentazioni cf. Torraca, Teatro Italiano, and Giudici, Storia, etc. The best work on the early Italian theater is of course Ancona's Origini, etc. Por the part taken by the professional actors in the sacred plays, cf. Ciampi, Bappresen- tazioni sacre nella parte comica, 30 f.; Quadrio, Storia, etc., V, 207; Ancona, op. cit., 1, 55 and 77. 28 THE COMMEDIA posturing and singing with exquisite grace, the genius of the people expressed itself through the drama as freely and variously as did the English spirit under Elizabeth fifty years later. Carnival dances, folk plays, courtly mythological spectacles, moral allegories and sacred legends all satisfied some of the general demands for amusement, and each in turn contributed something toward the edu- cation of those wandering entertainers who became more important with every increase in their reper- tory. Gradually the players formed themselves into gilds whose prerogative was acting; gradually, by a combination of effrontery and merit, t hey made their way into the presence of nobles powerful enough to protect them and to give them position; finally through their attachment to great families they became firmly enough established to venture on their own initiative something bolder than the mere representation of the texts given. them. It is in this last moment of their successful social climb- ing that they seem to have thought of creating ex- tempore plays, yet not until they went at least one step farther and began to emancipate themselves from aristocratic patronage by looking to a larger public for approval could they have dared to bring from the streets and squares, farcical themes and masked clowns of popular origin and to introduce them often and systematically into plays of semi- literary appeal; thus only after the middle of the sixteenth century do commedie deU'arte as we know them, — outline pilots filled in by extempore dialog, — begin to be recorded. So tangled a situation is THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 29 naturally impossible to sketch, very clearly except as it is bound up with the history of the men and women who worked it out in their daily rehearsals, after they had painfully forced their way into legitimate drama. If then the actors themselves are to explain the commedia dell' arte it is the least respectable of this despised class who are most important for the pur- pose, since it is they, fluent improvisator!, active gymnasts and shameless wits, who gave their crea- tion its peculiar stamp by keeping alive on public squares the themes and language and grotesque figures of popular festival, and by beginning in the late fifteenth century, to bring their tricks into the pastimes of the great.^® Cantimbanchi, saltimbcm- chi, fmountebanks, charlatans, jugglers,^so they were called, men, women and children together, wan- dering gypsylike from country fair to city carnival, setting up their temporary stages wherever they might hope for a few pennies from the crowd, free for half an hour from the interference of civil or ecclesiastical officers. They were compelled to lurk in corners partly because they sold quack medicines of doubtful composition, "counterpoisons" more apt to kill than cure^jP partly because they practiced ^'Bartoli, Seen, inediti, ix-x, says of improvised comedy: "questa commedia che probabilmente si recita per tutto il Medioevo degli istrioni piii volgari, mezzi commedianti e mezzi saltimbanchi, sali in grande onore verso la fine del secolo XVI." " Picot, Le monolog dramatique, Eomania, XVI, 492 f ., published a monolog by Eutebeuf, Li diz de I'erberie (Paris, c. 1250), which proves the antiquity of the charlatans' practice of selling their wares in public with commendatory speeches. Picot draws an analogy be- tween these early mountebanks and those of the fifteenth century. 30 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB sleight of hand and magic, still more because their songs and dances and jests were judged unwhole- some for the public morals.^* Probably the early street performances varied little from those so gaily painted by Garzoni and Cory at a century later, although by 1600 official intollerance was somewhat less marked than it had been. Coryat, an open-minded English traveler who saw Venice in 1608, begins his description: "I hope it will not be esteemed for an impertencee to my dis- course, if I next speake of the Mountebanks of Venice, seeing that amongst other thinges that doe much famouse this Citie, these two sorts of people, namely the Cortezans and the Mountebanks, are not the least : for although there are Mountebanks also in other Cities of Italy: yet because there is a greater concurse of them in Venice then else where, and that of the better sort and the most eloquent fellowes ; and also for that there is a larger tolleration of them here then in other Cities (for in Eome, &c., they are restrained from certain matters as I haue heard which are here allowed them) therefore they vse to name a Venetian Mountebank . . . for the cory- phaeus and principall Mountebank of all Italy; neither doe I much doubt but that this treatise of them will be acceptable to some readers as being a meere nouelty neuer before heard of (I thinke) by thousands of our English Grallants . . . when I was in Venice they oftentimes ministered infinite pleas- ure vnto me. I will first beginne with the etymologic "Cf. Chambers, Medieval Stage, Bk. I, for a description of the medieval strollers and their art. ^' Coryat 's Crudities, reprinted from the edition of 1611 II 50-4. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 31 of their name: the word Mountebank (being in the Italian tongue Monta'in banco) is compounded of two Italian words, Montare, which signifieth to ascend or goe vp to a place, and banco, a bench, be- cause these fellowes doe act their part vpon a stage, which is compacted of benches or fourmes, though I haue seene some fewe of them also stand vpon the ground when they tell their tales, which are such as are commonly callted Ciarlatanoe's or Ciarlatans, in Latin they are called Circulatores and Agyrtae, which is derived from the Greeke worde ayhpeu which signifieth to gather or draw a company of people together. . . . The principall place where they acte, is the first part of Saint Marks street that reacheth betwixt the "West front of S. Marks Church, and the opposite front of Saint Oeminians Church. In which, twice a day, that is in the morning and in the afternoone, you may see fiue or sixe seuerall stages erected for them: those that acte vpon the ground, euen the foresaid Ciarlatans being of the poorer sorte of them, stand most commonly in the second part of S. Marks, not far from the gate of the Duks Palace. These Mountebanks at one end of their stage place their truncke, which is replenished with a world of new fangled trumperies. After the whole rabble of them is gotten vp to the stage, wherof some weare visards being disguised like fooles in a play, some that are women (for there are diuers also amongst them) are attyred with habits accord- ing to that person that they sustaine ; after (I say) they are all vpon the stage, the musicke begins. Sometimes vocall, sometimes instrumentall, and 32 sometimes both together. This musicke is a pre- amble and introduction to the ensuing matter : in the meane time while the musicke playes, the principall Mountebank which is the Captaine and ringleader of all the rest, opens his truncke and sets abroach his wares ; after the musicke hath ceased, he maketh an oration to the audience of halfe an houre long, or almost an houre. Wherein he doth most hyper- bolically extoll the vertue of his drugs and con- fections : Laudat venalea qui vult extrudere merees. Though many of them are very counterfeit and false. Truely I often wondred at many of these naturall Orators. For they would tell their tales with such admirable volubility and plausible grace, euen ex- tempore, and seasoned with that singular variety of elegant jests and witty conceits, that they did often strike admiration into strangers that neuer heard them before: and by how much the more eloquent these Naturalists are by so much the greater audi^ ence they draw vnto them, and the more ware they sell. After the chiefest Mountebanks first speech is ended, he deluereth out his commodities by little and little, the iester still playing his part, and the musitians singing and playing vpon their instru- ments. The principall thinges that they sell are oyles, soueraigne waters, amorous songs printed, Apothecary drugs, and a Commonweale of other trifles. The head Mountebank at euery time that he deliuereth out anything, maketh an extemporall speech, which he doth eftsoones intermingle with such sauory iests (but spiced now and then with THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 33 singullar scurrility) that they minister passing mirth and laughter to the whole company, which perhaps may consist of a thousand people that flock together about one of the stages. ... I haue obserued mar- ueilous strange matters done by some of these Mountebanks. For I saw one of them holde a viper in his hand, and play with his sting a quarter of an houre together, and yet receiue no hurt ; though an- other man should haue beene presently stung to death with it. He made vs all beleeue that the same viper was linealy descended from the generation of that viper that kept out of the fire vpon S. Pauls hand, in the Island of Melita, now called Malta, and did him no hurt ; and told vs moreouer that it would sting some and not others. Also I haue seene a Mountebanke hackle and gash his naked arme with a knife most pitifully to beholde, so that the blood hath streamed out in great abundance, and by and by after he hath applied a certaine oyle vnto it, wherewith he hath incontinent both stanched the blood and so throughly healed the woundes and gashes, that when he hath afterward shewed vs his arme againe, we could not possibly perceiue the least token of a gash. Besides there was another black gowned Mountebanke that gaue most excellent con- tentment to the company that frequented his stage. This fellow was borne blinde, and so continued to that day: he hath neuer missed Saint Markes place twise a day for sixe weekes together: he was noted to be a singular fellow for singing extemporall songes, and for a pretty kinde of musicke that he made with two bones betwixt his fingers. Moreouer 4 34 THE COMMEDIA. DELL'aBTB I haue seene some of them doe such, strange iugling triekes as would be alimost incredible to be reported. Also I haue obserued this in them, that after they haue extolled their wares to the skies, hauing set the price of tenne crownes vpon some of their commodi- ties, they haue at last descended so low that they haue taken for it foure gazets, which is something Iqss than a groat. These merry fellowes doe most commonly continue two good howres vpon the stage, and at last when they.hq,ue fedde the audience with such passing variety of^ sport that they are euen cloyed with the superfluity of their conceits, and haue sold as much ware as they can, they remoue their trinkets and stage till the next meeting. Thus much concerning Mountebankes." Garzoni throws more light on the bizarre crea- tures, the masked, bedizened tricksters, male and female, who clustered around the chief charlatan.*'' "Here (he says) is Zan della Vigna with his per- forming monkey; there Catullo and his guitar; in another corner the Mantuan merry-andrew, dressed like a zany, Zottino . . . and a pretty Sicilian rope- dancer. Tamburino spins eggs on a stick, the Neapolitan capers about with brimming bowls of water on his pate; and Maestro Paolo da Arezzo makes his solemn entry with a waving banner, on which we see St. Paul ... his great ancestor."' Again "in one comer of the square you see our gal- lant Fortunio with Fritata . . . entertaining the company every evening from ten to twelve, spinning "Garzoni, Piazza universale, 738 f. I quote the first selection in Symonds' translation {Mem. of Count C. Gozgi, I, 78), the others; in my own. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aKTE 35 yarns, inventing tales, composing dialogs . . . sing- ing extempore, getting angry with each other, mak- ing up, dying of laughter, changing countenance again, falling on the stage, quarreling anew and at last pulling out their purses and coming to the point, the cash for which they have fished with all this polished chatter." "In the backgroimd Burattino staggers along with a sack on his back like a peasant porter; elsewhere snake-charmers and dog-trainers attract a portion of the crowd, while the gymnasts too have their admirers." Fabio, an a ctor ' ' of grea t worth," holds his audience spellbound by ''his grace and fair3iacourse" as w^TlTas by Ms accomplish- ment of turning from red to pale and back again.** The agility of several members of the band is shown by an appallingly various list of jumps which they exhibited, "somersault, standing jump, . . . back- ward jump with feet crossed, . . . out of the window, . . . on to the table, . . , the cat's leap into the chair, ' ' and among numerous others, the one for which Gabriele da Bologna was noted, "the back somersault with hands on hips."*^ The central figure in every group of charlatans, the quack doctor, half astrologer, half magician, nimbused by a certain mysterious terror, traded on the superstitions of his audience in his long-winded nonsensical speeches about the more than natural " The same feat was a chief acquirement of the Spanish actress Marie de Kiqueline (Fl. c. 1625). Cf. Eennert, Spanish Stage, 163. Fabio like several, perhaps all of the strollers mentioned by Garzoni was a real person who made his name c. 1580. Cf. Easi, Comici italiani, I, 854. "Cferzoni, Piaeza universale, 197. 36 THE COMMEDIA powers of his drugs.^" He made a specialty of riddling couplets, gnomic sayings and burlesque pre- scriptions — ancient conceits that undoubtedly influ- enced the Doctor of the commedia dell' arte. Lodo- vico de'Bianchi, the famous Gratiano of the Gelosi, himself sometime a mountebank, published in 1585 a book of wise observations, "conceits" for his role in the improvised plays, that probably represents very fairly a portion of the charlatan's stock speeches. The author introduces himself thus: A poet well-known from afar And near as an unexcelled star, A doctor who cures all the healthy, Fortune-teller, helps all to be wealthy, Magician who surely will find The things you've forgot from your mind.^^ After such claims we might be justified in expecting something more stimulating than the actual plati- tudes he presents us ; in fact it is hard to understand the popularity of such remarks on the stage, for to most of us it would be a little wearisome to be told often that, ' ' The man who walks is not dead, " " The ship on the high seas is not in port," "A himgry ^ The problems of the relation of the charlatan to the doctor of folk-plays and of the latter to the primitive medicine-man are too complicated to go into here. Some curious facts on the medical super- stitions of the Italian peasantry are collected in Zanetti, Medicina delle nostre donne. For the universality of the quack-doctor in folk- plays cf . Chambers, Med. Stage, Bk. II, and Ordish, Folk Drama, Folk Lore, II, 331. ='I translate the doggerel somewhat freely from the introduction to Le cento e dodici conclusioni in ottava Bima, del Plusquamperfetto Bottor Gratiano, Partesana da FrancoUno, comico geloso . . ., pub. c. 1585. --4M4 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 37 person has great appetite," "A gentleman is not a peasant," "One who does not hear may be called deaf," "He who does not speak might be considered dumb, ' ' etc. Probably the Bolbgnese dialect of these rimes and the weight of gravity with which they were uttered at various inapropos moments in the comedy accounts for their unfailing comic appeal. In kind they are not imlike the ever green platitudes of folk poetry, statements of analogy self-evident to sophis- ticated minds but always delightfully fresh to the simple.^2 The quack doctor beside selling his wares some- times took part in one of the crude farces or con- trasti given on the street stages. Perhaps the oldest theme in which he found his place is the struggle between winter and summer, personified in the Con- trasto between Master Carnival and Lady Lent; each of the leading characters appropriately dressed salutes the other in foully abusive language till both ^Ameona, La poesia popolare, 94, gives an example of Contrmrj from a MS. of the Quattrocento that is very similar in tone to these rimes of Gratiano. Tor instance La salsiccia non h came, Ne la came non 6 salsiccia; Ne bu non 6 torriceia, Ne la torriceia non 6 bu. Ne le tre non son du ; Ne le du non son tre . . . etc., etc. The rimed couplets or quatrains closing a speech or scene in some commedie dell'arte may perhaps be a relic of another folk tradition; many Italian folk tales end with a rime, sometimes a little charm or blessing, sometimes a challenge to another story-teller to "do it better." Cf. Neri in Gior. Stor., I, 78, Bartoli, Seen. ined. Ixsix, for the chiusette, as the couplets were called in the improvised plays; and Crane, Ital. Pop. Tales, xvi-xvii, and Pitr6, Fiahe, etc., I, 196, for the rimes in folk tales. 38 THE COMMBDIA DBLL'aBTB fall to blows to decide their contest. Carnival must die of course but not until be bas called in doctors and magicians, beard and even attempted tbeir burlesque prescriptions, and made a ridiculous will, leaving to bis sisters bis "credits never acquired," to bis wife "property not yet bougbt" and to otbers still less desirable gifts ; tben amidst bowls of grief from members of tbe family. Lent summons ber enemy's soul,^* — apiece of unadulterated folk humor, witb all its outrageous flyting, its fisticuffs, its in- decencies and its parody of serious subjects in tbe mock testament, deatb and lamenting. In a little Frottola di Carnqsciale printed in 1554 tbere is more evidence of "cultured" interest; tbe tbemes are tbe same but tbere is inserted a conversation between two councillors wbo try to explain a dream Carnival bas bad, in a coarse and senseless Latin.^* Eealistic farces of common life like those of medi- eval' France were also given by tbe mountebanks. Tbe doctor frequently took part in them, always m a grotesque manner, and tbe comic consultations and tbe extravagant remedies of Gratiano were in- herited from these popular pieces.^^ Cola's advice ^A. Lumine, Farse di carnevale, etc., 67. Others are given in the same collection. For a modern example of. Gior. Stor., XXXI, 17S. "Ancona, Origini, I, 539. Cf. the Tragicomedia di Sguaquadrante Carnevale et di Madonna Quaresima (Brescia, 1544), described in Manzoni'a Libro di carnevale, etc. There is a strong influence surviving from such contrasti to be found in scenarios; cf. that published by Toldo, Gior. Stor., XLVI, 128 f ., where one of the main episodes is a dispute and fight between two peasant merchants who finally appeal to a judge for settlement. ^'In the farse of P. A. Caracciolo, early Cinqueeento, the doctor takes a prominent part; cf. the Farsa in persona di un Malato e di tre Medici, cited Ancona, Origini, I, 578 f. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 39 to the Zanni in II Medico Volante on a cure for tooth- ache is quite absurd enough for the charlatan's repertory: "Hold a ripe apple in your mouth (he says) and put your head in the oven; before the apple is cooked your toothache will be gone."^* In another scenario a doctor tells Arllequin that there is no hopeless insanity, "upon which he speaks a tirade, enumerating ridiculously various madnesses of men, adding thereto ^remedies just as ridiculous for curing them."^^ It is not of course G-ratiano alone who preserves bits of the charlatan's repertory in the commedia dell' arte. Many of the lazsi of the Zanni were simply the mountebank's tricks introduced into the improvised plays as episodic farce, furnishing a means for the clown to exhibit his characteristic nim- bleness. Scala's scenarios indicate that the Pedro- lino, Burattino and Arlecchino of his company could leap on and off the stage with disconcerting rapidity, sometimes from a dark corner of the street, some- times through a window; that they slipped into a disguise and dropped it again in the winking of an eye; that they were equally expert in whatever re- quired manual deftness, whether fencing or picking pockets ; in short that they were accomplished in aU those "singeries tres-agr'eables " which Gherardi tells us have alWays been proper to the Italian plays.^* " Bartoli, Seen, inediti, 104 f ., Act II, so. 3. "Un paz3o guarisce I'aUro, Wiener Sitzungsberiehte, CXLIII, part 16. "Gherardi, The&tre italien, IV, 21, L 'opera de campagne, Act I, "Cette scSne est une des plus plaiaantes de toute la comfidie, mais 40 THE COMMEDIA The mock fights that so often mark the close of a scene or an act in the scenarios are among the most important of the agreeable monkey tricks inherited from the charlatan's bench by the actors of corn- media dell' arte. The more extravagant these fights • the more the brawlers were clapped; when Scara- muccia at the age of eighty-three was still able to administer a box on the ear with his foot, he was considered the marvel of the Italian stage, "the completest, the most famous Italian artist of the seventeenth century."*" That trick to be sure was only one of his large collection yet it is fairly repre- sentative; not many jokes in the improvised farces got beyond the low level of horse-play set by the mountebanks' exhibitions. Sometimes however there was a slight seasoning of wit to disguise the flatness of the jest, as in a deceit practiced on the Doctor in Scala's fifteenth piece. The old miser enters with a plate of seven delicate little fritters "received from one of his clients," and begins to count them, saying, " 'Three for me, two for my guest and two for my son'; then saying that the maid would be offended if she didn't eat some, he made a new division, saying, 'three for me, two for my guest, one for my son and the other for the maid.' Then he decided that this e'est une de celles qui ne se peuvent exprimer . . . c'est ce qu'on appelle seSne italienne, sc6ne jouee sur le champ, sans rien apprendre par coeur et qui depend entiSrement du gSnie et de 1 'esprit de I'acteur." lb.. Act II, se. 2, p. 39, "La scSne ... est encore tres- plaisante, par le jeu que Arlequin y fait, en donnant au bailli tantot un coup de pied, tantot un coup de b&ton, et par d'autres singeries trSs-agrfiables. . . - " ^Easi, Comici italiani, I, 888 f. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 41 was not a good thought, to make the maid equal to his son. Arlecchiuo signals the Captain to get behind the Doctor, then Arlecchino kneeling, begs alms, saying he had been driven out of his home. The Doctor asks the history of his misfortune and Arlecchino begins: 'Signor mio, your lordship should know that my father had a stranger to break- fast with him one morning ; when they had finished eating many dishes a platter was brought in with seven little fritters on it; I seeing it and delighting in such fodder, cast my eye on them and saw how they swam in their batter, and were all a golden color, wrapped up in honey ; then the guest stretched out his hand, took one and ate it' (here the Captain from behind the Doctor, reached over, taking a fritter and eating it at a mouthful), and so as Arlec- chino numbered the fritters they were taken and eaten by the Captain, Arlecchino remarking, 'I had to watch the greediness of this gltuttonous stranger.' Finally, seeing that he had got to the last ... he drew his sword and giving him (i. e., Gratiano) a blow said 'Much good may they do you!' and then left with the Captain." From the context it is clear that Arlecchino 's rage is directed against the Doctor for his miserliness which is here rewarded as it deserves. The incident is a kind of interlude in the comedy and is exactly the tjrpe of trick that the miscellaneous performances on street corners were likely to develop and actors coming from them into more regular plays, to utilize as they could. Most of the absurdest lazzi m the improvised farces fell to the role of the servant-clown, the 42 THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aETE Zanni. Like the grotesque lad, the Tommy, of Eng- lish folk plays, the Zanni shows signs of being a traditional relic of immemorial ceremonies; his "^mask, either a black animal face or a birdlike beak, the rabbit scut in his cap, his suit of many-colored j' rags, his wooden dagger, all point back to the rustic agricultural festivals whose spirit the carnival li- cense and the mountebanks' exhibitions preserve.^" Perhaps, as has been suggested, this primitive figure was early associated in some parts of the country with satire of the Bergamask peasant facchino who haunted Venetian squares ; certainly from the middle of the sixteenth century the Zanni of comedy tended to speak the patois of Bergamo and to be paired off x^ in dialogs with the rich old Venetian merchant, Pantalone.^^ This ancient sage, at first only one among several clowns in the charlatan's band, by about 1550 had definitely put on the long gown and beard of the Magnifico and had begun to illustrate the proverb,^^ "Vecchio innamorato e il saracino " Chambers, Medieval Stage, I, 192, and Bk. II passim. The derivation of Zanni 's name from the Bergamask abbreviation of Giovanni is now generally accepted. Cf. Tirabosohi, Vocabolario, etc., and Panigiani, op. cit., under Zanni. "Merlini, La satira eontro il villano, 139 f. The suggested con- nection of the Zanni with the Bergamask facchino is apt only in Venice where the peasant porters were unpopular; it does not apply to south Italian types. " Mr. Livingstone tells me that the reference in the proverb is to a "saracen" or block of wood tilted at in a game something like the Elizabethan quintain. One example of the popularity of this judg- ment gives the gist of many stomelli: Sent! questo stornel, com '6 curioso, Un vecchio di aessant'anni vuole un baciol Canti pop. delta montagna Vacchese, ed. Giannini, 85. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 43 della piazza," "an old man in love is the butt of the piazza." As early as 1518/9 Pontano describes an enter- tainment played outdoors by masked actors,^* but whether or not Zanni and Pantalone were among them he does not say. From that time on however Zan, or Zanni, or Zoan, "Bergamask servant," begins to appear in written plays, "ludi zanneschi" to be mentioned vaguely among courtly amusements and Zanni with various companions to be noted in accounts of carnival merry-makings.** At the Eoman Mardi-gras of 1555/6 Joachim du Bellay saw / Marc 'Antonio and Zanni "bouffoner avec un Magni-( fique a la Venitienne"*^ and to 1559 belongs the\ much-quoted carnival song of Anton-Francescor Grazzini, supposed to be sung by this pair of fools. This Canto di Zanni e Magnifichi is one of several madrigals seemingly written by Grazzini for pro- fessional strollers to sing;*® there is a Song for Buffoons and Parasites,^'' "cheerful, happy folk," "J. J. Pontani, Opera (Venetft, 1518/9) II, 91 f. Quoted by Crooe, Teatri di NapoU, Chap. I. "Merlini, Satira contro il villano, 144 ,f., '^ays that the rarions kinds of rustic plays containing satire of the peasant, — frottole, contrasti, etc. — are caUed indifferently " vilaneschi, " "alia berga- masca" and "aUa f acchinesca. " Like t{^ entertainment given by Beolco, referred to below, these simple little pieces were often recited at banquets, probably with some of their jokes improvised at the moment. Cf . Aneona, Origini, I, 414-5. Solerti, Ferrara, etc., Ixxxix-xc, says: "In una lettera del 18 gen- naio, 1585, cominciano ad apparire gU Zanni, ma non sappiamo quali e quanti fossero," etc. This seems to refer to a particular company which took its name from its chief actor. "^ Cited by Flamini, H Cinquecento, 314. " Tutu i Trionfij etc., Grrazzini 's songs are in volume II. He ia best known by his nickname of II Lasca, "lb., II, 468-9. 44 they call themselves, though they go on to complain of the discouraging number of clowns in Florence; there is a song of Youths impoverished by Courte- sans,^^ which except for its verse form might serve as one of the lover's laments in an improvised play; there is also a description by the "surgeon-doctors" of their cures for human ailments, doggerel quite possibly droned by some mountebank in the street. The most interesting of these pieces is the first, the duet, or perhaps the two part chorus, of Zanni and Magnifichi which has frequently been called the first satisfactory evidence of the commedia dell' arte :^^ Playing the Bergamask and the Venetian, Traveling in every part, And acting comedies our famous art, . . . All Zanni we. Actors fine as you may see. The other chosen players, Hermits saying burlesque prayers, Lovers, women, braggart captains. At the hall are guarding treasure. . . . When you our brand new farces hear and see You'll laugh beyond all measure, At their quips and jests so free. The comedy well ended Gorgeous ballets are appended, Whose fresh and varied jokes cannot be mended. But since in this old town "lb., II, 471-3. There is a Canto de'medici fisicM, I, 48. '"This song may have been written as early as 1540 though not printed till 1559; the piece is so important that I attempt a rough translation of the more significant parts, though they have often been noted before. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 45 Ladies, you are not allowed to come To see us at our hall, "We'E visit you in your own home, To show you at least some Of the sweet and lively pleasure of our art, As lucky men in public see each part. Pray hear awhile what jolly clatter Among themselves these witty Zanni chatter ! . . . See from the scabbard How daggers fly, and staves, and do such acts As force wise men with folly to make pacts. Moreover we will show you there A painted scene well-made and fair, — There where Cantinella acts And Zanni offers you such mirth and gaiety. So if you wish to be Diverted for a time. And laugh more than your fill. To-morrow seek our playhouse on the hill.*" '" I append the original with apologies for the freedoms I have taken with it, especially with the final couplet. Pacendo il Bergamasco, e'l Veneziano, N'andiamo in ogni parte, E'l recitar commedie S la nostra arte. . . . E Zanni tutti siamo Eecitatori eceelenti, e perfetti: Gli altri Strioni eletti Amanti, Donne, Komiti e soldati Alia stanza per guardia son restati. . . . Commedie nuove abbiam composto in guisa Che quando recitar le sentirete Morrete deUa risa Tanto son belle, giocose e facete; E dopo ancor vedrete Una danza ballar sopra la scena Di varj e nuovi giuoohi tutta plena. 46 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB The whole poem reads like an advertisement for an approaching performance of a highly amusing kind. The repertory of this troupe can be inferred or rather guessed from the list of characters, to be composed of realistic farces popular in theme and origin, for May-plays and other rustic comedies loved to ridicule the hermit of unrighteous life and pretention to holiness, and they were quite as severe on the chicken-livered braggart who in Italy as else- where took a prominent part in folk merriments.** The soldier of these city street shows, however, was Ma perehe-'n questa terra (i. e. Tlorenee) Doime, che voi non potete venire A vederei alia stanza Dove faeciamo ognun lieto gioire: Se ei volete aprire Verremo in casa a far gustarvi in parte, La doleezza, e'l piacer della nostra arte. Di grazia udite un po', ehe eiarleria Insieme fanno que valenti Zanni. . . . Vedete f uor de 'panni TJscir pugnali, stoeeM, e far certi atti Da far crepar di rider savj e matti. Alfin vogliamvi una ben fatta e bella Prospettiva di nuovo far vedere, La dove il Cantinella E Zanni vi daran spasso e piacere. Or ee volete avere Buon tempo un pezzo B rider fuor d'usanza Domau venite a trovarei alia stanza. Ancona, Origini, II, 405, says stanza is the term for a private room where professional actors played, sola for a hall in a palace where private performances were given. "Mazzi, Congrega del Bozzi, II, passim, gives many examples of rustic comedies in which the hermit's ill-living and pious professions are satirised. Of. Stoppato, Comm. pop., 107 f. THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aETB 47 more than a reminiscence of the boasting peasant fools ; he was a merciless parody on the well-hated ( foreign bra vos and militarymercenaries, French and ' Spanish, who overran the country at this time.** It was just because he was made to express the general loathing of these tyrannical aliens that in Italy his figure is especially definite and ubiquitous. Numer- ous farces survive which though late in date give a fair idea of this grotesque soldier among the mountebanks and prove it to have been alive with vulgar force and homely wit. Like the quack doctor the hero has to have some- one to talk to and chooses Zanni as his confidant, just as in the speeches for the Captain's part pub- lished later by Andreini, it is to his squire that the vain-glorious one looks for an audience,** unfortu- nately without finding the sympathy and support he might wish. In one dialog Zanni comments, verse about with his master, on the exaggerated state- ments of the latter: "He is the king of cowards, this fellow, in all his acts and doings."** The Captain answers, "If you knew how many this hand has slain, ..." and so on in his usual style, till Zanni " Senigaglia, Cap. Spavento, introductory pages, and Basi, Cormci italiani, I, S2. "Ancona, Origini, II, 59 f., notes some resemblances between popular types in folk tales and in the Sacre Bappresentasioni. Cf. Stoppato, Com. pop., 193' f., for an analysis of a Farsa satira morale by V. Venturini (pr. before 1521) in which a certain Spampana takes a large part, " dimostrandosi . . . bravissimo bravo." " The tremendous force and bold deeds of Cap. Seads-off-and-Spit- Dart, an honest and laughable trifle, is the title of one of these rimed eonversationa, pr. Bologna, 1603; cited entire with others of the same sort by Easi, Comici itdliani, I, 67 f. 48 THE brings him down witli "I know well enough that hand has slain a quantity of lice."*^ It is hardly necessary to quote more to show that in his way the Captain was as much of a charlatan as the quack doctor ; both dealt with words rather than deeds and both were fair game for the satire of the plain man whom Zanni always represents. The "Donne" of the company whom Grazzini's clown mentions as preparing at the Hall for a per- formance, were probably really women, not boys dressed for female roles. Their characters as well as their repertory, can be inferred from the remark here that honest women did not attend public spectacles, at least in Florence.** There was always a great deal of license on the Italian stage and what it must have been in the lower class of entertainment, cer- tain scenes of the commedia dell'arte remain to wit- ness.*^ The heroine's maid exhibits all the tradi- tional agility of a mountebank by dances and "feats of activity" like those of a wandering Signora "Easi, op. cit., 1, 71-2, Contrasto alia Napolitano ridicoloso. "Montaigne, Voyage en Italie (1581), 253-4, says of Italian women, "ou ellea se laissent voir en public, soit en coehe, en feste, ou en theatre elles sont &. part des homes. ' ' The same custom was observed in the Spanish theatres, cf. Eennert, Spanish Stage, 118 f . As to the character of the women who went to the public plays generally in Italy, cf. Coryat's account of the Venetian playhouses, cited below. Ademollo, Teatri di Boma, xxii-iii, states that he has found records of boys occasionally taking the part of " rraneeschina in comedy," even in public performances in the latter half of the Cinqueeento; this would have been more usual in Eome however than elsewhere. "The written plays immoral though they are in tone and plot, probably could not have been presented with as much brazenness of action as the freer improvised comedies. Cf. Bartoli, Seen, ined., sdi f . THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 49 Angela "who jumps so well" commended by the Duke of Mantua's secretary in 1567.*^ Moreover the most outspoken in effrontery among the Masks was always the maid, and in her boldness she was quite true to her antecedents ; when Franceschina advises her mistress to put on a masculine habit and volun- teers to teach her how to wear it, she reminds us of the girl in the mountebank's troupe who, dressed as a man, marched at the head of the company, an- nouncing a coming performance.** So G-arzoni pic- tures her in his satirical account of an indoor play by a traveling band of the very sort Grazzini's carnival song advertises: "When they (the actors) enter a city, a drum im- mediately lets everyone know their arrival; the woman dressed as a man goes ahead, sword in hand, to make the announcement and invite the populace to a comedy or a tragedy in a palace or at the Pil- grim Inn, where the mob, eager for novelty and curious by nature, flock to occupy the Stanza, pass- ing into the room by means of a groat; there they find an imitation stage, a scene painted with char- coal; they hear an introductory concert of donkeys . . . ; a prolog by a charlatan, an awkward thing like that of Fra Stoppino ; the action is as stupid as misfortune; the intermedj as bad; a Magnifico not worth a penny ; a Zanni who is a goose ; a Grratiano who spits out his words ; a silly idiotic bawd ; a lover who lames everyone's arms when he talks; a Spaniard who can say nothing but Mi vida and Mi "Ancona, Origini, 1, 449. " Garzoni, Piasza universale, 320-1. 60 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE corason; a pedant who goes off on Tuscan words all the time ; a Burattino who knows no gesture but that of putting his cap on his head; a Signora who is a monster in her speaking, dead in her talking, asleep when she gesticulates, who is at war with the Graces and has had an important difference with Beauty. So that the crowd comes away scandalized and ill- satisfied with them, carrying off the memory of the villanous speeches recited, resolved not to spend a penny the next day to hear again such nonsense, . . . Thus by the wretched doings of such people good actors come to be despised and suffer affronts not at all suitable to their merits." Although Garzoni is pleased to be very sarcastic over the "wretched doings" of these humble players it is in exactly such a school as the one here por- trayed that the good actors he commends were trained. By his time — ^the mid-sixteenth century — differences between fine and poor players were easier to note than they would have been fifty years before the formation of regular companies and their alliance with aristocratic patrons. When the older records are searched for traces of the steps in the actors' upward progress, the earliest are found to be a few tantalizingly scant and unsatisfactory notices, scattered chiefly in accounts of carnival gaieties^" and for the most part mere allusions in the letters of princes to some buffoon whom they have taken from his companions and established as court '"Passages in the commedie dell'arte recall this association of its actors with the carnival; Cf. Scala, Teotro, Gior., XXI, where Graziano excuses himself for being drunk by saying it is carnival season, II finto negromante, Act II. THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aBTE 51 fool.^^ Sucli was "our Fritellino" described in a note from Giovanni Gonzaga to Isabella d'Este,^^ as leading a dance with all the grotesque motions "which he knows how to do," a juggler rather than an actor. More dramatic were the powers of a certain Strasino who at the Eoman carnival of 1518 recited a farce "all by himself,"^* and a "comedia bufona" performed by Fra Mariano, a clerical clown in the protection of Leo X.** Another jester under the same papal patronage, Francesco de'Nobili, fled from Rome in 1527 and became popular in Venice in a kind of farcical comedy which has often been con- fused with the improvised plays of fifty years later.'" Of Zan Polo, still another Venetian buffoon, there is recorded a success that throws more light on the court performances given by these men; between "'It seems probable that in the Quattrocento as in the following century there was a good deal of interaction between piazza and palace, less differentiation than in earlier days between court fool and strolling player. Cf. G. Bonifacio, Giullari e uomini di corte nel Dugento (Napoli, 1907), for the early history of court entertainments. "* Dated Jan. 25, 1495, cited Ancona, Origini, II, 366-7. Whether Fritellino were the real name of this clown or the nickname of a Mask, is not known; as will appear below Fritellino was the stage title of the famous actor-manager P. M. Cecchini, about a cen- tury after this. Cf. AdemoUo, Vna famiglia di comiei italiani, ix-x. "Ademollo, Alessandro VI, Giuliano II e Leone X, 78-9. " Graf, Attraverso il Cinquecento, 369 f., brings together the extant information about this curious person, once a priest. Cf. Easi, Comiei italiani, I, Giov. Ammonio, for the account of another actor-friar of the period. Also Bartoli, Buffoni di corte, Fanfulla della domenica, 1882, number II. "F. de'Nobili (called II Cherea or sometimes Terenziano), on the authority of Klein, Gesch. des Dramas, TV, 903, has been credited with the "invention" of the commedia dell'arte, — quite mistakenly, as is proved by Bartoli, Seen, ined., x, note I, and Eossi, Lettere di M. Andrea Calmo xviii. 52 THE COMMBDIA the acts of Plautus ' Miles Gloriosus, played by dilet- tanti (February 16, 1515), Zan Polo acted, evidently with helpers, a "new comedy, feigning that he was a necromancer and that he went to Hell, and showed a Hell with Furies and Devils ; then he represented the God of Love and was carried to Hell . . . there was a dance, then music of nymphs in a triumphal car who sang a song. ... "^® Zan Polo here was the victim of his enviroimaent ; he was obliged to consult the tastes of the academicians, choose a semi- classical fable and keep to the stage usual in aristo- cratic entertainments, the open, three-story arrange- ment of the Mysteries.^^ With the exception of the laszi of the devils and necromancer there is nothing here to suggest the peculiar art of the street mounte- banks nor to point the way toward the perfection of "professional comedy." Yet it was in Venice that an actor took the first long stride toward self -asserting independence and there that he worked out a form of art of his own, in some ways prophetic of the commedia dell' arte. Angelo Beolco, a Paduan associated with Zan Polo in Venetian records of 1520 and after, is certainly one of the first of those actor-manager-dramatists who were responsible for the evolution of the im- ™The play was given before the Accademici Immortali at San Beneto near Pesaro and was described by a witness, cited Easij Comici ital., II, 748. Cf. ibid., II, 600-1 for more discussion of Zan Polo. " The stage of the Mysteries was used for allegorical performances after it had been discarded for the presentation of the classical comedies so fashionable at the end of the Quattrocento. Cf. Ancona, Origini, II, 2 f., for a description of the first version of Poliziano's Orfeo, played in 1471, "not at aU different" in form from a Mystery. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB 53 provised plays. An illegitimate son of a noble house, a man whose "affable nature" and whose learning admitted him both to aristocratic academies and to bourgeois clubs,^* he turned to account all his knowledge and observation by writing plays of a new kind; in them he drew for plot material from the classic theater, from vernacular tales and — ^in this he was particularly original — from popular con- trasti.^^ His enthusiastic publisher, Griovanni Greco, assures his "wise readers" with a little pardonable exaggeration, that the work of his author is "char- acterized by good morals and descriptions of virtue and vice, of truth and falsehood, marvellously ob- servant of decorum . . . (containing) in them a great portion of moral philosophy, with such witty speeches that this alone, without the oddity of the different dialects, would suffice to delight and to instruct."®" Whatever efforts Beolco, like his friend Zan Polo, may have made to please his fellow-academicians, — and this preface shows he made some — his most genuine interest was undoubtedly in humbler life and in the representation of it to his audiences. His ™ Preface to Tutte le Opere di Messer Angela Beolcho (Vicenza, 1584). Cf. E. Lovarini, Gior. Stor., XXXIII, Supp. 2. ^ Contrasto is a general term for dramatized debates, sometimes realistic, sometimes symbolic, similar to the Latin Conflictus, the medieval Debat or the primitive flyting. For old examples of con- trasti cf. Carducci, Cantilene e hallate and Lvunine, Farse di came- vale, etc., also Eenier, Appunti sul contrasto fra la madre e la figlia tramosa di marito, Miscel. nuziale Eossi-Teiss. "■ Opere, Lettera ai saggi lettori. Beolco himself probably would not have formulated his theory quite so exactly, as by the time this letter was written (1584) criticism had become much more precise than it was when Beolco wrote, sixty years earlier. 54 THE OOMMEDIA ^own part in his plays was ttat of a rustic fool — ■ ■j' whence his dialect nickname, II Euzzante, the rustic speaker, — a kindly satirical portrait of the Berga- mask peasant whose unmorality and stupidity, awk- wardness and rough speech, he mimicked to per- fection.^^ Not one of his plays is without a rustic or a group of them; sometimes the setting is a situation familiar to readers of French farces, in which a thick-headed peasant husband is unmerci- fully baited by his lively wife and her lovers. Again, as in La Moschetta, three or four country folk work out in abusive flytings the author's answer to a fashionable problem treated here and there in the Decameron, as to the sinfulness of love between godfather and godmother. Or as in the romantic comedy. La Rodiana, played at Venice in 1549, the low-class characters are introduced by way of farcical relief to the monotonous propriety of the principal lovers.^^ Through the conventionality of "Ancona, Origini, II, 130, note 6, quotes a contemporary tribute to Beoleo 's skill, dated Feb. 13, 1520, a description of a comedy "a la vilanesca" done by a "certain Euzante, a Paduan, who as a peasant spoke most excellently." The r61e taken by Buzzante him- self varied from play to play, though it was given a kind of unity by the name, dialect and peasant status of the character; he was sometimes a lover, as in La Fiorina, sometimes a duped husband, as in La Moschetta, sometimes a boasting soldier, as in L'Anconitana. ""This play is especially noteworthy for the number of dialects used in it; one of the humbler personages speaks a Venetian patois; another Bergamask; a third, an old man, swears immensely in still ,a different lingo; a negromante uses something like Spanish mixed with Latin and Italian, finally Corrado "Tedesco," talks in mimicry of the German accent. There has been a deal of discussion as to the authorship of this play, which many critics ascribe to Calmo though it was first published as Beoleo 's. Cf. Rossi, Lettere, etc., XXXVII f., and XLIV. THK COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 55 much of the characterization there penetrates a good deal of fresh observation and rather more sympathy than one finds in most sixteenth century representa- tions of the despised third estate. No matter how popular the material and how homely the art, such plays as these, written with quite elaborate artistic finish by a man of as much originality and as much interest in character as Beolco, offer veryHttle rgsemblance to improyised intrigue farces which are almost entirely the ex- tempore composition of several actors and actresses. It is probable that occasionally Ruzzante left some scene of clowning to the invention of the individual who took a comic part ; indeed he is thought to have composed a dialog on rustic themes in which one of the stage directions reads, "Zilio the lover comes on singing and arguing with himself of the nature of love," a gap being left in the verses for this im- provised soliloquy.** It is certain also that the liveliness of the comedies depended largely on the lazsi of the peasants, yet neither such jests nor the use of dialects were entirely peculiar to Beolco 's work. Even granting in addition that some dis- guises were worn and that the stupid rustic was sufficiently stereotyped to be called a Mask, Euzzante ought not to be regarded as the father of the corn- media dell'arte.^* One of its grandfathers, to keep °^ Cf . Eossi, Lettere, etc, xxi-ii, note, and Ixxix-lxxx. ** Sand, Masques et Bouffons, 35 f ., following Eiceoboni, Hist, du thedtre italien, 50 f., laid great stress on the relation of Beolco to the commedia deU 'arte; he was imitated by Burckhardt, for criticism of whom cf. Bartoli, Seen, ined., cxxvii, note 3, and Flamini, II Cin- quecento, 304 f. Even so well-informed a student as Baschet says 56 to the trite figure, lie might perhaps more justly be named, for as a practical playwright and actor he took, as I have said, the first step toward that fusion of classic and popular themes and technic, of ro- mantic story and satirical characterization which provided later Italian actors with a common fund of material for the plays peculiarly theirs. Yet no scenario from his hand has been discovered and there is no reason to think he wrote one; plot was not his chief preoccupation and he was too much the literary artist ever to have been content with out- lining an intrigue for other and less skilful men to fill in as the moment prompted. This Venetian genius seems moreover never to have organized or managed a troupe capable of ex- pressing his ideas in words of their own. The meager notices that remain to tell of Ms perform- ances at princely festivals and before learned socie- ties rather indicate that he relied for help on such singers and entertainers as chanced in his way. In 1532 he had trouble in finding enough professional actors to play a comedy before Ercole d'Este at Ferrara.^® Once however at a banquet in 1529, he is mentioned with five other men and two women as singing "most beautiful songs and madrigals" and going around the table "chanting of rustic things and in that (rustic) language most pleasingly, and dressed in their new style. "«« Whether this were an unusual occasion or whether he employed women that Beolco "mis en vogue" the improvised plays, c. 1526-7; cf. Les comediens italiens, etc., 12-3. "Rossi, Letters, etc., xxx-xxxi. "Aneona, Origini, II, 120, note 6. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 57 regularly in Ms plays as well as for songs and dances, is uncertain; probably lie followed the cus- tom of the dilettanti academicians, who distributed heroines' roles among their yoimgest men.*'' For although the women among the mountebanks did not hesitate to take speaking parts any more than to walk the rope, dance, sing or play the lute, they were too untrained to be given important places in the academic productions, either Latin or Italian ; accordingly the noble youths themselves in their quality of amateurs, at first played the comedies written for them by Ariosto or Bibbiena or Grazzini, and engaged professionals only for the clown's parts and for the musical and spectacular interludes.®* Before 1550 there seem to have been few efforts to bring together the professionals sporadically em- ployed, in permanent troupes attached to specific " As late as 1542 it is recorded that men took the women 's parts in an Italian play, the Orbecche of Giraldi Cintio; ef. Amicis, La commedia popolare latina, 82. Cecchini, Breve discorso, etc., says it is "scarcely fifty years since women have appeared generally on the stage"; he speaks with the authority of a long-lived actor who had traveled much and should have known whereof he spoke. Eiccoboni quotes him acquiescently (Hist, du tMdtre italien, 42) and indeed the statement has never been seriously questioned so far as regular dramas are concerned; actresses took part much earlier in courtly intermedj and in street farces, cf. Ademollo, Teatro di Boma, xxii-iii. "The prologs of Grazzini's comedies testify to this custom of dilettante acting; cf. especially the prolog "alle donne" to La Gelosia and the long prose prolog to La Strega, ed. of 1859, 10 and 171 respectively. Cf. Ademollo, Teatri di Homa, 35 f., and Una famiglia, etc., x f. Anoona, Origini, II, 137, note. 2, describes a performance of the Andria in 1539 in which a princess of the Este family took part; ef. ib., 352, 494 and 551. 58 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB patrons. Even the theater-loving princes of Fer- rara made no attempt to hold the actors they tem- porarily applauded; Ercole d'Este writes, February 5, 1496, to Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, that he regrets not being able to send him the comedy recently given at court; the roles for each person, he adds, were written out separately and never put together, and as the actors had scattered the comedy was lost.®" Such players as made a favorable impression at one palace were sure of engagement at another, but between these moments of glory and repletion the majority went back to the precarious hand-to-mouth existence of the un- protected stroller. During the first half of the century however there must have been great progress made in the develop- ment of class-consciousness among the players, and consequently in their efforts to organize their troupes and to study their art. After 1550 public \ theaters began to be built and the best of the wander- ! ing bands to be formed into regular companies under ' the protection of noble patrons.'^" There were "Letter quoted by Easi, Comici italiani, II, 448; cf. ib., 703. The actors mentioned, all men, seem to have been professionals unattached to a patron. Eossi, Lettere, etc., xxx f., discusses admirably the actor class in the Cinquecento. ™ The dates for the foundation of theatres in the chief cities of Italy are thus given by AdemoUo, Una famiglia., etc., introduction, and in Teatri di Soma. Mantua, c. 1550. Venice before 1565. Siena, 1570. Eome before 1575. Florence, 1576. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 59 usually some ten or twelve actors in one group, a number that remained about the average for two centuries ; the Magnifico, the Gratiano, the Captain, two pairs of lovers and from three to five clowns for servants' parts or for inn-keepers, peasants and magicians, were the essential characters, and they were united in an organization more or less perma- nent according to their leader's strength and tactJ^ This leader was licensed by some prince to choose his companions and that difficult task accomplished, was expected to recognize his first duty to Ms lord ','"^ at odd times he was allowed to play in public and to reap the considerable rewards that came from such representations.'^* Milan before 1583. There was a public theater in Naples before the end of the century, ef. Croce, Teatri di NapoU, Chap. IV. Eicci, Teatri di Bologna, Chap. I, thinks the Teatro della Sala iu Bologna was built in the first half of the sixteenth century. He publishes in this book some interesting plans of early stages. " Eossi, Lettere, etc., xxx f ., says the earliest companies were not formed before 1548. Ancona, Origini, II, 454, sets 1567 as the year in which public performances were general. There were ten persons in the TJniti in 1584. Tristano Martinelli had in his "good and perfect company" (1621) ten or eleven persons (Jarro, L'Epistolario, etc., 26-7). Biccoboni (Bist. and Crit. Account of the Theaters of Europe, 68) says: "No Italian company ever con- tains more than eleven Actors and Actresses; of whom five, including the Scaramouch, speak only the Bolognese, Venetian, Lombard and Neapolitan dialects." Biccoboni 's contemporary, the Italian actor, A. Constantini, in his Vie de Scaramouche, 171, mentions as the essential characters in an Italian troupe : ' ' two lovers, three women, — to wit, two for the serious parts, and one for the comic, — one Scara- mouche, a Neapolitan; one Pantalone, a Venetian; one Doctor, a Bolognese; one Mezzetin and one Arlequin, both Lombards." In this company the Scaramouche would play the Captain. " Jarro, L 'Epistolario, etc., 22-7 and 35. "Jarro, op. cit., passim, especially 58. 60 Probably the atmosphere of freedom and the mixed company as well as the more certain pay, had something to do with making the actors feel most at home on a public stage. Coryat at least bears vivid witness to the simplicity and informality of one of the better Venetian theaters, describing it in detail : "I was at one of their Play-houses where I saw a Comedie acted. The house is very beggarly and base in comparison of our stately Play-houses in England ; neyther can their Actors compare with vs for apparell, shewes and musicke. Here I obserued certaine things that I neuer saw before. For I saw women acte, a thing that I neuer saw before, though I haue heard that it hath beene sometimes vsed in London, and they performed it with as good a grace, action and gesture and whatsoeuer convenient for a Player, as euer I saw any masculine Actor. Also their noble and famous Cortezans came to this Comedy, but so disguised, that a man cannot per- ceiue them. For they wore double maskes vpon their faces, to the end they might not be seene : one reaching from the toppe of their forehead to their chinne and under their necke; another with twiskes of downy or wooly stuffe couering their noses. . . . They were so graced that they sate on high alone by themselues in the best roome of all the Play-house. If any man should be so resolute to unmaske one of them but in merriment onely to see their faces, it is said that were he neuer so noble or worthy a per- sonage, he should be cut in pieces before he should come forth of the roome, especially if he were a stranger. I saw some men also in the Play-house, THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 61 disguised in the same manner with double visards, those were said to be the fauorites of the same Cor- tezans: they sit not here in galleries as we doe in London. For there is but one or two little galleries in the house, wherein the Cortezans only sit. But all the men doe sit beneath in the yard or court, euery man vpon his seuerall stoole, for the which he payeth a gazet."^* It would be a little hard to realize to-day were not Elizabethan customs familiar to us, that in the public theaters the Italian players like the English were not free from obligation to their patrons. Numerous decrees and letters are extant telling of the favor or the tyranny from which supposedly protected com- panies rejoiced or suffered. In 1565 the governor of Milan, Don' Gabriel della Cueva, prohibited all "Masters and players of comedies, herb-sellers, charlatans, buffoons, Zanni and mountebanks" "who are used to mount their platforms and to draw a crowd around them" to play on church feast days or in Lent or on stages near the church except after service, ' ' on pain of whipping. ' ' The governor was a Spaniard and perhaps brought his country's manners with him, for the church and the state between them made an actor's life hardly worth living in Spain.''® Yet Italian clerics were some- times equally severe ; the Grelosi had great difficulty in persuading Carlo Borromeo to allow them to play their "honest and pleasing comedies" in Milan, and were in fact only permitted to give those pieces that "Coryats Crudities, II, 16-18'. "Eennert, Spanish Stage, 207 f. 62 THE COMMBDIA DELL'AETE had passed the censorship of ' ' several learned and pious theologians."^® It would be interesting to know which of the plays, all seemingly about on a level so far as taste and morality go, this worthy jury pronounced harmless to the public; probably they only suppressed those containing a tinge of heresy or blasphemy. Occasionally there are traces of other limitations, such as that laid down by Sixtus V in 1588, forbidding the Desiosi to employ women in their comedies while in Eome and further requir- ing them to act by daylight .'''' On the whole most Italian princes, secular or eccle- siastical, were less careful of the sacred interests of morality than the few unfavorable decrees alluded to would imply. Once the rage for theatricals was started, the high and mighty fairly f dught with each other in the attempt to give beautiful and startling spectacles and to procure the most accomplished interpreters for their pieces. The Cardinal Orazio Lancelloti, a creature of Paul V, had a little theater of his own and a band of actresses, — some dressed as men, — ^whom he trained and rehearsed himself.'^® The Dukes of Mantua were among the first to estab- lish their own companies and were such liberal and obliging patrons that their favor was much sought. In 1580 the then Duke of Mantua appointed Fran- cesco Angeloni chief of the Mantuan "mercenary "The whole of this interesting duel between the saintly arch- bishop and the most famous of the Italian companies has been ably studied by Scherillo, La comm. deU'arte, Chap. VI, 139 f. Ancona claims to have published the facts first, Origini, II, 183, note 2. " Scherillo, op. cit., 138, and Ancona, op. cit., I, 416, note 5. " In 1615 and after. Cf . Ademollo, Teatri di Soma, 5-6. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 63 actors, charlatans and mountebanks" with permis- sion to grant a written license to other players "to recite comedies or to sing in the street while selling chestnuts or other trifles."'® Again some years later the Duke's decree shows that the connection between the mountebanks and their more fortunate fellows was still close; Tristano Martinelli, the famous Arlecchino, is declared ' ' superior to all mer- cenary players," to Zaratani, jugglers, . . . who put up their stages for selling oils, soaps, romances {historie) and the like articles: we make him supe- rior to them aU in this our State and also in the other of Monferrato, so that none of them, either alone or accompanied, may dare to recite farces or to sing on the platform . . . without a license from the said Martinelli in writing, nor to leave without license from the same, under pain of being stripped of all they have either in common or of their own, which shaU be divided into three parts, "^" one part for the treasury, one for the magistrate and the third, pre- sumably, for Martinelli who was very avaricious. The decree goes on to state the toll that the monopo- list was allowed to levy, and to say that Arlecchino was to supervise all festivals in order that neither scandals nor disorders should occur. Such documents are interesting to us principally in their suggestions of the way that the popular ele- ments in the strollers ' performances were brought to ™Easi, Comici italiani, I, 162, and Anoona, Origini, II, 474 and note 1. "Jarro, L'Epistolario, etc., 11. Barbieri's SuppUca furnishes valuable information on the relation of actors to patrons in the early Seieento. 64 THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aBTE the notice of educated audiences and learned dram- atists. From about 1565 when an actor known as Pantalone appears in a Eoman lawsuit,®^ the Masks begin to emerge from obscurity and to crowd into the foreground of the only public attention that counts historically, that of important personages and letter-writers. Naturally it is in records of carnival festivities when universal license was per- mitted and when the clowns were most in evidence, that the most frequent mention is found of the Masks and of the properties they require, — ^visards, beards and the like.*^ At the carnival of 1565 "ein Vene- diger mit sein Knecht, Zane," entertained Ferdi- nand, Duke of Bavaria, in Verona so gaily that one could "nit Peser noch wercklicher gedenkhen"; the same letter describes a Prologus "dressed like a Doctor, riding in on a donkey,"** probably a person- age from a popular rustic comedy ia which the quack magician and the doctor were one and the same. In 1566 there is an allusion to the Spanish Captain of comedy in a complaint of the Duke of Mantua's secretary that "the Spaniard of the comedies" has not come in time to act his part.** The same Man- tuan archives note performances in 1567**^ by La Fliaminia (probably the "young Eoman woman" praised in an earlier document) and by the "Easi, Comici italiani, II, 231. '^Solerti, Ferrara, etc., cxlix. The ducal accomits of Ferrara and Mantua have been the most carefully searched for records of comici; cf. Ancona, Origini, II, 510, note 1. •"Trautmann, ItaUemische Schauspieler, etc., 234. "Ancona, Origini, II, 443, points out that the Spaniard must have been a Mask, not a Spanish actor. " Ancona, Origini, II, 447 f . and 445. 65 "G-raziani," a company wMch took the name of its leader, a specialist in the Doctor's role. That many of the plays given so successfully be- , fore these aristocratic audiences were commedie j deU'arte is made fairly certain by the oldest surviv- iug scenario (1568), a play so well developed in its V main characteristics that it could not possibly have been unique. Moreover Henri III seems to have been entertained by two improvised plays of the ^G;elflsi~when he was at Venice in 1574; at least he peremptorily summoned the whole company to France two years later, begging especially that "the woman called Vittoria*^ and the Magnifique ' ' should not fail to come, — an indication that the Masks stood out vividly in his memory.*'^ There must still how- ever have been a good many occasions when nothing so elaborate as a complete comedy was attempted and when the little interludes and debates from the mountebanks' portfolio were quite satisfactory. Pedrolino, himself the leader of a well-known com- pany, did not disdain to amuse his patrons by some of these simpler tricks, as witnesses his practical joke at a banquet in the palace of Ferrara, 1580. He hid under the table unknown to anyone but the| Duchess, and when Pantalone came to look for him, ; i the clown stuck his head out of a large patty and in- ; ' formed the guests that he had been punished for his j greediness, for that having gone into the kitchen j ""Vittoria Piissimi, whom Garzoni calls a "bella maga d'amore," was one of the first actresses to attain recognition and to be largely rewarded; cf. Basi, Comici italiani, II, under Piissimi, and for the Magnifico here mentioned, ib., II, 226-7. " Basehet, ComSdiens italiens, etc., 54 f . 6 66 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB "per gola" the cook had baked him into a pie; after this comic lament he disappeared under the crust and kept on talking from there.** Another dialog between Pantalone and Zanni is described in a German account of a noble marriage in 1585;** one of the performers was represented "in the figure and dress of a Magnifico of the Vene- tian state, playing on a violin and singing . . . most ludicrously in the Italian tongue. . . . The other was in a very peasantlike costume, with wide long hose and a rare large hat which he knew how to turn and fold in all sorts of ways, and he spoke in Berga- mask, and had a rake which he swung in a rustic manner, and moreover added every kind of amusing trick. . . . With their singing and springing they showed how much before all others their nation deserves the prize." A little song and dance like this is not formal enough to be classed with "pro- fessional" comedies, it rather belongs to the cate- gory of "things" half scornfully alluded to by Niccolo Rossi as "carried about by mercenary bands," unworthy of the name of art. In 1550 the actors who gave such shows were already dissociated from the charlatan's bench but they had further to learn concentration and to undergo a severe course of training in dramatic theory and practice before they could make their improvised plays famous over Europe. " Solerti-Lanza, Gior. Stor., XVIII, 148i £. For more details on Pedrolino of. Easi, Cormci itdliani, II, 241. " Trautmann, Ital. Sohauspieler, 226-7. CHAPTER III. If only tlie beggarly and base stages of public theaters bad been open to professional actors the commedia dell' arte would never have advanced to^ the complicated form that we know; it would have! remained unrecognized, merely the inartistic hodge- 1 podge of clowning, old jokes and more or less hideous tricks that the mountebanks exhibited either on the street or at informal entertainments. But princely encouragement brought the quick-witted men and women among the strollers into contact with the interests of the intellectual world and forced them to modify their programs in accordance with academic theory. They learned that amateurs of the theater began to represent Latin comedies and then Italian plays modelled on them in the latter part of the fifteenth century; they were told of the discovery of twelve plays of Plautus in 1429^ and of the publication of Aristotle's Poetics in 1498, two facts which gave an enormous impetus to critical theorizing and a great stimulus to dramatic activity. They were introduced into large halls set apart in palaces, and into private buildings erected specially for theatricals either by individuals or by academies, like the splendid Palladian structure, the Teatro Olimpico, described by Coryat in Vicenza;'^ perhaps ^Eossi, n Quattrocento, 376. "Coryats Crudities, II, 86. Cf. the recent aecoimt by Magrini of the Teatro Olimpico, especially p. ii f. 67 68 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE they were even allowed to take small parts in tlie classical dramas given here. No doubt the actors soon came to realize that so noble a setting as that of the Olympian Theater was unsuited to anything except Greek or Senecan trag- edies but in the smaller private halls they felt at liberty to give many performances of modern plays expressing the interests of their patrons. These Italian comedies written by members of the academies were at first merely satirical "imitations of life" closely following Plautus and Terence; then came freer manipulations of romantic and sometimes of popular material with a central theme, it might be, dealing with Platonic love or working out a problem as to the relative values of duty, love, friendship and honor.^ However large the canvas on which the action was painted there was always, in the sixteenth century at least, an attempt to observe proportion in plot development and to keep to the laws of unity as formulated by Aristotle's commentators and the laws of decorum as understood by Horace.* ' For the performances of classical and pseudo-classical plays at the ducal courts cf. Eossi, II Quattrocento, 379 f.; Solerti, Ferrara, etc, passim; Luzio-Eenier, Commedie classiche in Ferrara; Eossi, Com- medie classiche in Gazzuola. Ariosto 's Cassaria, from the Mostellaria of Plautus, is now generally admitted to have been the first Italian comedy in the vernacular; it was written in 1488. Bibbiena's Calandra, written about 1506-8 on the model of the Menaechmi, has often been called the first Italian comedy. Both plays are classical in content as well as in form not- withstanding their Florentine color and their Italian names. B. Accolti's Verginia on the other hand, played at au aristocratic wedding in Siena, 1494, is a romantic tragi-comedy from Boccaccio's story of Giletta of Narbonne, loosely constructed, and showing none of the Latin influence on technic. 'Cf. Spingarn, Lit. Crit. in the Benaissance. Minturno's Arte poetica is a mine of information on academic theory and practice. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 69 It is not necessary to go into much detail ia describing these written or "learned" plays; every- one who has read Gascoigne's Supposes or the Comedy of Errors or any of Chapman's comedies, knows the kind of plot and characterization that pre- vailed. Our concern here is with the literary influ- ence such pieces exerted on Italian actors in the Ciuquecento, and through them on their peculiar product, the "professional comedy." During the earlier half of the century as has been said, profes- sionals were not often employed for the principal parts in academic productions; they gave their wit and grace mostly to the interludes. It was only the exceptionally gifted genius like Beolco or his Vene- tian follower Calmo,® who was clever enough to step to the front of the stage and take an important part in plays of his own writing. The majority were con- tent to contribute to minor roles their quota of amusement, while absorbing what they could of aca- demic ideas on the nature and presentation of regular plays. So by the time that organized com- panies began to be formed, about 1550-60, their managers were perfectly aware of what a noble audi- ence looked for and criticized in a comedy, tragedy or pastoral, and were prepared to meet the demand by presenting literary drama iu the approved manner. Perhaps it is worth while to quote in this connection part of a dialog on " scenic performances" com- posed under the influence of an academy between 1567 and 1590 by an actor-manager, Leone de Sommi, ' Calmo was as famous for his creation of old men as was Beoleo for his peasants; cf. Eossi, Lettere, etc., introduction, passim. 70 THE COMMBDIA DELL'aBTE a Mantuan Jew wlio was at the head of a company favored by the Duke.® "In the first place," says Veridico, the spokesman of the author's opinions, "I should make every effort to procure a comedy that would satisfy me, with all the requirements that belong to such imagi- native works {tali poemi) , ahoYe all written in choice prose and not tiresome by reason of many soliloquies or long digressions or remarks not germane to the subject. . . . But I should also wish the comedy to be new if possible, or at least little known, avoiding as much as may be the printed ones however fine, because every new thing pleases ; comedies that are known to the audience are usually little liked for many reasons, chiefly for this: the actor's great effort is to deceive and force the spectator into thinking the story presented is true, but if the hearer knows just what the actor is going to do and say, all will seem the veriest foolish lying. ..." As to division of parts in a play Veridico says: "After I had written out the several parts care- fully and chosen the persons who seemed to me fittest ... I would call them all together, and when I had distributed the parts as best suited, I would have them read the whole play, even to the boys that were in it — they would thus be taught the plot or at least as much of it as concerned them — impressing on their minds the kind of persons they had to repre- sent ; then I dismiss them, giving them time to learn ' The dialog is published by Easi, Comici italiani, I, 107 f ., from a MS. in the E. Bibl. of Parma. For De Sommi cf. Easi, I, 106; An- cona, Origini, II, 403 f., and Neri, Gior. Stor., XI, 413, and Gior. Stor., LIV, 103 f. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aKTE 71 their parts. ... It is far more important to have good actors than a good play, for truly I have often seen a poor play well acted, succeed better than a fine one badly played. Therefore I choose . . . those who can best imitate the different personages, seeing to it that a lover is handsome, a soldier muscular, a parasite fat, a servant agile, and so with all. I also pay great attention to their voices for I find it a precept of prime importance that . . . the role of an old man should not be given to someone with a childish voice, nor a ^woman's, especially a young maiden's, to a gruff -voiced person.'^ If for instance I wished to make a ghost 'speak in a tragedy I would search out a voice naturally shrill, or at least a trembling falsetto which would do for such a part. As to faces I take less pains for there art can supply nature, either by dyeing a beard or paint- ing a scar, making a face pallid or yeUow, or healthier and ruddy, or whiter or browner, etc., as may be necessary. But I never in any circumstances use masks or false beards,* because they too much impede utterance; if I were forced to give an old man's part to a beardless actor, I would paint his chin so that it looks shaved and add to the white wig under his cap a few locks hanging over his cheeks and forehead. ..." ' This remark among others shows that De Sommi had in mind the amateur performances of academicians rather than those of profes- sionals. •This is probably directed against the street actors whose use of masks and other farcical disguises is often reproved by academic writers, even by some of those of the actor profession; of. Rossi, DiscoTso sulla comecUa, passim. iX 72 THE COMMEDIA Veridico then discourses at some length and very sensibly on the manner of using the voice on the stage, making a great point of clear and intelligent enunciation. He next takes up a favorite critical problem — character decorum and the representation of typical persons: "It is not enough for the man who plays the miser's part to hold his hand con- stantly on his purse nor to look every minute to see if he has lost the key of his chest ; he must also know how to represent the insanity that seizes him when he discovers that his son has robbed his hoard. If he plays the part of a servant he must know how in a moment of sudden joy to cut a quick and graceful antic, in a moment of grief to tear his handkerchief with his teeth ; or in rage to pull out his hair, or with similar effective strokes to give life to the perform- ance. If he plays a fool, beside answering off the point (which the poet will teach him by his words) he must be able to act the imbecile, catch flies, kill fleas and do the like foolish actions. If he plays the part of a serving-maid he must learn to shake his skirts coquettishly and if occasion demand it, to bite his finger for disdain,^ and so on, things which the poet in his writing cannot fully indicate. ..." Massimiano, one of the interlocutors, — remem- bering the mountebanks, no doubt — remarks that he has seen some actors who at hearing a piece of bad news in a play turn as pale as if a misfortune had really happened to them, whereupon Veridico after quoting the Ion of "the divine Plato," goes on to • Perhaps the thumb-biting among the servants in Borneo and Juliet is a relic of this stage tradition. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB 73 say tliat such, talents cannot be taught but must come by nature, and praises some of his contem- poraries for their rare gifts. "Among many accom- plished persons who pMy perfectly in this age of ours . . . especially remarkable has always seemed to me the acting of a young Roman woman named Flaminia, who beside being adorned with many fair qualities, is adjudged so rare in this profession that I think the ancients never saw nor can there be seen among the moderns anything better than she on the stage, for one does not seem to see a concerted imi- tation of an action but something which really happens unexpectedly, so much she changes her gestures, voice and color according to the variety of incidents." There follow some detailed instructions on pos- ture and grace, summed up in the precept: "Always imitate and observe the characteristic nature of the person who is to be represented, fleeing above all things as one would misfortune, a certain pedantic manner of playing . . . like that of boys in school. ' ' In order further to emphasize the character of the persons in the piece dress is to be carefully consid- ered: "I try to dress the actors as nobly as possible but with some difference between them . . . (above aU things the action, time and place must be ob- served) . . . for sumptuous garments add much of dignity and charm to comedies and more to trage- dies. Yet I would not dress a servant in velvet or in colored satin unless the habit of his master was so rich with embroidery and goM that a due measure was preserved between them." Meaner clothes are 74 THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aRTE recommended for a miser or for a peasant, tlien after an allusion to the custom of tlie ancients in keeping to stereotyped costumes for old men, para- sites, courtesans and others, Veridico speaks of the need for some variety: "Had I to dress three or four servants I should put one in white with a hat, another in red with a small cap on his head, another in livery of divers colors, another perhaps I might deck out with a velvet cap and a pair of netted sleeves. ..." Actors are bidden to disguise themselves thor- oughly, so that the pleasure of the audience in the action may not be spoiled by the recognition of a familiar face, for that would break the illusion. Moreover "since every novelty is pleasing, it is a delightful sight to see on the stage foreign costumes, varying from our usage; hence it is that the most successful comedies are those costumed in the Greek fashion. For this reason more than any other I have arranged that the scene of the piece which, God willing, we shall present Tuesday, is laid in Constan- tinople, so that we can introduce for men as for women a style of dress unfamiliar to us here. . . . And if this succeeds well in comedy, as by experience we are sure that it will, all the more will it succeed in tragedy, in costuming which the greatest care must be taken, never dressing the actors in the modern manner but in the way that is shown in antique sculptures or pictures, with those mantles and that attire in which the persons of former cen- turies appear so charmingly. And because in the best spectacles one of the finest sights is a company THE COMMEDIA DELL'ABTE 75 of armed men, I praise those wlio always bring into the presence of Kings or Captains, some soldiers or gladiators armed in the antique fashion. ..." "Of pastorals we will speak to-morrow . . . but as to the dress of the shepherds . . . there should be some variety among them, and their general style as follows: cover their arms and legs with flesh- colored cloth, or if the actor is young and handsome it is not bad to have his arms and legs left bare,^'* but never the feet, which should always be lightly cased in sandals or socks; then there should be a shirt of rough cloth or some material of a pleasant color, sleeveless, and over this two skins (in the manner Homer describes in the dress of the Trojan shepherd), either of a leopard or of some other pretty animal, one on the chest and one on the back, bound together, with the feet of these beasts over the shoulder and behind the back of the shepherd. . . . Then let one have a small flask or a purse of some fine wood at his girdle, others a scrip bound on one shoulder. Let each have in his hand a club, some stripped, some with leaves, and the more extraordinary the more fitting they will be; their hair, either their own or false, some curled, some long and combed. . . . For the nymphs . . . wo- men's tunics are needed, worked and varied, with sleeves . . . girdles of silk and gold making folds to please the eye . . . then some pretty colored silk garment should be added from the belt down, girded " These suggestions as to costume are undoubtedly the result of much classical study, but there was on the stage of the Sacre Bappre- sentazioni a tradition in favor of a similar realism; ef. Ancona, Origini, 1, 446. 76 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB up to the ankles; the feet covered with a gilded buskin in the fashion of the ancients . . . the hair thick and blond, apparently natural, and some may wear their hair loose on their shoulders with a littlle garland on their heads, some may add a circlet of gold, others may knot it up with silken ribbons and cover it with a very thin veil falling over the shoulders. . . . These nymphs may have in their hands some a bow, with a quiver bound to their backs, others a single lance. ... If the poet brings in a witch she ought to be appropriately dressed, or if a cowherd, let him wear rustic clothes that he may appear peasantlike. . . . And it adds much pleas- ure if the shepherd have with him at times one or more dogs, so also it would please me if the nymphs too had some, but gentler, with pretty collars and delicate little coats. ..." After having commented on all these weighty questions De Sommi returns to his rehearsal and says he always makes a point of calling over the list of names of the characters to see if they all understand what they have to do ; then he draws up a list of the scenes in order, with the names of the persons in each, of the houses or streets from which they come out and at what place they must begin to speak. Such a paper, though Veridico does not say so, is practically the same thing as the scenario for an improvised play, perhaps slightly less full. But this admirer of the ancients and the aristocracy had no eye for anything so popular and irregular as an extempore farce ; he shows his classic preferences by concluding his remarks with some directions on THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 77 the prolog and interludes, always important parts of academic theatricals. He first commends the prolog in the manner of the ancients, when the poet himself or his representative came out in a toga and crowned with laurel, to speak with dignity and gravity: "Leaving aside for the moment those ingenious prologs into which the gods or other extra- ordinary personages are introduced. ... I say that he who speaks in the poet's person should always direct his words to the spectators, contrary to the usage of the other actors, and should appear to them as their fellow citizen, giving them notice of what city the stage represents, of the kind of play and its name, asking for silence, and the like." As to interludes Veridico thinks that those of music are best for comedies, and that choruses only should mark off the acts in a tragedy; for pastoral poems something more elaborate is to be allowed.^ ^ In his fourth dialog De Sommi talks of stage machinery and as in his remarks on costume, shows a taste for magnificence. Of pastorals he says: "The most of the plot and many kinds of plots, can be easily represented; in Bologna years ago I saw f Amphion introduced in an intermedia, to the sound of whose music and singing the rocks piled them- selves on each other until they made a wall for Thebes; in another an eagle appeared to carry off "All the literary dramatista who had anything to say objected to the intermedj; II Lasca bitterly complains in the preface to La Strega (1582) that "intermedj were invented to serve the comedy, now the comedy serves only as an excuse for the intermedj." Cf. with De Sommi, Ingegneri'a Discorso de la poesia rappresentativa (1568), and also Maechiavelli's prolog to La Clizia. 78 THE COMMBDIA DBLL'aBTB Ganimede ; then in the interval between the third and fourth acts Deucalion and Pyrrha came in, casting stones behind them, which stones rose up in the form of little naked children. And the fourth interlude was a giant who carried a very large ball, and having put it down on the stage he gave it several blows with his club and it opened and four Satyrs came out of it and danced a most charming moresca.'"* Obviously such splendid and costly spectacles were far beyond the resources of actors not in the employ of a prince or a wealthy academy. De Sommi himself was protected by Cesare Gronzaga, the founder of the Academy of the Invaghiti, a society for which the learned Jew managed dra- matics in Mantua during several years.^^ These dialogs of his sound as though they had grown out of academic discussions of the nature of the drama, they certainly summarize the "correct" view of such matters. That theory should be so far devel- oped to exact and dogmatic statement, marks the close of a long period of experimentation — nearly a century of familiarity on the part of educated people with classical canons and technic, and an even longer time spent on the elaboration of stage machinery.^* '^ Rasi, Comiei italiani, I, 133. ^'Ancona, Origini, II, 406-7. " For the Italian stage and its gradual transformation cf. Flechsig, Die Dekoration der modernen Buhne in Itdlien. Descriptions of the interned j abound in the literature and letters of the period and have been often reprinted; ef. Motta, Gior. Stor., VII, 386 f.; Arteaga, Eivolusioni del teatro musicale italiano, III, 187 f.; Solerti, 91 'albori del melodramma, II, 17 f . ; Mazzi, Nuova Ant., Ser. II, Vol. XXVIII, 577 f.; Saviotti, Gior. Stor., XLI, 42. f. Mazzi, Congrega dei Boszi, I, 298 discusses inframessi, etc. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB 79 The professional actors, formerly so despised and so shut out from all real communion with their betters, had at last come to recognition; partly perhaps / through the influence of Plato in that very Ion cited by Veridico, they were regarded, women as well as men, as in some subtle sense the instruments through which the divine fire manifested itself to humanity. Such at least is the sentiment that underlies many of the extravagantly complimentary poems addressed to players in the latter half of the Cinquecento.^^ Platonic theories of inspiration, although their in- fluence may have been really felt, must have con- tributed much less to the building up of the actor class than did its own advance in proficiency and culture. Very many players were taken into academies as regular members with the usual honor- able ceremony of crowning with laurel, and such favored persons added their plays or poems or philo- sophic essays to the publications of these learned bodies.^ ^ In order to keep up their reputation and to deserve the name of scholars, the actors studied hard, learned Latin and Greek beside the dialects and modern languages needed in their plays, searched the classics for information on their art or for quo- tations to be used in their speeches, wrote songs "Easi's two volumes contain a wealth of material on this point as on many others; cf. especially the articles on the three Andreini, on Vittoria Piissimi, Maria Antonazzi, Vincenza Armani, P. M. Cecchini and his wife Orsola, Drusiano Martinelli and his wife Angelica. " The most famous of the actor-academicians were Francesco An- dreini (1548-1624), his wife Isabella (1562-1604), a member of the Pavian Intenti, and their son, Giovan-Battista, "academico Spen- sierato. " There were many others; cf. Bruni, Fatiche comiche (1623), 9 f. 80 THE OOMMEDIA DELL'aBTB and sonnets and "conceits" to express their ideas on the philosophy of love and on other intellectual prohlems of the time, and not infrequently published defenses of the theater based on their critical studies and on their arguments in divinity and ethics." Antonio Molino, called II Burchiella, the "Eoscius of his age," a friend of Andrea Calmo, was educated "like any gentleman" as well as in the special arts of song, dance, gymnastics and literary composi- tion.^* Isabella Andreini when she addressed one of her patrons, that Duke of Mantua who had stood sponsor to her child, was well enough seen in phi- losophy and the graces of compliment to begin her letter thus :" "Most Serene Lord: If in Ethiopia where there are barbarous races, there are some peoples who however barbarous yet adore two gods, the one im- mortal and the other mortal, the immortal as the creator of the universe, the mortal as their bene- factor, how much more here in beautiful Italy, gar- den of the world, where there is the light of faith and the splendor of civilized customs, should be adored the high and immortal God, supreme mover "Solerti, Albori, etc., I, 16, calls the comici of this period "colti e letterati, " "critici delle question! teatrali," etc. Bartoli, Seen, ined., eix f., gives a long list of the literary works of these men and women. Bonfigli in the introduction to his reprint of Un Capitolo in morte di Simone da Bologna calls attention to the connection of the actors with "penny literature" of all kinds, and points out that the mounte- banks quite early in the Cinquecento began to write these little pamph- lets. Cf. Perucci, Arte Bappresentativa, 195 f. " Eossi, Lettere, etc., xxxi f . Cf . Easi, op. cit., I, 533. " The letter is dated 14 Jan., 1587. Ancona, Origini, II, 490-1. 81 of the universe, and in the fair bosom of the most noble city of Mantua Your Serene Highness as mortal god, true giver of so many and notable benefits." Since it might be a trifle wearisome to hear any more proof of this kind of learning, let Vihcenza Armani stand as an example of all these accom- plished beings; her funeral panegyrist, who to be sure as her lamenting lover must be read with some slight allowance, tells his hearers that the "divine Signora Vincenza was born in the most famous city of Venice," that "in cooking, in embroidery, nay ia painting with the needle, she outstripped the Arachne of fable and Minerva herself, inventor of these arts, . . , and before she finished the third luster of her age she perfectly possessed the Latin tongue, admirably explaining all its peculiarities, and read and wrote so easily and correctly in Latin and in her native idiom that the very discoverer of orthography could not have done better." "A wonderful speaker, a sublime musician, herself a composer of madrigals and of the music for them, which she sang herself ; an exquisite player on many instruments, a sculptress in wax of the most skilful, ready yet thoughtful in talk, and a very remarkable actress. . . . She played in three different styles, in comedy, tragedy and pastoral, observing the pro- prieties of each so exactly that the Academy of the Intronati in Siena which cherishes the cult of the drama, often said this lady spoke better extempore than the most finished writers after much thought. . . . Everyone avoided arguing with her (in the 7 82 THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aBTE academic debates) for if at times she sustained the side of falsity she made it seem to those who heard her, the truth. ' '^^ As might be expected her charms and her talent procured her many enemies and she died young, of poison. The craze for culture was not the only result of learned influence on the actors. It was academic custom that started the practice, universal among professional troupes, of choosing a symbolic name and motto for their band, — the Gelosi, because "Virtu, Honor e Fama ne fer gelosi," the Desiosi, the Fedeli; from imitation of a similar fad came also the habit of calling individuals among them by their stage names, — Celia, Flaminia, Isabella, — sometimes with a punning significance; just as the academicians designated themselves by titles sup- posed, modestly, to express their leading traits, — the Stupid One or the Stutterer or the Idiot.^^ The like small hobbies were only the outer sign of the deeper influence, that shift of point of view, that broadening of the intellectual horizon, which as I have said brought about such important modifica- tions of the popular amusements. The rough debates between Zanni and Pantalone or the Captain, or between the Doctor and the Signora of the mountebanks' stage were no sooner heard by learned ears than they became a subject '^ Oratione d'Adriano Valerini Veronese, in morte de la Vivina Signora Vincenza Armani . . . (Verona, 1570) cited Easi, Comici italiani, 1, 205. "Everyone knows the absurdities to which this fashion led, how for instance, members of the academy of the Umidi took each the name of a fish, A.-F. Grazzini, the best known of them, calling himself II Lasca, the Mullet. Cf. Mazzi, Congrega, etc., I, passim. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 83 of discussion and criticism. They were so enjoy- able that various excuses were found for them. Not impossibly Aristotle's dictum as to the use of char- acter names for the persons of comedy may some- what have reconciled the theorists to the constant reappearance of a certain limited number of farcical Masks ;^ 2 undoubtedly an early comparison of the popular types to the figures in the Eoman Atellanae had a good deal to do with bringing them into a more dignified position than they had ever held. Moreover it is not difficult to see them as variations from the characters of written plays. The boasting bravo of the street platforms could very easily be compared to the Latin Thraso or Pyrgopolinices ; were they not both arrant cowards, loud-mouthed in their own praise but ready to start at a shadow on the wall? The resemblance may be traced both ways of course; if the literary figure influenced the popular, it is quite as true that the captains ia very early written comedies such as Calmo's Rabbioso or Dolce 's Capitano, bear a strong resemblance, under their predominantly Plautine color, to the vulgar satiric conception of the bravo and the Spanish mer- cenary.2* Again the charlatan Doctor of the piazza, ^Poetics, ed. Butcher, 4th ed., 35-7, section IX: "In comedy the poet first constructs the plot on the lines of probability and then inserts characteristic names, — unlike the lampooners who write about particular individuals." Butcher (376-7) interprets the phrase to, mean that names in comedy should suggest certain traits, " hxjmour^ ' "-^ 5-- -^'' or occupations. ' w "■ ^■*^] "^Cf. to Senigaglia's Cap. Spavento, Easi, Comiei iialvmi, I, 59 f., and Bartoli, Seen, ined., olxix and liii f. ; Scherillo, Comm. dell'arte, chap. IV. Ancona, Origini, I, 590 f., studies the braggart in the V 84 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB with Ms pretence of learning and skill and his ex- travagantly expressed belief in his pills and oils could by a little analogy-forcing be confounded with the " self -wise-seeming schoolmaster," the pedant doctor, whom Sidney, true to the best critical ideas of his time, mentions as one of the proper butts for comedy.^* This once seriously regarded medicine- man of folk superstition when held up to the view of politely cynical audiences lost all his prestige and became merely one among several kinds of pedants, unmercifully ridiculed for a show of wisdom they have not, or for unbecpmmg seriousness-, ovfij" the wisdom they ha ve.^® Do not aristocratic dilettanti always see a grimy Holofernes in a professional scholar? It is impossible to generalize too dogmatically about any of these character types or to set off too sharply the finished artistic version of any one of them from its skeleton in a scenario. The Doctor in an improvised play has usually quite as many traits i of the Latin senex as has Pantalone who regularly filled the chief role of deceived father or husband; both are equally remarkable for avarice, an amatori- Sacre Bappresentazioni ; Keinhardtstoettner, Plautiis, etc., the liter- ary type. Eossi, Lettere, etc., Ixxiv f., finds a closer relation between the Capitano of Calmo'a plays and that of the commedia dell'arte than between the latter and the Capitano of any other written plays. The same is true of Calmo's old men and Pantalone. '^ Defense of Poetry, ed. Cook, 51. ^For the Doctor Mask cf. Easi, Comici italiani, I, 406 t., and for the principal actors of the part, Bartoli, Seen, ined., elxv f . Dr. Gratiano da Prancolino is supposed to have nr.fvde his first appearance on the stage about 1560. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 85 ous disposition and either gullibility or low cunning ; both are altogether such unattractive persons that any sympathy for their invariable ill-fortune is ab- solutely impossible. Here academic theory bore out the popular judgment as to old men in love ; they are among the proper subjects for comedy, says Min- turno,^* because they are always ludicrous, A Curs- ing of old men in love, written probably for inser- tion in a scenario by Isabella Andreini,^'' herself both an actress and a critic, expresses the usual view : "Is it possible that you do not know that in this wrinkled forehead, these bristling brows, this color- less face, there is little, nay nothing, suited to a lover? . . . Ah, poor wretch! consider your folly, . . . love in an old man is nought but grief. . . . You ancients among many bad qualities have two that are intolerable, enviousness and evil-speaking, . . . so that no one escapes your slander. ... As for your love letters they are audacities worthy silence if not laughter. ' ' The written plays almost always voiced a similarly unkind opinion and allowed little individuality to an ancient lover. "Arte poetica, cited Spingarn, Lit. Crit., etc., 2d ed., 61 f. For a study of the old man in comedy of. Amieis, L'imitazione latina, etc., and Camerini, Nuovi profiU letterari, II, 27 f. and 226 f. Fresco, Una tradizione novellistica nella convmedia del seeolo XVI, (Camerino, 1903), studies the old man of Italian comedy as originat- ing from two of Boccaccio's caricatures, Calandrino and Messer Simone, a view as one-sided as that which sees in the classic theater the only source of Renaissance drama. Boccaccio's influence was however tremendous. Cf. the befooled husband in Macchiavelli's Mandragola with Decameron V, 5 and 10. "1. Andreini, Lettere, 21 f. This Biasimo might well have been used in Scala's thirtee "-h piece, II Dottor disperato, Act II, where the direction in the scenario is "Oratio rebukes the Dr., an old man, for being in love. ' ' 86 THE COMMEDIA DBLL'AKTB In Calmo 's comedies the peculiarities of the Vene- tian Magnificos and their Bergamask servants are so constant that these personages may fairly be called types, probably they may even have worn some sort of conventional costume and mask ; merely the difference between premeditated and extempore speech sets them off from Zanni and his masters.** Indeed the hero's servant in most academic plays is always the character who comes nearest to the clown of street shows in his name, his dialect and /'his lively manners. However consciously modeled by his creator on the Latin servus, the lad must naturally have taken the complexion of the stroUing merrymakers who from the first played the part in otherwise amateur productions. As Zanni 's traits vary with his every interpreter he probably seemed more amusing and individual than his stiffer counter- part, forced as the latter was to keep to the lines written for him by the poet; yet as Veridico had advised the adept in fool's roles to think up all possible illustrative action for his lines, perhaps there was really very little difference in the pre- sentation of this character whether informal or formal. Like Zanni the servetta owed little to classical traditions; indeed even more than Zanni ^ The relation of Galmo to the commedia dell'arte has given as much trouble as that of Beolco; no scenario from Oalmo's hand has survived but Kossi thinks he may very likely have written up his plays after a first extempore performance in which he tested their popu- larity. In the predominant interest in intrigue and in the kind of persons in his plays as well as in the use of dialect and extravagant concetti, his work is certainly nearer to the commedia dell'arte than that of most of his contemporaries, naturally, as he was himself an actor. Cf. Eossi, Lettere, etc., Ixix f. and passim. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 87 she is the shameless creature of the mountebanks' bench, who is brought into the play for the purpose of adding to the main intrigue a subordinate love plot, a parody on the principal interest.^* The lovers in the improvised plays on the other hand were taken bodily from the written comedies ; young, inflammable, conscienceless they generally were, and, as Lamb says of the characters in our Eestoration drama, not to be judged by the moral standards of every-day life. Their names were taken from life however, their faces were unmasked, their costumes those of ordinary well-to-do young people, their talk the Tuscan of the academies. Isabella Andreini, the most famous of prime donne, not only gave her name to her role in Scala 's plays and in many later ones but wrote volumes of speeches appropriate to the part in their expression of love as the Petrarchists and Platonizers conceived it. Like the conceits for the Doctor and the Captain and the extravagances of the heroes and heroines in written plays, these "tirades" are full of mythology, classical quotations and allusions and far-fetched figures.*" " The critical tradition of there having been but four Masks, two of them belonging to the old men and two to distinct kinds of Zanni, — the knave, Brighella or Pulcinella, and the fool, Arlecchino, — seems to go back to Barbieri's SuppUca, in which the actor-author saya "The first servant . . . provokes laughter ... by most subtle tricks and ready replies; the second by foolishness." Goldoni probably did not know Barbieri but he expresses the same opinion, Memorie, II, 185 f. ; L. Moland, Sand and Symonds all adopt this statement as the basis of their exposition of the commedia dell 'arte. '" P. M. Ceechinl in his Frutti delle moderne commedie says, ' ' They who play the difficult parts of lovers enrich their minds with a pretty lot of noble discourses suitable to the variety of' matter which the 88 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE Where the scenario notes, "Isabella despairs as a despised lover," or "Isabella raves against Love and Fortune," she might say:^^ "If I did not complain of Love I must have been born mute. So great are my misfortunes that not only must I complain of him but must lament that I have not all the tongues, all the languages of the world, that I might better sorrow over his injustice; he rewards my pain with grief, wills that I feed on wormwood and hemlock, wills that I suffer patiently . . . wills that I dis- simulate my woe and cruelly commands me to show a smiling face, rejoicing while my miserable heart in its bitter pain bitterly bewails its sorrow. ... I renew the torture of Tantalus and long for the food and drink of love which are not given me." Or "My days fleet on with the months and the seasons. The sun changes the trees, alternating with his sister in giving light, my sorrow alone remains the same.^^ That changes neither its character nor its place nor gives way to any pleasure. Yet what do I say? My stage should treat . . . (by) a frequent reading of elegant books so that there remains in the reader's memory an impression of most heightened style, which when their speeches are heard produce the effect of springing from native genius." ''I. Andreini, Lettere, 9 t. " It is hardly necessary to note the commonness of this Petrarchan conceit. The most familiar Elizabethan statement of it is in the Earl of Surrey's sonnet, "Wherein each thing renews save only the lover. ' ' The antithesis appears often in Isabella 's Lettere and is the theme of a song in her pastoral Mirtilla, Act I, scene 2, of which one quatrain is: E quanto il eiel di pivl bel fior dipinge, E piil le cose allegre Tanto al mio tristo core La fiera doglia accresee. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 89 grief changes only too much; from ill it goes to worse, from cruel and bitter to unspeakable and un- bearable ... so that now my harsh laments weary town and village, mountain and valley, rivers, seas, meadows, woods and even tireless Echo herself."^* Debates on the nature of love were also suited to the lover's role, therefore Isabella, a philosopher and academician as well as a poet, wrote, doubtless as she spoke on the stage, "You say that love is a mode of behavior of the soul, that the soul is eternal and that therefore love will be eternal. I admit that the soul is immortal, but love is only one of its attributes {cade in lei per accidente), . . . since it is not credible that an attribute of the soul is, like it, eternal, why do you wish me to believe this ? Love in others, moreover, is fed on hope and happiness, yet you say he is fed in your breast by despair and pain. . . . Everyone follows, you add, his own good, and you alone your own enemy, desire your harm and seek it."^* So for many pages the fine-spun sentimentalities of the sonneteers are restated in more or less inflated and pedantic language, not at all different from the style of lovers in the most affectedly Italianate Elizabethan plays. Sometimes elaborate and vicious punning gave a kind of symbolic force to a lover 's argument, — again a manner imitated by the Elizabethans. In one of the conceits in dialog form written by Domenico Bruni, a youth argues with his former sweetheart, whom in her page's dress he does not recognize, that "I. Andreini, Lettere, 143. "Ibid., 143. 90 THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aBTE his present love is fairer and worthier than his first. She defends herself ingeniously by pointing out that his first love's name was Celia, and that in offending her he has offended Heaven (il Cielo), "and who- ever offends Heaven is damned to Hell. ... I have heard (she goes on) that names indicate in them- selves fortunate or unhappy destinies ; therefore this name of Lavinia (his present mistress) does not please me; for Lavinia was that most unfortunate creature sung by Virgil who started the war in Latium, caused the death of Turnus and the sorrow of Aeneas ; moreover if you take the second syllable of this name, which is Vi, and place it first, you com- pose a name which is Vilania, or villany. Now Villanies dishonor men, whence you may conclude that the possessing this lady will only dishonor you." Fulvio, the victim of this lecture, cannot avoid retorting, "How well up in worldly wisdom you are, my Lucio!"^^ Thus the lovers in the best commedie dell' arte of M the Cinquecento exhibited their refinement, their j learning and their powers of expression, nor did they forget to inveigh at proper intervals against Cupid and Fortune, the bugbears responsible for all the ills they suffer. In similar manner Doctor Gratiano and the Captain and even poor old Panta- lone made the most of their academic accomplish- ments in the speeches they wrote for their parts. The Doctor was especially given to the insertion of Latin, usually of the maccaronic variety, and to the "Bmni, VialogM scenici, a MS. of the Seieento, published in part by Easi, Comici italiani, I, 521 f. THE OOMMBDIA DELL'aBTE 91 elaboration of platitudes and the laboring of etymol- ogies in a way that makes us suspect him of laugh- ing in his sleeve at the diversions of the learned societies before which he played. Soldano Aniello, one of the earliest specialists in the Bolognese role, wrote a whole book of Fantastic and Ridiculous Etymologies, sometimes little plays to be used as prologs, sometimes mere conceits for the Doctor to insert in the comedy at the right moment.*® A late Tirade for a Gratiano gives the etymology for sol- dato in a monolog which begins : "This word divides into three syllables, sol, da, to. Sol means that the soldier must be like the sun, {sole) in giving light to the whole world of soldier- dom; alone, [sol) in touching mud without being defiled, water without wetting himself, fire with be- ing burned," etc.*^ A different kind of speech for the pedant's part is the Persuasion to Study; an example quoted by Perucci fairly reeks of the library: "The man in this world who is without wisdom is sicut asinus sine capistro, because lacking the bridle that leads him along the road to virtue, he goes headlong to the precipice. He is just sicut porcus in luto; he who does not fatten himself on the drink of knowl- edge will remain ever dry and thin as a starling, " An early instance of this fascinating pursuit of the derivations of words is noted by Monnier, Le Quattrocento, 142, in a description of how Marsigli's free school debated in 1389 the origin of the word prato. The academies kept up the exercise constantly. For Aniello cf. Easi, Comici italiami, I, 164 f. He flourished c. 1590. "Quoted by Bartoli, Seen, ined., Ixxxvi, note 3, from an unpub- lished MS. 92 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE and cannot thicken the soup of conversation. . . . You will be the ass, but bridled by my discipline, (i. e. after studying with Gratiano) the pig, but fattened by my learning," etc.^* Whatever the Doctor said, whether studied or extempore, was ap- parently marked by irrelevance and lack of sequence in its propositions, for Captain Spavento, in one of his dialogs with Trappola says, "Apropos of Bac- chus, I remember a dispute I once had with Death," and the Zanni takes him up with, "This remark of yours sounds to me like a speech of Gratiano, — ^your saying 'Apropos of Bacchus I remember Death!' Master, beware! pay attention to what you speak, how you speak and where you speak, else those who don't respect you as I do, may cast 'fool' in your teeth. "39 The old men's plague and the lovers' enemy, the Captain, had many famous interpreters, and none better than Francesco Andreini, the redoubtable Captain Spavento of Hell- Valley, some of whose words have just been quoted. This gentleman, for gentleman he was, knew intimately the soldiers of written plays, had often acted their overbearing demeanor toward servants and women and had learned their speeches, loaded with ancient mytho- logical ornament and absurd exaggerations. He was familiar with their tales of "shattered legs, crushed arms, rolling heads, cries of terror from one party, threatening roars from the other, and "Perueei, Arte Sapp., 279 f., says the actor of the Dottore must study Fidenzio "to learn hia phrases" and must "strengthen him- self" in the style of Merlino Coccai and Stoppino. "Andreini, Bravure, I, Bag. 17. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB 93 blood, always blood."*" He knew bow among otber exploits, Martebellonio, son to Mars and Bellona, killed Deatb, or Mona Viva — ^Lady Life — as sbe was called before tbis bero took ber tbroat between two fingers and "strangled ber like a quail. "*^ Therefore wben be came to write set "tirades" for bis part in tbe improvised plays be imitated tbe tales of tbese braggarts and sbook tbe stage by stories of bis battles witb giants, gods and Deatb herself. "KJnow," be says to Trappola, bis Zanni, "tbat one day Deatb and Cupid got drunk and went to sleep in tbe temple of Baccbus — ^Lyaeus, Bassareus, Father Liber, which you please — and when they woke each took tbe bow and dart of the other; so they went about their business." Trappola, ' * A nice sight ! Cupid and Deatb drunk and tramping through the country like a couple of Germans ! ' ' Captain, "I happened to be passing, full of pride and glory, across the ridge of the Caucusus ... as I walked Deatb (whom I despised) shot a mortal bolt to take away my life; iustead it made me fall in love witb tbe Queen of tbe Amazons, who stood delighting me in the window of ber palace. I felt myself wounded and wrenching the arrow from my breast, I threw myself against Deatb, who was at once caught in tbe snare of love for me, and said, ' Captain Spavento, my soul, I am yours ! ' . . . But I so burned witb contempt instead of love that I " Senigaglia, Cap. Spavento, 93. " G. B. della Porta, I due fratelli rivali, I, sc. 4. 94 THE COMMEDIA seized her by one foot and slung her at the head of Heresy. "*2 Elsewhere the warrior tells of so wearying Death by the number of his victims that she begged him to assume her office for a month.** At still another time he took Death, Love and the Devil prisoners,** and finally, like Theseus and Pirithous, he went to Hell to steal Proserpina.*' No wonder that he de- scribes himself as "King of the Proud, Emperor of the Ambitious, Monarch of the Wrathful, . . . who with my head threat the East, with my foot press down the West, with iny left hand bind the south wind and with my right tame the cold, icy north,"** "the brave, the unconquered, unconquerable, in- vincible, a lightning flash, an eagle, a scourge in war."*'' He admits that he arms himself fantastic- ally and oddly with Mt. Taurus on his head as a helmet, the labyrinth of Crete as a cuirass and the pyramids of Egypt as bolts.*^ What a pity that we are haunted by memories of the way, in the scena- rios, this same tremendous talker flees from a ghost or a boy ! He is as proud of his learning as of his valor and to prove his accomplishments quotes from the classics and from Petrarch, Tasso, Marini, Ariosto, even a line from Dante, though ascribing this last "Bravwre, Part I, Rag. 17. "J6id., I, Bag. 22. "J6., I, 13. "76., I, 39. "n., I, 6. "II., I, 23. "n.,J, 2. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 95 to Petrarch^' He also takes part in a famous academic quarrel and in two discourses defends Tasso"" as "he who in the Tuscan tongue and the heroic style conquers every other poet . . . who is considered worthy to fill the second seat on Par- nassus, by the side of the most famous Petrarch." Trappola's comment is, "This is a right honorable end to the scholastic battle, to recognize as poet such a man, the honor of our age and of all poets, whose honor was yet questioned by some envious of his glory, who have tried though vainly to ob- scure it with slander. ... It is enough now to say Tasso, and everyone knows we mean poet." The Captain's love affairs as told by himself are quite as astounding and much more unquotable than his warlike deeds or the proofs of his learning. Goddesses are rivals for his favor,® ^ the Moon for- gets Endymion for him,®^ and innumerable mortals break their hearts for his inconstancy. In a scenario of later date than Andreini's dialogs the Captain opens the play by teUing Coviello that he has conquered Cupid in battle and has forced the god to name the most beautiful lady in the world; she is Isabella, daughter to Dr. Gratiano, and the "Bartoli, Seen, ined., xxv, note 4, remarks on thia and cites still other poets mentioned by Andreini. "Bravure, I, 45. Cf. I, 40, the Defense of Tasso in the Inferno. Probably the position of theGelosi, Andreini's company, as proteges of the ducal houses of Ferrara and Mantua gave the impulse for this defense. The question is interesting as showing that the professional plays, like some of our vaudeville, mad© a kind of joumaUstio appeal to their patrons. "^Bravure, I, 26. "Ih., I, 51. 96 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE soldier is here to seek her, sure of success. Un- fortunately his talk La this case as always is based on vain imaginations and after some ridiculous Tweedledee-Tweedledum mock-fights with Gratiano, the hero is obliged to retire diseomfitted, leaving the damsel to her yoimg lover.''^ Although as I have said Zanni has more traits of the mountebank's clown than the other persons in the improvised plays, even he does not entirely escape the prevailing infection of pedantic talk. The set speeches for his part are not so numerous as those for the Captain, the Doctor, Pantalone and the lovers, yet he does have his soliloquies — for use either as prologs or epilogs or in the body of the comedy — his laments and love rhapsodies parody- ing his master's, his prescriptions parodying Gra- tiano 's, more rarely his bombastic ravings meant to be taken seriously but ludicrously out of keeping with his character. Of these last one must suffice; it is supposed to be spoken by the much-traveled Zanni, Ganassa, who addresses a lament to his master : "Alas, dear master, let me weep, me who have a real cause to be the most unhappy and unlucky man alive to-day, because the dearest friend and com- panion I had is dead! Why have I not the elo- quence of Demosthenes, of Cicero and of Quintillian, that I might describe the worth of his merits and the passion of my soul! He was joined to me by the closest ties of friendship that have existed since the days of Theseus and Pirithous, Titus and Gisippus, Pylades and Orestes. ..." " Flaminio disperato, Nuova Antologia, Ser. II, Vol. LI, 223 f . THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 97 Pedrolino, in Scala's Faithful Pilgrim Lover (Gior. XIV) proves his education to have been as liberal as G-anassa's, for in one scene he "lists the famous men at-arms who have loved and been the servants of love" and meditates the proportionate values of a soldier's and a scholar's career, — an ancient problem debated time and again by the academies and found in not a few medieval con- trasti.^^ Sometimes Zanni invented genealogies, boastful tales, lawyer's quibbles and the like which savored more of the study than of the charlatan's bench,®' yet on the whole his singing and tumbling and jesting were more usual and certainly seem far more congenial to him than the arduous searching of the classics necessary for his literary efforts. If there were space to quote soliloquies either mournful or gay from written comedies it would be apparent how closely modeled on them was much of the high-sounding talk in the improvised pieces. . JLovej^honoTj^ fortune,__examples illustratiye Jrom Ovid and^Virgil, sentiment and philosophy, from the Italian poets, all these elements were seething in the proficient actor 's memory as he had^learned their expression in literary dramaSi__Nothing could be more natural than that he should^draw on. this store of polite knowledge and adorn hiS-iarces with em- "Stoppato, Comm. pop., 90, mentions two famous medieval debates on this theme. The same subject recurs constantly in the Decameron and is a chief interest in one of the farces of the Bozzi, ef. Mazzi, Congrega, etc., I, 325. " Cf . Bonfigli, introduction to Capitolo in morte di Svmone da Bologna. Simone had played the Zanni 's part under the name of Zan Panza di Pegora and in this poem is learnedly mourned by two other Zanni, his comrades. 98 THE COMMBDIA DELiL'aETE broideries in which both material and pattern were cut from something of solider and richer design. Supplemented by his private studies, the literary- plays in his repertory also taught him a more im- portant thing than the use of ornament, they taught h im how to construct a plot, how-to make a, central j love interest the framework for dialo^_ between ithe clowns of his troupe, and how to enliven it all ' by the lassi his experience had forced him to invent. He discovered that the Signora of his company in her masculine attire, was more interesting if she put on doublet and hose for a purpose, — say to allow her escape from an over-strict father or her follow- ing an inconstant lover, than if she wore them always and as a matter of course. ^f He found it possible to use the familiar fools, the Magnifico and Dr. Grratiano, in the roles of the old men of the play, thus making their vices and their foolishness tell in the development of an intrigue. Finally he made the most of the gymnasts and lithe Zanni in his band by casting them for servants' parts where they could turn all their gifts to advantage and bring in their tricks and their music with least outrage to the fable. It was through changes and innovations such as these that the Gelosi toward the end of the sixteenth century, made good their boast of having raised the standard of professional entertainments;^^ one of "CeccH's I Bwali and Gl'ingannati (by a member of the Intronati of Siena) are two of the best known of innumerable written plays in which the heorine resorts to masculine disguise. "F. Bartoli, Notizie istorische, etc., saya Seala was "the first who to the professional comedy gave fitting order, with all the pr(!^er dramatic rules." Vol. II, under Scala. THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aBTB 99 Francesco Andreini's prefaces says that "this mar- vellous company in wMcli each actor was super- latively excellent" had showed the public and all future players "the true method of composing and presenting comedies, tragicomedies, tragedies, pas- torals, spectacular pieces, interludes and other scenic devices." The same comedian in his prefatory letter to Scala's collection of scenarios praises his author thus: "Signor Flavio (Scala's stage name) could have written out his works in full . . . but be- cause to-day there are so many printed comedies that . . . are very offensive to dramatic rules, he wished with this his new invention to put forth only the outlines, leaving to excelllent wits . . . the sup- plying the words, — ^if they do not disdain his labors, composed to no other end than to delight." It is true that Scala's plots do not offend against the rules ; they are carefully planned to observe the time and place as well as the unity of action. Even his extravaganzas are regularity laid out after academic patterns, following in general style the gorgeous theatrical mongrels which critics allowed to be ap- propriate to princely feasts. No little effort and study and a considerable length of time must have been given to perfecting of pieces so complex as those in the repertory of the Gelosi. In just what order, if in any one order, the various ideas going into the formative process occurred to the managers of this company and of others like it, just what was the exact method by which their people acquired the habit of improvising dialog on an out- lined plot, is not known and probably never will be. / 100 THE COMMEDIA For my part I think Veridico's account of the way he rehearsed his troupe offers a valuable suggestion on the latter point; De Sommi could hardly have been the only director who made analytic abstracts of the plays in his repertory, noting places, actors on the stage, entrances, exits and a hint of the action. Very likely he and his kind started the custom which Perucci describes a century later, of hanging the outline of the comedy in a prominent place behind the scenes where every member of the caste could refer to it constantly.^* It is well-known that Italian actors were particularly apt in improvising dialog — they had had enough practice on the char- latan's bench — and in changing their program ac- cording to their audience. When they were per- forming as they often did, for weeks together at some aristocratic house where the one cry was for variety, they would naturally be unable to learn by heart the great number of plays demanded, and would be forced to help out their memories by their wits. If they followed De Sommi 's advice to present only little known pieces and preferably those not yet printed, their patrons could not have the text under their eyes to refer to in ease some remark on the boards sounded too free or not quite in the poet's style; so no one could be blamed if on the basis of the trainer's outline, some of the players should rave and joke extempore. Impromptu speakers could not of course go far wrong when, like the best of the professionals, they were thoroughly in touch with the intellectual inter- "Perueci, Dell' arte rappresentativa, Parte XIV, p. 364. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 101 ests of the day, the kind of plot and technic consid- ered correct, the types of character appropriate to comedy, tragedy and pastoral, the proper stage- setting required for each and the proportion in which realistic satire should be combined with romance. The professional actors had moreover the readiness that came from acquaintance with the world ; they knew city squares and country commons in their own land and many others, for they were always on the road from place to place ; they knew at first hand, because to a large extent many of them were, charlatans of the piazza and their Zanni ; they knew the village priest, the rustic magician, the peasant of the country and his buxom wife and her lovers. They were also, as we have seen, trained from childhood, women as well as men, to please all kinds of spectators and in the most various manner ; they had on their tongues' end language for every situation, from Petrarchan sublimities for the joys and despairs of lovers to the vilest Billingsgate for comic quarrels. In the improvised plays they man- aged to produce from aU these experiences and ac- quirements they delighted everyone save an occa- sional over-squeamish moralist ; the academic purists f oimd their own creations reflected with a difference, — and a difference making for gaiety, — and soon justified the "professional comedies" by resorting to their usual excuse, a classical comparison; fash- ionable Platonizers foimd their favorite themes woven into the more serious scenes, sometimes even developed with eloquence as by the Andreini; aris- tocrats and parvenus greedy of splendor were re- 102 THE COMMEDIA galed with spectacle, ballets and rich, costumes; last and perhaps most important, the universal liking for the lively jest that stirs heartiest, most unthink- ing laughter, would here be fed to the full, — ^f or who could censure lazzi of the broadest in amusements confessedly so farcical and free? It is always just as impossible to pick out a certain year and say "here began" . . . whatever literary form it may be that is under discussion, as it is to define a genre so exactly that all or ^ven the majority of its exemplars are brought under its wing. The rise of the commedia dell'arte, which I have sketched in broadest outline, is so intimately bound up with the history of the actors, and of the literary and popular drama of the sixteenth century that the threads are particularly hard to disentangle, where- as the difficulty in dating the process comes from our ignorance of how many old scenarios may be lost and of what proportion of rustic farces were impro- ^ vised, — written scenes naturally alone survive. Yet perhaps a more important thing than the drawing of such hard and fast divisions, is just to recognize the general relation of the improvised plays to the actors and the century that produced them, persons and an age of which they have left pictures like dis- torted grimaces half-seen in a darkening mirror. CHAPTER IV. Never was the irony of dejSnition-making better illustrated than by the fact that the oldest scenario of the "professional" Italian comedy records a play given by amateurs. As early as 1568, it appears, the actors' peculiar resources, their Masks and lazzi and extempore repartee, were well enough known to be imitated by noble dilettanti with the aid of only two professional musicians. The comedy is still further peculiar in that it had no women in it and that it never became part of the repertory of a troupe. Yet notwithstanding these variations from normality the little farce is so characteristic and so full of reminiscences of the mountebank's bench as to be worth quoting in full. Massimo Trojano, the court choir-master, who invented the "delightsome plot," reports the play at first-hand in a conversation with a friend, a dialog which is one of several describing the entertain- ments at the Duke of Bavaria's wedding iu Munich.^ After explaining that the "improvised comedy" was thought out in a day, the principal speaker in the dialog says: "At first there was a peasant 'alia ^Book II, Dialog II, p. 183 f., of Diseorsi delli trionfl, Giostre, Apparati, etc., di Massimo Trojano di NapoU. . . . In Monaco. . . . MDLXVIII. The scenario is quoted in full by Stoppato, Comm. popolare in Italia, 131 f. It is in three acts, like most scenarios and is distinctly a court spectacle like the piece published by Toldo, Gior. Stor., XLVI, 128 f. I translate literally, keeping the confused tenses, etc. 103 104 THE COMMEDIA DELL'ABTB cavajola'* so ridiculously dressed as to seem the very ambassador of laughter." He then goes on to tell his hearer that there were ten persons in the play and that the parts were so divided as to give him, Massimo, three, namely, the prolog, Polidoro (the young lover), and the Spanish "disperato." The other parts were taken as follows: a Magnifico, Messer Pantalone di Bisognosi (played by Orlando di Lasso, another professional musician) ; the Zanni (Giovan-Battista Scolari, of Trent) ; the servant of the young hero (Don Carlo Livizzano) ; the Span- iard's lacquey (G-iorgio Dori of Trent) ; the courte- san beloved by Polidoro (the Marquis of Malespina) ; her servant (Ereole Terzo) ; and a French servant. "To return to our comedy (continues the narra- tor). When the prolog had been spoken, Messer Orlando (Pantalone) had a sweet madrigal sung while Massimo who had played the peasant, took off his rustic garments and all in crimson velvet with broad cuffs trimmed top and bottom with gold, and with a black velvet cap lined with the finest sables, came out with his servant, praising Fortune and boasting that he lived happy and content in the kingdom of love ; when behold, the Frenchman, ser- vant of Fabritio, his brother, came from the country to summon him with a letter fuU of the worst news, the which Polidoro read aloud; with a great sigh, " The farse cavaiole were so-called because they represented doings of the peasants of Cava, a south Italian town. Cf . Croce, Teatri di Napoli, Archivio per le provineie napol., XIV, 583 f., and Ancona, in Arch, per lo studio delle tradizioni popolari, II, 239. Torraea, Teatro italiario, etc., prints an example of these realistic little farces, 431. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB 105 having finished the letter, he had Camilla called, and after having told her the necessity of his going away, kissing her, he took leave and departed. From the other side of the stage entered Messer Orlando, dressed as a Magnifico, with a doublet of crimson satin and Venetian hose of scarlet, and a black mantle long enough to touch the ground, and a mask which just to see made everyone laugh, and with a lute in his hand, playing and singing :* Who passes through this street And does not sigh, fortunate he! After repeating this twice, he stopped playing and began to complain of Love and say: '0 poor Panta- lone, who cannot pass through this street without sending sighs through the air and tears to the pave- ment of earth ! . . . ' and everyone began to laugh as much as possible so that as long as Pantalone was on the stage nothing was heard but laughter, all the more that after Pantalone had made a long discourse with himself and his Camilla, Zanne appeared, who had not seen his Pantalone for years and, not recognizing him as he walked distraught, gave hiTn a great shove and after quarreling, they at last knew each other; then for joy Zanne took his master on his shoulders and they turned like a windmill , . . and then Pantalone did the same to Zanne; at last both fell to the ground ; then they rose and talked a 'In the dialog, p. 146, the second speaker remarks upon Orlando's versatility in being able to play the Venetian when he was himself a Meming; Zanne 's speech was equally remarkable, however, for it is described as Bergamask "so good that it seemed he must have prac- ticed it fifty years." 106 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB I little, Zanne asked his master liow Ms old mistress was, Pantal one's wife, and hears she is dead, and then Pantalone begins to howl like wolves and Zanne to shed tears, thinking on the maccaroni and mince- meat* which she used to give him to eat ; then leaving off their tears, they returned to cheerfulness and the master bade Zanne carry some pullets to his beloved Camilla; Zanne promised to speak for him but did the contrary. Exit Pantalone, and Zanne went to the house of Camilla, all trembling ; Camilla fell in love with Zanne (and this is not astonishing, for women often leave the better to turn to the worse) and made him enter her house. And here there was music by five viole da gamba and as many voices. You can imagine whether or not this act was amus- ing; I swear by heaven that at all the comedies I have seen I have never heard so much hearty laughter. . . . "In the second act Pantalone appeared wondering that Zanne was so slow in bringing an answer. Then Zanne came out with a letter from Camilla saying that if he desired her love he must disguise himself in a way that Zanne would explain to him orally ; at this joyful news Pantalone and Zanne went to ex- (3hange clothes, and the Spaniard entered, 'with his heart drowned in the sea called jealousy' and told his servant of his great and valorous deeds and of the many souls, hundreds and hundreds, he had sent to Charon's boat; and that now a wretched woman had taken his mighty heart away. Com- *Iii the second edition (Venice, 1568) Zanne regrets his mistress's "maccaroni e raffioli," in the first is preserved the dialect form he probably used, "macearu e sbruffedei. " THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 107 pelled by love lie goes to salute his Camilla, and begs her to let him enter her house ; Camilla with flatter- ing words accepts a necklace from his hand and promises him fair for that evening; he goes away content. Then Pantalone and Zanne came in dressed in each other's clothes, and after they had enter- tained awhile by teaching how to act the Magnifico, they entered Camilla's house. Here there was music by four voices, two lutes and other instruments. "In the third and last act Polidoro (who kept Camilla) returns from the country, goes into the house and finds Pantalone in poor clothes; asking who he is and being answered 'a porter' and that Monna Camilla wished him to carry a box to Sister Doralice at San Cataldo, Polidoro believes this and says he'd better take the box soon; Pantalone on account of his age is not able to lift it, and after a little talk, says he is a gentleman ; Polidoro disgusted at this, took a stick and belabored him so hard (to the sound of loud laughter of the spectators) that he would remember the blows a long time. Poor Pantalone ran out and Polidoro entered the house, very angry at Camilla. Zanne, who had heard the noise of blows, found a sack and got into it ; Camilla's maid drove him out on the stage, tied up in the sack. The Spaniard, furious at not having received the promised summons, is about to leave, and raising his eyes to heaven, is beginning to say, 'Alas,' with sighs, when he stumbles on the sack containing the miserable Zanne and both he and his servant fell full length; rising in great wrath he untied the sack, shook out the Zanni and with a stick dusted his bones 108 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE very thorougMy' and the Zanni fleeing and the Spaniard and his servant after him, they left the stage. Polidoro with his servant, and Camilla with her maid then entered, Polidoro saying to Camilla that she ought to marry, because he for an excellent reason did not wish to support her any longer ; she after saying 'No' many times, finally resolves to do as Polidoro commands her and so agrees to take Zanne for her lawful husband. During this dis- course Pantalone came in armed with firearms, and Zanne with two arquebuses on his shoulder, eight daggers in his belt, a buckler and sword in his hand and a rusty helmet on his head; both are seeking those who beat them; after making several thrusts, which seem to show that thus they will slay their enemies, Camilla bids Polidoro speak to Pantalone. He points out Zanne to the old man and Zanne, frightened, motions his master to begin the fight, Pantalone does the same to Zanne ; Polidoro, under- standing the cause they both have, calls by name '0 signor Pantalone!' and puts his hand to his sword; Zanne does not know which of his weapons to take first and so there is a ridiculous hurly-burly. This lasted awhile tiU finally Camilla held Panta- lone and her maid the Zanni and peace was made and Camilla was given to Zanne as his wife. In honor of the wedding they danced an Italian dance ' The sack laezo eeema to have a perennial charm for all audiences who like farce or uproarious amusement. There is an example of it in one of the mythical tales in the Mdbinogion (Fwyll, Prince of Dyved) and it occurs again and again on the stage; cf. the two Farces tabariniques in Fournier's Theatre frangais au XVIe et XVIIe slides, I, 502 f. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 109 and Massimo for Messer Orlando begged pardon if the comedy fell short of the merit of their Most Serene Highnesses. ..." So with a conventional apologetic and complimentary epilog the simple little farce ends. In such a play as this there is evidently not the least philosophical intention, not the slightest idea of mingling with its "delightfulness" that ethical teaching which theorists of the academies insisted was the function of comedy; the whole thing is merely to amuse. There is no strain on the attention of the audience, no plot complications such as in many plays of the period gave rise to long debates on the relative values of love and honor ; aU the merit of the spectacle consists in its liveliness and in the skill with which all kinds of ancient laughter-moving devices are used. At the very first there is the ap- pearance of the well-known figure of the rustic, so often satirized in farces and May-plays and popular tales, tricked out in his usual rags and talking non- sense, no doubt in dialect. The same kind of comic appeal is repeated in Pantalone's entrance in the second scene, again a satiric portrait more or less familiar to the spectators from the Magnifico's per- formances in carnival processions and from his similarity to the old man of literary comedies ; it is worth remarking perhaps, that here he is perfectly detached, that is, he is not, as so often in written plays and in later commedie dell' arte, the father of either hero or heroine, he makes therefore not the slightest sympathetic impression, only the ridiculous one of an old man, love-mad. His antics, including 110 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB song and lute-playing, are all Mghly burlesque with- out a thread of real character to bind them together ; there seems to be no reason, for instance, why a per- son so energetic as to go through the gymnastics with Zanni should have been unable to lift a box, but such small inconsistencies never troubled the actors of improvised farces. The windmill business just alluded to, the affray between Polidoro and Pantalone, the entanglement of Zanni in the sack with the resulting complications, and the absurd mock battle at the end, are all the simplest and oldest ways to rouse immediate, unthoughtful laughter. More subtle are the suggested parodies on the aca- demic follies of the time, — Polidoro 's first speech in praise of Love and Fortune, Pantalone 's serenade and grandiloquent meditation thereon, the Span- iard's still more inflated bravure. Academic and literary also is the influence that formed what there is of plot, the slender intrigue in which the chief persons are as it were the shadows of Latin comic characters.® The courtly demands for splendor of costume, for music whenever possible and for a dance at the close of the play, were as carefully regarded by Massimo Trojano as by his followers in the creation of scenarios ; such adornments must really have been needed by an aristocratic audience as relaxation and variety in the continual horse-play of these farces. The modern editor of this comedy considers it so complete as to indicate that the high-water mark of ' This comedy is unlike most of the improvised plays in the fact of the heroine's position; she is generally a girl of good family who loves only the youth she means to marry, — not, as here, a courtesan. THE OOMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 111 the commedia dell' arte must be placed in the middle of the Ciuquecento/ — rather a rash conclusion in view of the fact that it is the only surviving scenario of the period and that it is so much simpler than most of those of later date.* Scala's collection may and doubtless does contain several plots as old as the one just described, but since the collector did not edit each of his pieces with modern scholarly accu- racy, speculation on the subject is unsafe.' Two of his numbers may be at least conjecturally dated before 1578 and about 1589 respectively, though such proof as there is may seem rather shadowy. In the Portrait^" the assumption as to date hangs by the slender thread of a name and one hypothesis de- pendent thereon; the principal heroine, — not as in most of Scala's pieces a respectable girl of the bourgeoisie but an actress of very free life called Vittoria, — ^must, I think, have been played by Vittoria Piissimi, whose character was of just the kind suggested here. Now La Vittoria was with the Gelosi only a few years and left them finally to establish a company of her own in 1578, Granted, and the supposition is at least probable considering the Italian practice, that she created the chief role in 'Stoppato, Comm. pop., 139 f. "Solerti, Ferrara, etc., cc-cci, mentions an improvised play given in 1577 by noble persons, so the Munich performance was not unique. ° Ee, G'ior. Stor., LV, 328, thinks that Scala 's plays must have been mostly composed late in the Cinquecento. "7i Bitratto, Giornata XXXVIII of Scala's book, has been fully reported, translated into French by Moland, MoUere et la com. itaUenne, 81 f. For the discussion on La Pazzia cf. Solerti, Gl'aXbori del melo- drama, I, 42, and Solerti-Lanza, Gior. Stor., XVIII, 184^5. 112 THE COMMEDIA DELL'AETE the Portrait, giving it her own name, this scenario must have been written before 1578 or the play would not be found in the repertory of the company to which until that year she belonged. La Pazzia, played at Florence in 1589, has not been identified with absolute certainty.^ ^ It may have been a pastoral or it may have been the impro- vised comedy I am about to describe; a contempo- rary accoimt calls it merely a "comedy by Isabella Andreini of the company of the Gelosi, attended by the Grand Duke . . . with the same interludes that served for La Zingara by Vittoria," and says further it was played superlatively well, especially "with genius and eloquence by Isabella."^* The occasion was the wedding of Ferdinand I de 'Medici to Christina of Loraine, May 13, and the comedy, if it were really the one of the same title preserved by Scala, was much more elaborate than that given at the Bavarian fete. As there seems to me a fair chance of Scala 's piece being this royal entertain- ment and so of its dating next in age to the Portrait, 1 give a brief synopsis of it here. The argument tells a romantic story. Oratio, on his way to marry Flaminia, is captured by Turks and taken as a slave to Algiers, leaving his mistress to retire to the cloister. In Algiers the tale of Joseph in Potiphar's house is repeated and con- tinued, — ^the wife of Oratio 's master falls in love with the young captive and agrees to turn Christian if he will flee with her and marry her. She arranges "Solerti, GValbori, etc., II, 18. "Ancona, Origini, II, 495 f., recounts the rivalry of the two com- panies and especially of the prime donne. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 113 the escape, taking her small son with her. After various adventures during which the lady's husband and son are killed, Oratio conducts her to Genoa where she is baptized under the name of Isabella and where the play opens before the couple have been married. In the first act we hear from Flavio that Flaminia has left the convent, that he loves her but she is cold to him. Pedrolino tells the facts about Isabella and Oratio which the argument had previously summed up, adding his opinion that the two "are living in sin." The next scene is a pas- sionate conversation between Isabella and Oratio, she accusing him of unfaithfulness in not marrying her as he had vowed, he promising to fulfil his oath very soon. Isabella withdraws, making an oppor- tunity for an exchange of the noblest sentiments by Flaminia and Oratio, confession of mutual love and mutual encouragement to prefer honor to love. After their tearful parting, the Captain enters with Arlecchino, looking for a "Christianized Turkish woman"; the pair go to the Inn where the Captain makes love to the innkeeper's sweetheart, Eiccio- lina, fights with one of her admirers and is deluged with water thrown from a window by a servant, — true commedia dell' arte fun. The act closes by the revelation of Pantalone's determination that his son Oratio shall no longer live in sin but shall marry Isabella at once, a resolution imparted to the youth with the effect of throwing him into a violent rage and causing him to quarrel with Flavio, Flaminia's other lover ; Isabella looks on and weeps the while. The heroine as the second act opens tells Flaminia 9 114 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB she will rather die than force Oratio to marry her ; the two ladies then vow friendship and "compli- ment" each other, until Pedrolino interrupts them with an account of the duel between Oratio and Flavio. This recital finished, the Captain enters, recognizes Isabella as the woman he seeks and tells Flaminia her story; as he is going on to make love to Flaminia, Oratio arrives and finds a second quarrel on his hands. Quiet on the stage is restored after much noisy confusion, and Flavio has a chance to urge Pantalone against postponing Oratio 's marriage any longer. Isabella listens until she seems to go mad and assaults Flavio with a knife; he falls hurt and bleeding, she tells Oratio that she has revenged his wrong, but in fact leaves Flavio to make capital of his wound in pressing his claims on Flaminia. Very soon Oratio leads Isabella out again, caressing her and assuring her that he does not care for Flaminia, and sending her in finally "quite consoled"; he has himself of course to re- main to inform the audience in a soliloquy that he is true to Flaminia in his heart but that honor is master of his acts. Flaminia interrupts these fine words by asking sarcastically when he means to marry his "amazon"; he is furious, so is Isabella at the window ; honor takes wing very quickly as Oratio declares he will only marry Isabella to get rid of her and to fulfil his vow, and that then he will remove her by trickery or poison. Isabella really goes mad this time, "raves against love and fortune," tears her clothes and throws them about and at last rushes off in despair. 115 Oratio and Flaminia are overcome by remorse at the wrong done their victim — ^the third act shows — and they join with Pantalone in begging Dr. Gra- tiano to try to cure her ; the mad woman is brought in, boimd and ' ' doing her insane tricks, ' ' Pantalone accuses Oratio of having caused this by his love of Flaminia, the young man "despairs." The Captain is greeted by Isabella as one of the constellations, and is then violently beaten by her. Gratiano next enters with hellebore, to cure Isabella "instantly," she frightens him by suddenly appearing and bid- ding him be quiet while Jove sneezes. To Oratio 's greeting, "You are here, my soul," she learnedly replies : ' ' Soul according to Aristotle is spirit ' ' and goes on with divers other absurdities of a semi- academic nature, until she is seized and bound and made to drink Grratiano's dose of hellebore. She soon comes to herself, receives Oratio 's penitent apologies and agrees to marry him at once. Flavio is immediately betrothed to Flaminia, Burattino to Eicciolina and Pedrolino to Franceschina so that the play may end properly. Most of Scala's pieces are, like this one, intrigue comedies on a considerably more developed scale than that evolved in a day by Trojano. The rela- tions between the persons are carefully thought out, or rather they are adaptations of those in the motherless households of written drama f^ again as " The absence of a respectable matron from the scene is by no means so invariable in the written as in the improvised plays; cf. CeccM, Gl'incantesimi (Venetia, 1560); Cenci, Gl'errori; Gonzaga, Gl'inganni (Venetia, 1592), all romantic intrigue comedies containing numerous farcical scenes like Scala's scenarios, which emphasize the 116 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE in the written plays there is a large romantic element in most of the plots and a good deal of talk about Klove and fortune in the dialog; the settings for the first forty numbers — the comedies — shows still an- other literary influence, a Eoman tradition, for they all represent street scenes calling for the same simple stage arrangements. When the plays were given in private before wealthy patrons these set- 1 tings, canvases painted in perspective, would often ibe done by the best artists, — Eaphael did not disdain \o design the scenery for a comedy given before Leo X," and there are records of other illustrious representations of realistic and beautiful back- grounds for academic plays. There were almost I always, whoever the designer of the scene, three I main houses shown, one at each side and one at the jback, leaving two streets as well as the house doors humanly pathetic interest of the plot largely by bringing into it an unhappy mother. Of course the commedia dell'arte had nothing to do with pathos and therefore left the mother out of account and made the father so vicious or foolish that he could not be pitied. "A performance of Ariosto's Suppositi in the Castel Sant'Angelo, March 8, 1519. Cf. Graf, Attraverso il Cinquecento, 369. Grazzini in the prolog to La Strega played before a Florentine academy, says: "La scena si conosce benissimo esser Firenze; non vede tu la cupola?" Evidently this was as realistic a, representation as that of Ceeehi's Incantesimi in the prolog to which the author says. ' ' Voi conoseete che questo proscenio 6 in Firenze, ehe '1 Cardo e la Cupola e la piazza che 6 qui, ve la figurano assai chiara." So also an Italian artist painted the scenes in La Calandra to repre- sent Florence when that comedy was given at Lyons in 1548 before Henri II and Catherine de 'Medici (Basehet, Comediens italiens, etc., 9). Aa early as 1518 Bibbiena had a comedy given in Rome for which the scenery was painted to represent a characteristic bit of Mantua. The description is found in a contemporary letter cited by Flechsig, Dekoration der mod. Buhne, etc., 64. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 117 foi* entrance and exis(ts.^* The middle house cer- tainly and the two others probably, had balconies from which Isabella and Flaminia could exchange insults with each other or compliments and vows with their lovers, and over the balustrade of which Arlecchino could leap and Oratio could climb. Properties for these comedies were often as simpte"^ as this setting, the only absolute requirements were "clubs for beating," formidable weapons for keep- ing the Zanni and the Captain in order and for help- ing the lovers execute their vengeance on the old men. Scala here and there lists various other "necessary things"; according to the play may be required an Inn-sign;^® a long bench for the char- latan, with a handsome trunk, a lute, charlatan's wares, two bottles of wine;^'^ a pair of shoes, a sharp knife, a chest of food, a roasting spit;^* many lan- terns and night-shirts, a woman's dress for Arlec- chino ;i'' a garden at one side of the stage, a small table with two seats, confections, arms ;^" a large felt hat, a bundle of faggots for Pantalone, two loaves of bread, a cheese, a bottle, a plate with seven fritters;*^ a tall mirror standing on feet, two "Bapst, Essai sur I'Mstoire du theatre, 167, and Eennert, Spanish Stage, 96, call attention to the need for regarding chronology in any study of stage arrangements. The Italian street scene seems to have been' a norm for improvised comedies from the latter part of the sixteenth to at least the middle of the seventeenth century. "Giornata I. " Gior. II. " Gior. rV. "Gior. IX. =» Gior. XI. "■Gior. XV. 118 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE similar rings ;^^ a chest with many letters in it;^^ two Alexandrian carpets, a suit for a Turkish, mer- chant, slave's habit for Pantalone;^* slaves' suits and iron chains, eight barrels of water, a palace with throne and columns.^® All these articles, except the palace and its columns, were perfectly ordinary everyday supplies, easy for the poorest company to produce. Not so the gold and silver vessels, the rich robes, the carved furniture, the jewels and flowers, to say nothing of the painted scenes pastoral or marine, required for the mytho- logical and heroic part of the repertory. For those the Gelosi had to draw on the treasury of the dukes of Mantua or the kings of France before whom they played. Not until the seventeenth century had multiplied and cheapened stage devices and had brought the professional actor some independence of his private patrons could Scala's last nine pieces have been given in public. One of these, a tragedy called the Mad Princess, must have required at least one painted cloth representing the seashore, and calls for, among the properties : "one very beautiful ship, two skiflPs, one pavilion, four elegant trunks, four lighted torches, four silver basins, one water-ewer, divers lances, a head resembling the Prince of Morocco, one moon which shall seem to set, a throne for the king of Fez. ' ' The opere miste that follow the tragedy make still larger demands for machinery " Gior. XVI. =»Gior. XXIII. « Gior. XXVI. " Gior. XXXVI. 119 and properties. There are transformation scenes that needed skilful manipulation and rapid changes of tableau in which the usual stage direction is, "the middle scene (prospettiva di mezzo) falls, showing" — whatever the climax demanded, temple of Pan or palace of a king.^^ In L'Alvida, a "royal work" (Gior, XLII), are listed "a wood, a fine grotto, a large tree to place in the center" and among the dramatis personae, "a lion, a bear and an ass."^^ In The Enchanted Tree, a pastoral (Grior. XLIX), greater demands are made : " a painted tree for the transformation (of a nymph into a tree), a tree with apples attached which shall rise, a grotto for the witch, a cape in the sea which shall suddenly appear, two fires with perfumes, two rays which shall flash ^'' The battlements, trees, etc., needed for these plays were prob- ably canvas structures like those mentioned as required by the Italian players at Windsor in 1573; of. below, Chap. T, and Feuillerat, Docu- ments concerning the Bevels, etc., for numerous entries in the Eevels Accounts of payments made on ' ' one Citty & one battlement of canvas," etc. " Ancona, Origini, I, 318 and 511 f ., describes some of the remark- able machinery used in the Saore Sappresentazioni at a quite early date, — devices for representing sea-fights, making a temple fall in ruins, etc. Animals on the stage both in the Mysteries and in intermedj were perfectly familiar to Italian audiences. Of. Ancona, Origini, I, 513, 'and Flechsig, Dekoration, etc., 12. In the dramatic diversions at the court of Mantua during the carnival of 1591 elaborate settings were used; there was one painted cloth with "a noble palace painted in chiaroscuro," another with trees and a third of a city with battlements and with transparent paper in the windows, also a mountain for the temple "adorned with flowers and ivy -leaves. " The Gelosi were quite accustomed to acting in entertainments as gorgeous as this; cf. the account of the spec- tacles at the wedding of Ferdinand I de 'Medici, 158®, Solerti, Albori del melodramma, II, 19 f . 120 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE (presumably to imitate lightning), and an earth- quake." Gold and silver utensils, handsome furni- ture, a chariot drawn by four spirits, shepherd's attire, princely robes with crowns and scepters, new- born babes, battlemented cities and a forest in Persia — such were a few of the articles that gave magnificence to this curious group of plays. The first of these extravaganzas is an example of the compound plays so popular at the time, consist- ing of three or more separate little pieces sometimes on the same theme, sometimes as in this case con- nected verj loosely by a thread of plot.^^ The scene is conveniently laid in the Peloponesus so that the conventional ideas of Sparta and of Arcadia may be utilized, but the classicism of the three parts is of the most diluted academic character. The comedy is pure farce; an old Spartan father, called Pan- talone of course, ignoring his daughter's love for young Oratio, son to Dr. Gratiano, promises her hand to one of Orestes' Captains; the soldier is however soon summoned to the wars and when he returns he finds that Pantalone has been prevailed upon to betroth the girl to Oratio. Scenes of jeal- ousy and misunderstanding follow but are cleared up so that a triple wedding closes the act. Then comes a pastoral interlude built on a much tangled love plot, with the scene laid in "Spartan Arcadia"; ^ In England the best-known work of the kind is Beaumont and Fletcher's Four Plays in One, but there were many others which have perished; cf. Feuillerat, John Lyly, 341, note 3, and Benslowe's Diary for 1592 and 1597. One of the outline plots of the period surviving in England is of the second part of such a play, Tarlton's Seven Deadly Sins, for which cf. below, Chap. V. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB 121 Fillide, daughter to Pedrolino (factotum at Panta- lone's villa), pretends deatli to follow her lover, Sireno, and after she has been put into the vault flees in the disguise of a shepherd. Before she finds him the faithless swain sees and loves Amarillide, who is pining for Tirsi, who in turn loves Fillide and mourns her as dead. Fillide after many tearful recriminiations and after wounding Sireno with an arrow when she finds him with Amarillide, is at last converted to care for Tirsi by her rival's decision to marry Sireno. Eidiculous scenes between peasants relieve the lachrymose dolefulness of this act. The most fully described laszo is a trick of Lisetta, a shepherdess, to calm two fighting cowherds ; she , promises them a plate of food if they will allow her i to tie them back to back ; she then sets the dish on ; the ground, urging them to eat and laughing at their | struggles to reach the maccaroni. Finally one sue- 1 ceeds in bending over far enough and goes out eat-| ing and carrying his hungry fellow on his back. The pastoral ends conventionally with music and a marriage procession to the temple.^' The tragic third of this "three-plays-in-one" deals with Spartan royalty, with the love of King Orestes for Altea, daughter of his guest Bramante, king of ^ Cf . De Sommi for the probable costuming of these pastorals, above, Chap. III. Solerti, Albori, etc., gives descriptions of other musical and mytho- logical commedie dell' arte. He calls Orazio Vecchi's L'Amfiparnaso (1597) "a real true commedia deU'arte to which has been applied madrigalesque music." (I, 17.) Ancona, Origini, II, 451, describes a comedy played as early as 1567 in which Cupid frees Chloris, a nymph who had been turned into a tree; but this was not an improvised play so far as is known. 122 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE Mycenae, witli his murder of this guest and further with the revenge taken for the deed by Oronte, king of Athens. A slight connection of the three parts is made in the last by the appearance of Pantalone and Gratiano as ambassadors to the Athenian monarch, who present him from their master with a silver basin containing Bramante's head. Altea does not long survive her father, for she chooses in the manner of her kind death rather than dishonor- able love ; we see her, decapitated, borne across the stage on a "car of justice" while Pantalone and Gratiano, like a Greek chorus, "discourse on the swift turns of Fortune." The play ends with a messenger's account of the death of Orestes in battle and the people's joyful proclamation of the "ancient liberty" of Sparta, henceforth a republic. Contrasted with this tripartite drama is the long drawn out epical trilogy, L'Orseida, interesting especially on account of the folk and fairy elements in its first part. The Elizabethans would have found no difficulty in compressing into one piece the varied events of so romantic a history, but to the Italians under the critical eyes of their academic theorists the preservation of the time unity was an ever-present anxiety; consequently they often strained probability to the breaking-point in order to bring about their climax within "one revolution of the sun." Scala, if he were the author of the Orseida, frankly begged the question by presenting in three separate tragicomedies the three important moments of his action. In the first, a half-serious, half-farcical parody on the Beauty-and-the-Beast THE COMMEDIA DELl'aETE 123 theme, Dorinda, daughter of Pan's chief priest, is carried off by a ferocious bear against whom all Arcadia has for years been in arms. Her father's despair is mitigated by a vision of the god and a prophecy that Dorinda will be happy in the devoted love of a divine husband and that she will be the mother of heroes. In the second part, supposed to take place some time later, the bear is killed by Trineo, a prince searching in Arcadia for his friend and his love ; the main point of the action is however so obscured by Trineo 's other adventures, by the comic legerdemain of the servants and by spec- tacular changes of scene, that it is a surprise to find the third part motived by the monster's death. This concluding portion begins in the manner of the usual revenge tragedy by the hero, Ulfone, vowing vengeance on Trineo for having murdered his father, ' ' although a bear. ' ' Many are the complica- tions in the way of fulfilling this simple resolution, but justice is at last done and Ulfone receives a bride and a triple kingdom at the hands of the priest of Pan. After all this confusion comes, in Scala's book, a milder piece, a pastoral. The Enchanted Tree. The argument states that Fillide, daughter of the old shepherd Ergasto, loves the young Arcadian Sireno, an exile from his country; the uncle of this youth, a "magician enchanter," disapproves his love for Fillide and therefore makes him insane and by that means forgetful of the nymph. She disguised as Lisio, a shepherd, flees from her father's home in pursuit of her lover but "by chance" she also goes 124 mad and is even, through the machinations of a rival, helieved to he dead. At last by the art of the Mage all are ' ' contented. ' ' This is largely a musical play, there being frequent directions to Corinto (one of the shepherds) to enter "playing his pipe" and to the nymph Clori to sing. For the rest the play is made up of commedia dell' arte jests, partly absurdi- ties of the two insane characters, partly tricks of the magician. Among the latter are fireworks which issue from the cell of the wise man whenever any- one tries to go in, an instantaneous change of scene in which the back curtain falls to show a "maritime cape" and an enchanted tree with spirits and demons dancing about it; the tranformation of a nymph into another tree and later her restoration; the bewitching of Arlecchino into the form of a wild crane who makes much mirth by stretching his neck in reply to questions. The final spectacle must have been a triumph of stage machinery for in it the blood of Timbri, who had stabbed herself for love of Sel- vaggio, restores to human form the maiden of the tree amidst a shooting of flames "all over the stage," flames so potent in their magic that they bring back to life Timbri herself and change Arlecchino from a bird to a man. Three marriages close the action and the Mage, as in L'Orseida, resolves to become a benevolent being. If I have dwelt on these extravaganzas a little it is because they combine in a peculiarly intimate way, popular and literary elements. For example such ancient folk motifs as disguise, transformation, death-and-resurrection, the use of blood as a means THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aBTE 125 of restoration to life, the humanization of animals for dramatic purposes, are quite recognizable even though so overlaid by convention that it is perhaps a trifle absurd to try to disentangle them. On the other hand the academic commonplaces which Scala as a practical, successful manager and a supporter of the best theatrical usage of his day felt bound to maintain — the idealistic conception of love and honor, the pastoral and heroic machinery, the classic legacy of myth and theory — are just as evident as the popular material.** During the seventeenth century plays like these hybrids became increasingly numerous, growing more and more spectacular until their place was taken by the melodramma and the comic opera. Notwithstanding the importance of the "mixed works" it is hardly fair to leave Scala 's book with- out a glance at one more of the comedies that make up its chief bulk. This time instead of summarizing another romantic intrigue like La Pazzia, I will give one of Scala 's reworkings of a classic theme, the Menaechmi situation, because this serves better than some others to show how the freedom given by a merely outlined action favored farcical treatment of plot material. The heroine Isabella is the wife of Captain Spavento who has been away for six years in search of his lost brother, a Captain also. The play opens on the day of Spavento 's return from '" There were written playa also of the same mixed character called sometimes " regiacomica, " sometimes " tragieomica. " Spanish influ- ence on these heroic extravaganzas was strong; cf. Bartoli, Seen, inediti, Ivii f. ; Croc©, Teairi di NapoU, 138, and Maddalena in Wiener Sitzungsberichte, CXLIII, part 16. 126 THE OOMMEDIA DELL'aETE his unsuccessful quest, and at once portrays the state of affairs at Ms home. The first scene shows that an explanatory prolog was not necessary, for here Isabella tells her sad story to her maid Franceschina and her neighbor Flaminia, and confesses that dur- ing her husband's absence she has fallen in love with Oratio. This gentleman is the lover favored by Flaminia and accordingly Isabella's admission is followed by a lively and abusive dialog between the ladies and that in turn by a bout at fisticuffs. Oratio enters in time to save Isabella from Flaminia 's fury, only to be rewarded by accusations of infidelity from his mistress. More blows are exchanged with so much noise that Pantalone and Gratiano, fathers of the girls, rush to the rescue; Isabella runs into the house gesticulating like a lunatic and Flaminia pretends to be bewitched; the two old men follow to see if they can do anything. Spavento then enters to the Inn (which is the third house on the stage), disguised in order to find out quietly what his wife has been doing in his absence ; Pedrolino, the inn-keeper, promises to care for the stranger and his servant Arlecchino. When the boards are clear again Oratio explains in a soliloquy his adoration of Flaminia and his fear that she has fallen into a causeless jealousy of Isabella; his fear is not much relieved by information from Franceschina that her mistress (Isabella) has gone mad with love of him. However, as she begs him to visit the lady disguised as a doctor, he compassionately agrees, puts on a long gown and a false beard and is about to enter Gratiano's house when Flaminia, who has been lis- THE COMMEDIA DELl'aBTE 127 tening from the opposite window, runs out, throws herself on Oratio, pulls off his beard and robe, beats him and in her jealous rage puts everyone to flight. The second act begins by Spavento's telling his friend Flavio some of his adventures and asking for news of Isabella; the Captain gets no satisfaction from Flavio but overhears Oratio and Pedrolino talking of Isabella and her unfortunate love. The men go off, making way for an explanation between Flaminia and her father Pantalone, followed by Franceschina's additions to Flaminia 's confession. Arlecchino hears the maid say that her mistress loves Oratio and not the Captain, and with true Zanni officiousness goes to tell his master of his dis- covery. Then, with the entrance of the other Cap- tain, begins the tale of mistakes and blunders that has always been the chief attraction of this type of play. Flavio takes this Captain for Spavento, his friend, and both speak at cross purposes. After they go out a comic scene between the maid and Spavento shows that Franceschina in revenge for a beating is capable of slandering her mistress very freely; Arlecchino confirms the girl's story by what he has just overheard and is rewarded by the flogging that closes the act. The plot begins to clear up with the reconciliation of Oratio and Flaminia after an angry conference spied upon by Pantalone. The old man is seen by the lovers as soon as they make up their quarrel and is begged to consent to their marriage. No sooner is he persuaded than the two Captains enter, the brother first and for a moment only, Spavento 128 THE COMMBDIA DELL'aKTB immediately after; Arlecchino informs the latter that Pedrolino will turn them both out of their lodging unless they pay him at once, whereupon Spavento angrily beats his servant off the stage. The other Captain appears again and in answer to Pedrolino 's furious reproaches gives him money. Next Gratiano draws near and begs the Captain to go to his wife at once; the soldier denies having a wife and calls the Doctor ugly names, giving him the lie in his throat as well. As soon as he goes off Spavento greets Gratiano and tries vainly to ap- pease him. Exeunt severally and enter Isabella and Franceschina debating whether or not the master of the house will be glad to see them; on the appear- ance of the stranger Captain they both fall at his feet with prayers for forgiveness — a tableau seen by Spavento as he comes from the wings. The hus- band watches till the Captain raises the lady and then rushes forward sword in hand to avenge his honor ; instantly however he recognizes his brother, embraces him and Isabella, — and the play ends merrily.^^ A glance at the titles in any list of scenarios will show how largely all through its existence the corn- media dell' arte made capital of such farcical im- broglios as those just related, that is to say, of com- ''For other abstracts of Scala'a plays cf. a paper in Mod. Phil- ology, April, 1911, in which I have summarized two more of his comedies and his one tragedy; M.o\3,ni,MoUere et lacomedie italienne, 81 f. ; Scherillo, in La vita ital. nel seicento, 311 f., and Klein, GescMchte des ital. Dramas, I, 913' f ., give still other examples. Klein gives a full account of Scala's Gior. XXX, drawing from it some rather unwarrantable conclusions as to its connections with Shakes- spere'a Twelfth Night. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB 129 plications resulting from the disguise of one person like another or the resemblance of one person to another. In the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies these motifs became more and more ex- travagant, there being sometimes two or more couples of twins on the stage, sometimes three or even four "similar" Arlecchini or Pulcinelli. The improvised plays did not always however in- tend to be pure farce or even mainly farce. Such a tragedy as The Queen of England,^" is for the most part taken from some serious treatment of the death of the Earl of Essex in the reign of Elizabeth, prob- ably from a written tragedy, possibly from a dis- torted memory of the actual facts. Some of the properties needed for the piece indicate its tragic nature : ' ' One paper head which looks like the Earl ; mask and mantle for the Queen; pistol; ribbon; "Bartoli, Seen, inediti, 54 f. Cf. another scenario on the same theme, Brouwer, Eendiconto, etc., 345. It is impossible to date this scenario exactly though it seems to belong to the end of the seven- teenth century. As to its literary affiliations there is an equal amount of doubt; the Abb6 Boyer wrote a French tragedy on Essex's death, Le conte d'Essex, acted 1678. P. CorneiUe's tragedy of the same title was published in the same year and contains an allusion in the preface to M. de la Calprenfide's successful treatment of the same subject "thirty or forty years ago," a play I have not been able to see. N. Biancolelli's La regina statista d'IngMlterra e il Conte d'Essex, etc. (Bologna, c. 1664), I have also failed to find. This may be the source of the scenario though the latter has also been traced in part to a Spanish heroic play, Bar la vida per la sua dama. With the English revenge tragedy by J. Banks, The Unhappy Favorite or the Earl of Essex . . . (168S) the commedia dell'arte has, I am quite sure, nothing to do. There may of course, aa Professor Thomdike suggests to me, have been some common source for all these versions of a well known story, or they may have been composed separately on a historical basis. 10 130 THE COMMEDIA DELL'AETE bunch, of keys ; basin ; throne of state ; gold chain for the servant; ridiculous costume for th.e same; letters and petitions; inkstand; small table and bell; two silver candlesticks with large candles." After this list the play opens with the return of the * ' Conte di Sex " to the English court after a victorious campaign in France; he is discovered at night facing the garden-gate of the Princess Lucinda, explaining to his servant Cola that he must see his love before he greets the Queen ; he is condescending enough to add that he loves Lucinda only as second choice, because the Queen has recompensed his long devotion by cold neglect. After he has entered the garden Cola sleeps on the ground and talks comically in his dreams until wakened by a shot and by the flight of three masked villains from the garden; the Count and Queen follow, the Count wounded in the arm, the Queen trying vainly to discover his identity and re- ward him. Though he refuses his name he allows her to bind up his arm with a ribbon and so they part. The next scenes are partly comic and have to do with the courting of Lucinda by the Prencipe del Delfino (the Dauphin?), with her repulse of him and with Cola's satire on the situation. Lucinda next greets the Count and confides to him her plot to kill the Queen and seize a crown which was by right her father's. (If there is a reminiscence of Mary Stuart here it is not clear, though it does sug- gest itself.) The Count pretends to be willing to help in the plan but secretly thanks heaven for the chance to prove his loyalty to his sovereign. The court then assembles and after the aged THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 131 councillors, Ubaldo and Pandolfo, the Pantalone and Grratiano of the play, have advised the Queen in various burlesque ways Cola announces his master's return from France. His reward is a fine gold chain and rich costume, for which he attempts to thank the Queen by a kiss. When the Count enters he receives as the meed of his victories the appoint- ment of Governor-General. The Queen asks the hour of his return and noticing Ms confusion tasks him with a secret love affair. Essex denies her charge and is just about to lay bare Lucinda's treason when the Princess herself enters followed by one of the councillors; the old man takes the Queen out but not before she has seen and recog- nized her ribbon on Essex's arm. Lucinda's jeal- ousy of her royal mistress and her vows of revenge are both so violently expressed as to drive her lover from her, leaving the lady to give Cola an important letter for her brothers. In a final burlesque scene Cola is robbed of his new finery by the two other Zanni, Trappola and Bagnolino. The second act opens quite simply where the first left off, with a continuation of the servants' fight; Cola after driving away the others by pointing a pistol at them, attempts to excuse himself to the Count for neglect of his master's affairs. The Earl pardons him and bids him lock up the Queen's ribbon carefully — vain counsel to a Zanni, for no sooner is Cola preparing to obey than Lucinda con- fronts him and forces him to give her the treasure. There follows a romantic talk between Essex and the Queen in which she tries to make him understand 132 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE "in ambiguous words" her love for Mm, chiefly by; means of a page's ditty, "the lover revealing his love. ' ' But the noble refuses to take the meaning to himself, still worse, he maddens the lady by telling her that the great have no right to indulge personal feelings ; she replies by the commonly accepted state- ment that love equalizes all estates, — "Not mon- archs and their subjects," says her loyal servant. Lucinda at this points interrupts the conference, ap- pearing with the ribbon on her arm. Fatal token! The Queen recognizes it, angrily sends her off and turns a much-changed face to the Count, bidding him fly the kingdom within three days or forfeit his life ; yet a moment later, seeing his confusion and grief, she repents, reverses her doom and confesses her love for him — a scene surely calling for the his- trionic powers of a Bernhardt! The Earl retires rather overwhelmed with so much passion, and Delfino comes to tell the Queen that Lucinda wishes to marry Essex; she again flies into a jealous rage, summons Lucinda, has a violent altercation with her and concludes with a vow of vengeance on her lover. Next come two typical commedia dell' arte scenes, the first between the Count and Cola, abuse on the one side, excuse on the other; the second, Bagno- lino's lazzi as he prepares throne and table for the Queen. The court meets, the Queen takes her place and as she looks over various papers tears up the Count's petition to serve her as Captain of her Guard. The effort to control herself evidently ex- hausts her, for when the Council is dismissed she falls asleep in her chair. This gives the Earl a THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 133 chance to enter quietly and to expatiate on her beauty and his long-established love for her; she also is enabled to reveal still more plaialy her adora- tion of her subject by talking in her sleep. Just as the Count stoops to kiss her Lucinda rushes toward the throne with pistol pointed; as she fires Essex strikes up the weapon, the traitress runs away, the Queen wakes, the Count is suspected, arrested, carried off to prison, all in a moment. Cola is next seized and searched and Lucinda 's unsigned letter taken from him. A silly lazzo relieves the end of the strenuous act ; as the three servants quarrel over Cola's wardrobe Cola pretends to tie his shoe and as he stoops down, catches Bagnolino and Trappola each by one foot, overturns them both and flees. To the Earl in prison lamenting the disillusion- ments of a life at court comes a masked lady (the Queen), with offers of aid; in his gloom he declines help and only sighs out his love and devotion to his sovereign. She is touched to the point of giving him a key and bidding him escape, something he so little desires that he ungratefully flings the key into a well, protesting his innocence the while. Cola, disguised, now visits the cell for the purpose of begging to be remembered in his master's will; the Count at once draws up the instrument, bequeathing land and money to his servant, then gives Cola a letter for Lucinda, a warning that Essex will not always be at hand to save her. The catastrophe, absurdly enough motived, follows close upon. The Queen sends Ubaldo to the prison but bids him not execute justice unless she twice calls out his name. 134 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE She then takes the judgment of the court on the situation and finds it to be unanimous: "traitors should be punished." There is a moment of sus- pense, for as Cola passes just then and with his usual complaisance surrenders the letter for Lucinda, the Queen finds in the Earl's words proof of his innocence. Overjoyed, she cries out loudly to IJbaldo, who thinking he hears the signal, executes his prisoner and appears shortly with Essex's head in a basin. The Queen can only lament over it in despair till unable longer to endure the thought of her injustice, she kills herself. The Queen of England is a little unusual among scenarios in giving for all its absurdities and its farce and its impossible characters, an indefinable sense of reality. It is not often that an improvised play rouses even the tritest reflections on life, yet here in the very unreasonableness of the story and the illogicality of its climax there seems to be a recog- nizable representation of the actual tragedy of Essex; as in the historic situation inconsistencies of passionate natures and small accidents and mis- understandings bring about a melancholy end where a happy one might seem just as possible. There must I think have been some definite literary source for the scenario to which should be attributed such little power as it may have. The tone of the written plays differed from the improvised chiefly by a con- sistent maintenance of just such seriousness as haunts us fitfully here; of course the professional actors' main care was only to amuse uproariously, not as with the regular dramatists, to bring some THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 135 definite idea to finished expression. This diversity of aim accounts for sncli formal differences as the shortening of the five acts in written prose and verse to the regulation three in improvised prose f^ the substitution of the Masks for the more highly differentiated persons of literary drama, and the multiplication of lazzi in the professional plays. Yet the plot fabric of both forms was at bottom the same and so were many of the ornaments with which professional actors tried to grace their freer plays. Scala, we learn from various contemporary references, used gorgeous mythological prologs and interludes when he performed for private audiences and even when he was giving his more economical public representations he may very likely have fol- lowed academic fashion in putting the substance of his argument into an introductory speech, perhaps at times into a brief dialog. Whether a prolog were appropriate or not seems to have mattered little, — actors and poets composed sheaves of them for mis- cellaneous recital — and Scala quite probably varied his salutations according to his audiences.^* The written plays were almost always prefaced by one or more introductory addresses,*^ invariably semi- '^ Only one five-act scenario has been found among the five hundred and seventy-nine in existence, all the rest have three acts; cf. Brouwer, Ancora una raccdlta di scenari, 395, note 4. °' Domenico Bruni, a member of the troupe of the Oonfidenti, pub- lished two volumes of prologs and miscellaneous speeches mostly in verse: Frologhi (Bologna, 1623) and Fatiche comiche (Bologna, 1623). '^Grazzini's La Gelosia (1551) has a prolog addressed to men and another to women; the play was written for academic performance by amateurs and is particularly literary in tone. 136 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE boastful, semi-apologetic, occasionally stating the subject of the comedy, more often taken up with a discussion of some critical problem,^® not infre- quently setting forth in allegorical manner either the leading theme of the piece or a delicate compli- ment to audience or patron ;3^ or again they are in Jonson's style, entirely independent, and consist of a lively monolog or dialog in which one or more lads make the spectators laugh at their stupidity or their wit.^® Many of these amusing trifles would have done quite as well, and probably were actually annexed for service in improvised plays, as in the academic productions they adorn in print ; they belong to the class of unattached prologs already referred to, those written originally no doubt for some special "Grazzini's La Strega, is prefixed by a prose debate on the nature and function of comedy, as CeccM's La Bomanesca by a poetic defi- nition of the farsa. Similar philosophic efforts are to be found here and there in Lombardo's Nuovo Prato di Prologhi (Venetia, 1628). Lombardo probably played with the TJniti c. 15S4; cf. Easi, eomici italiani II, 45. " Of these an elaborate specimen that may have been used for com- medie dell' arte was written by Soldano Aniello, for himself as Dr. Spaeeo Strummolo to speak in praise of the city of Bologna, pre- sumably at performances there; it is a debate between various Olympians on the origin of the name of that city. Cf. Rasi, Comiei ital., I, 165 f. Cf. also Martucei in Nuova Antologia, 15 maggio, 1885, 222. '"One of Bruni's prologs is called "for a boy," and begins: "Most noble lords: Plato in his Banquet — ^it wasn't Plato — ah! I remember. Aristotle in his Politics; it wasn't Aristotle either — plague take these great fantastic authors, they 've in a way turned my head, so I can't recall the prolog nor anything else." {Fatiehe eomicTie, 6 f.) THE COMMEDIA DELL'ABTE 137 performance but afterwards incorporated into a col- lection of miscellaneous poems. Bruni wrote sev- eral prologs to be spoken by Pantalone, one of tbem in Venetian dialect begins by discussing a fashion- able problem thus : If honor be the reward of virtue, why may not a man who lives virtuously even though his wife is little less than a harlot, be regarded with honor ? And if honor be the gar- ment of the soul of him who does well, how can the acts of another make him despised 1 And if all the virtuous actions of a woman cannot make honorable an infamous man, why should the infamy of a woman dishonor a worthy man ? This is one of Brum's not uncommon labor-saving devices ; he often wrote speeches which like this one would do equally well for prologs to a number of different comedies or for insertion in the main body by the play at a crisis in the old man's ill fortunes.^^ The honor theme in Pantalone 's mouth reminds us once more how close were the relations between - the professional and literary theaters of Italy. The fact of this cousinship can hardly be too much stressed or accounted for too carefully. Beyond the causes for it already suggested — the intimacy of actors with their patrons and the liberal attitude of '•A later volume, Bocchini's Corona maeheronica (Bologna, 1663), contains a number of speeehes for the "Zagno," the servetta, etc. Cf. p. 13, Frologo per un Zagno in Bologna, beginning: ' ' No ve ate pii k stupir, Brigade, se qua suso Me vedS comparir Con maschera al muso In scena cantando. ..." 138 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE learned playwrights toward their interpreters — ^lies another reason, habitual flexibility in the method of rendering a given plot. During all the history of the commedia dell' arte written plays were reduced to scenarios for freer treatment and scenarios were ex- panded into full prose or verse dramas, the changes being made sometimes by the authors themselves, sometimes by hack-writers or actors, and often in such a manner that it is impossible to tell which is the earlier version. So far as is known Fabritio de' Fornaris, a far-traveled member of the Confi- denti, set the fashion in 1585 by writing up and printing in Paris his comedy of L' Angelica, which during some years previously had been played from a scenario by his own company. Giovan-Battista della Porta, author of many literary comedies, left two versions of one of them, a scenario and a fully written piece. La Trapolaria.*" Niccolo Barbieri in the dedication to his Inavvertito (1630), says he publishes the comedy because the plot has become so popular that every actor possesses a different form of it. A letter of 1632 survives in which a poet is asked to expand into "playable verses" the enclosed "plot of a comedy to be given at the next carnival."*^ Such are a few examples of the interchange of form which serves to explain similarities between literary and professional plays. In some cases, naturally, the written dramas do not correspond closely to the scenarios bearing the same name ; again a title was "Soherillo, Comm. dell'arte, Chap. VI, 117 f. Cf. F. Bartoli, Notizie istoriche, I, 230 f. "A. Bartoli, Seen, inediti, lix, note 4. . THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE i39 sometimes altered for an improvised piece thougli the latter was in plot exactly identical with a written source.*^ In short so many kinds of relationships existed between the two methods of dramatic art that there is no excuse for wonder at their obvious correspondences. After the middle of the seventeenth century when the popularity of the commedia dell' arte was declin- ing, the tradition derived from the practice of its actors contributed several elements to the favorite amusements of the time, the melodramma and the opera bouffe. Certain parts of these ' ' mixed pieces ' ' were regarded as beneath the dignity of being set to music or put into verse, and so were left to the extempore invention of the actors who took the masked parts. This combination of prose fooling with musical numbers on a thin plot basis survives in the modern extravaganzas of our own comic stage, yet it is only in such old-fashioned operas as the Mariage de Figaro that there is still traceable any- thing resembling a direct influence of the commedia dell' arte. During the eighteenth century, as will shortly appear, the Masks ceased to be prominent in the better theaters and dropping out of fashion were relegated to the places from which they sprang, the humble amusement halls of the common people and the booths of country fairs. So humiliating a '^ Groto 's Emilia, for instance, was played with improvised dialog as Le furberie di Scappino; cf. Bartoli, Seen, inediti, lis. Bartoli gives a long list of titles of scenarios (ib., xxix f.) with, in the notes, corresponding titles of written plays. Cf. Erouwer, Ancora una raccolta di scenari, 395 f. 140 THE COMMEDIA DELL/'aETE downward progress however did not begin till all Europe had become familiar with Pantalone and Gratiano and their families, and until mimics of their grotesque selves grimaced on every important foreign stage. It is with this intermediate moment of success and glory that we must deal before point- ing to the disappearing Masks in their hungry, out- at-elbows, poverty-stricken old age. CHAPTER V. ' Among the many causes for the Italianate charac- ter of the Eenaissance in western Europe not the least is to be sought in the performances of Italian actors in the sixteenth century. These troupes were great traveler^ e^en more given to jaunting about than were their English rivals, and naturally 'they introduced to the courts of Paris, Madrid, Vienna, Munich and London, their own/rich and varied cul- ture, chiefly in the early years of the century the music of their country, later, when they had become better organized, ^^ improvised pieces which were their peculiar professional glory, and the "learned" plays of many of their academic friends. What- ever the proportion of tragedies to comedies and of written to extempo;re plays in their repertory, there isTuT doubt that^ farcical commedie dell' arte were everywhere the main favorites >and,that they became famous far and wide ; the lazzi of Arlecchino, merry and easily understood as they were, pleased not only the foreign rabble but princes and their courts no less, just as they had done at home in Italy. In 1560, to instance a typical expression of aristocratic approval, Catherine de 'Medici in unmistakable terms announced that she wanted no more tragedies played by the Italian company, but, Brantome adds, "she gladly heard their comedies and tragi- comedies, even those of Zanni and Pantalone, taking 141 142 THE COMMKDIA DBLL'aETB great pleasure in them and laughing her fill at them like everyone else, for she always enjoyed a laugh. "^ Her amusement was by no means singular; she is but one among many powerful patrons who ap- plauded the Italians in foreign lands, and who con- tributed to the vogue and success of the Masks among strangers. With the oldest records of traveling Italians we have little to do for they do not concern the corn- media delt'arte.\ That Henry VIII had several Italians ainong his minstrels, that "Maistre Andre Italien" T^ras comniissioned in 1530 by the governor of Paris to "make and compose the most exquisite farces f ot a royal entry,^ and similar facts, are inter- esting ptoofs of the cosmopolitanism of the Italian 1 strollers; but they are! otherwise insignificant for us. WThe commedia deU'arte could not begin its trium- ( phant progress abroad, of course, until it had taken V shape at home, that is, until its creator-actors had become firmly enough established and permanently ^ Cited by Scherillo, La vita italiana, 317. ' The musician Masacone at the English court in 1517 has been traced to Italy by Professor CunlifEe; ef. Pub. of Mod. Lang. Assoc, XXII, 147-8. Collier, Sist. Eng. Dram. Poetry (1831), I, 83, quotes from a document which he says is of Henry VIII 's reign, a list of eighteen of the ' ' King 's minstrels, ' ' among whom are Nicholas Andria and Antony Maria; as the document is undated there is no way of telling whether these men can be identified respectively with the Maistre Andrfi who was in France in 1530 and the Antonio Maria who according to the Eoyal Accounts of France was paid for enter- taining the court of Charles IX in 1573; both identifications could hardly be true if the list is iona fide and of Henry VIII 's reign; yet in view of the long professional careers of some of the Italian actors, there is a possibility of either. Cf. Basehet, op. cit., 36-7, for the record of ' ' Anthoine Marie ' ' in France, where he was at the head of a company in 1572. Cf. Easi, I, 185. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB 143 enougli banded together to work out in groups this cooperative product, — a result not a)phi|jed until nearly the middle of the^ century/^T^^ after' about 1550 that Italian' naffies^ in foreign records begin to have- a -meaning fof fus, and it is .jfeofh that time on that we must- search for traces of -.^the commedia dell'arte in other countries. "^Not till 1548 when Bibbiena 's Calandra was given magnificently by an Italian troupe in Lyons,* does there appear a sign of any but single and scattered musicians and jugglers in any foreign court. At nearly the same time however other little companies seem to have crossed the Alps to seek their fortunes in different directions ; at least there is in 1549 a note of one small band, five Venetians, -who were paid one fiorin by the "Eechner" of Nordlingen, for some kind of a dramatic performance.* ' Their leader is unidentified ; he could hardly have been the famous Giovanni Tabarin of Venice, afterwards so familiar to Teutonic audiences, him whose/company was re- corded at Linz in 1568-9 and at Vienna often between 1568-74.® Although in the coui^se of these twenty "A full description of this splendid occaaioii is given from the original documents by Baschet, Les comSdiens italiens, 6 f. ' Trautmann, Ital. Schauspieler, 225-6. The group who played in Nordlingen in 1549 was probably organ- ized for real dramatic performances and with some degree of perma- nence, since a little later they were paid by "four florins and good words" after representing "an old Eoman history of Hercules." Vettori, Viaggio in Allemagna (Paris, 1837), says, p. 173, that Italian comedies were known in Germany in 1507 but the statement is on the face of it improbable, and the author is notoriously un- reliable. ' Tabarin was under the direct protection of the Emperor with the 144 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE years a few meager notices testify to the presence of strolling bands in foreign palaces, they unfortu- nately throw little light on the repertory presented, and are therefore no more worth citing here than the records of the musicians just alluded to. When however a little later some plainer hint evokes more vividly the ghost of a bygone spectacle, it must not escape us. Such is the note describing the performance by a Florentine, Antonio Soldino, and his troupe, of a tragedy before "the Roman Imperial Majesty" in 1570,® and that other record of the generous reward paid the same man by Charles IX in Paris, 1572, for the representation in the royal palace of "comedies and pleasing diver- sions," or as is elsewhere stated, "comedies et saults. ' '■^ Soldino 's men were evidently able to give "regular" pieces — ^witness their tragedy before the Emperor — and probably among their lighter "diver- sions" included a few commedie dell' arte. Again in March, 1571, the special ambassador from Elizabeth to Charles IX, Lord Buckhurst, gives us a glimpse of an Italian play in a letter to the Queen :* title "player to his Imperial Boman Majesty." Trautmann, op cit., 228 f. Ancona, Origini, II, 458-68, brings together some facts about Taba- riu who, he says, was the first to take troupes to foreign countries; if this were so we should probably have to suppose him to have played at Lyons in 1548 as well as in Germany in 1549. Cf. Easi, II, 565 f. Ancona states (op. cit., II, 405-6) that about 1567 Italian comioi began to travel; the German records cited above would change the date to about 1548. "Schlager, in Wiener. Sitzungesberichte, phil-hist. Klasse, VT, 167. 'Baschet, ComSdiens italiens, 34 f. 'Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series of the Betgn of EKza- heth, 1569-71, 413. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB 145 * ' The 4 of this month the King procures the duke of Nevers to invite me to diner where we found a sumptuous feste and of gret honour adorned with musick of a most excellent and straunge conserte, and with a Comedie of Italians that for the good mirth and handling therof deserved singular comen- dacion. ' ' M. de Nevers was Lodovico Gonzaga, younger brother to the Duke of Mantua, by all his training and traditions a patron of the theater ; but what this company was by which he entertained his guest or what kind of play was given, the Englishman does not detail.. The Earl of Lincoln in a letter dated June 18, 1572, is a trifle more explicit: "At after dynar Monsieur and his brother brought us to a Chamber wheare there vearie many sortes of exelent musicke ; and after that he had us to another large Chamber wheare there was an Italian playe and divers vantars (vaulters?) and leapers of dyvars sortes vearie exelent; and thus that dale was spent."* From this time on the records are full of quite definite allusions to Italian actors, especially in France, where between l5p§( and 1624 at least eight companies performed. Gsinassa whose first appear- ance is in a comedy at Mantua, 1568,^" was one of the most restless of them all; after playing at Lucrezia Baschet, Comediens italiens, 14 f., assumes the play to have been a commedia deWarte; the original statement is however too vague to be interpreted dogmatically. The company may possibly have been Soldino 's. " Nichols, Progresses, etc. of Queen Mizabefh, I, 304. "Anoona, Origini, II, 455. 11 146 d'Este's wedding in Ferrara, January,^ 1570," he went to serve Phillip II, playing in Madrid, as Father Ottonelli says, "in our manner," teaching the Spaniards "modest and not obscene comedies. "^^ On August 18, 1572, he and six companions acted at the marriage of Henri de Navarre and Marguerite de Valois in Paris, and as good Catholics un- doubtedly witnessed and approved the St. Bartholo- mew six days later .^^ So far as is known Ganassa was the first to introduce the Bergamask Zanni to Parisians, playing either in contrasti or in commedie iZeZ^or^e with Pantalone, as the Sieur de la Fresnaye Vauquelin notes : . . . le bon Pantalon, ou Zany dont GanaSse Nous a represents la fagon et la graee.^* The same pair of comic figures was especially suc- cessful in Germany and Vienna, if we can venture such a deduction from the facts that they are the most often described and are the most prominent in the frescoes at Schloss Trausnitz where they are portrayed with the Doctor, the Captain, the lovers and the servetta grouped about them.^^ " Solerti, Ferrara, etc., xeii. ^Cf. Ottonelli^ Delia Christiana moderatione, etc., II, 37. Barbieri's statement in La SuppUca, lOS, is the source of later accounts of Ganassa in Spain. Cf. F. Bartoli, Notizie istoriche, I, 248-9. Ganassa was not the first Italian actor in Spain ; for others cf . Ben- nert, Spanish Stage, 22 and 29, note 1. "Baschet, Comediens italiens, 42 f. "In the second book of his Art poHique, a poem begun in 1574; cited by Baschet, op. cit., 45. "Trautmann, Ital. Schauspieler, 193 f. The sixteenth century frescoes at Trausnitz may commemorate the performance of Trojano's play at Munich, 1568, but more probably they are generalized repre- sentations, having nothing to do with a particular comedy. Easi, Comici italiani, II, 1024, reproduces a small portion of the frieze. ilAECHE COMIQCE. Voycz-vous ce docteur sur sa digne monlurr, Qu'accompagne Pierrot suin d'autres hovffons, El qui pour annoncer so grotesque figure, JRcm-plit fair de sea mniivais sonsf THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB 147 -It-is perfectly- to be expected that fhe improvised plays with their bizarre Masks and their laszi woixld have b^en more appreciated in foreign halls than the sometimes tedious regular dramas, ^et there is not the slightest reason to think that the^actors confined themselves to farces or that they did not play abroad the varied repertory they gave their home audi- ences. They spoke Italian to be sure, but that lan- guage was as well understood then by educated people as is French to-day, so that at least before the courts the strangers could act their literary pieces.'4 " As Sorel describes the Italians and their "naive and ridiculous antics" he admits "an extra- ordinary charm" in their plays, even though they are unable to abstain from mingling buffoonery with their more serious efforts, for such fooling "is too natural to them to be omitted" — they are, he adds apologetically, so instinctively expressive.^'' Popular in_the extreme there is no doubt they were withC^homever >saw them, — the frequency of their visits toTParis alone proves that; just how general and insistent was the demand for their services will perhaps be clearest if the history of the most famous of the companies is briefly outlined. '^ ' The Grelosi are first heard of in Milan, where they acted in 1569 with "that sweet siren" Vittoria " Trautmann, Ital. Schauspieler, 235, proves that the Italians used their own language at the imperial court of Vienna and in Germany; in Madrid the same was true (cf. Eennert, Spanish Stage, 260) and in England there is record of at least one play translated into Italian for performance, probably by an Italian company. (Fleay, Chronicle Sistory, etc., I, 26.) " Eigal, TMdtre frangais avant la periode classique, 48. 148 THE COMMBDIA DBLL'aKTE Piissimi as their bright particular star. In May, 1571, they furnished a dramatic entertainment for a royal baptism in France, at Nogent-le-Roy, whence they went to Paris, only to regret their distance from their protector the king; Parlement insulted them by prohibiting from acting in public all "players of farces and such like common amuse- ments" who were not properly authorized. The Italians in vain produced their permits from the king in which they were called "Comediens du Eoi," — Parlement referred to them indeed a little more politely as "actors of tragedies and comedies" but reiterated in November the interdict. The company under its chief, Alberto Ganassa, seems to have gone home again directly, for in the spring of the follow- ing year they played at Milan.^* The autumn found them at Genoa, the next summer at Ferrara; here upon an island in the Po where the Estensi had a splendid villa, they gave the Aminta of Tasso before Alfonso II and his train, unfortunately only to be rewarded by "little gain and many insults "^^ though a contemporary says they were at this time "most ready in the imitation of every kind of person and all human actions, especially those that are apt to move laughter." In the winter of the same year they were in Venice, " The outline of the movements of the G«losi I have takea from what seem to me the most careful studies of the subject, Solerti- Lanza, in Gior. Stor., XVIII, 159 f., Ancona, Varietd,, II, 283 f., and AdemoUo, Una famiglia, etc., xxxiv f. Baschet, ComSdiens italiens, 16 f., gives a detailed account of the trouble with Parlement, citing the documents. "Solerti, Ferrara, etc., xciv. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 149 whither they returned in 1574 after a brief trip to Milan, to play before Henri III of France in a tragedy by Frangipani and two improvised comedies, the latter elaborately staged and "adorned with interludes." I have already referred to the impres- sion made on Henri by this company, especially by Vittoria and the Magnifico, Griulio Pasquati ; to this ineffaceable memory was due the summoning of the Gelosi to Paris in 1576 after two years of successful performances in Milan, Florence, Ferrara, perhaps even in Vienna, where Pasquati had gone in 1576.^" The second journey to France was not without adventure for the whole company was taken prisoner by the Hugenots near La-Charite-sur-Loire and had to be ransomed by the king before they could appear in January at Blois ; the same evening they arrived they showed their gratitude by giving one of their comedies in the great Salle des Etats, to the huge diversion of Henri and his court.^^ In May they established themselves again in Paris, where they played to large crowds and at some profit as they were allowed to charge four sous entrance f ee.^^ But as in 1571 Parlement — ^no doubt at the instigation of the Confrerie de la Passion, the dramatic monopoly " Trautmann, Ital. Sehauspieler, 229 ; cf. Easi, Comici italiam, II, 226. " Baschet, Comediens italiens, 61 f . They were allowed to eoUeet a demi-teston (fifteen sous) apieee from the audience, an unusually- large sum. "In 1541 two sous had been the price fixed by Parlement for a place at a public performance; from 1609-20, five sous was the price in the pit and ten in the gallery and boxes, a sum increased in 1634 to nine or ten sous for the pit and nineteen to twenty for boxes. Cf. Eigal, Theatre fran. avant la pSriode classique, 156-7. 150 THE COMMBDIA DELL'aBTE in Paris — put an end to their performances, tMs time with, a definite accusation to the effect that plays like theirs only served to teach "paillardises et adulteres" and "were a school of debauchery to the youth of both sexes. ' ' As before the Grelosi pre- sented the king's letters, yet now with better results than formerly, for after a short time they began to play again "at the Hostel de Bourbon ... by the express permission and order of the king." "I desire that it be done so and that there be no mis- take," says Henri's note of command to the city authorities, "for I have pleasure in hearing them and have never heard more perfect."^* The atmosphere may have cooled in France not- withstanding the favor of the court, or that favor may itself have turned to some newer object, for the Gelosi were back in Italy in 1578, when at Florence they lost La Vittoria and made some other changes in the company. The next year they had more trouble. A decree of the Duke of Mantua is extant, dated May 5, 1579, exiling "from the City and State of Mantua the comedians called the Gelosi who lodge • at the sign of the Bissone, and also Signer Simone, who plays the part of the Bergamask, and Signer Orazio and Signer Adriano, who play the parts amantiorum, and Gabriele called delle Haste, their friend. "2* There is no record of their offense; whether their plays were too free either in morals or in political or personal satire, or whether like Pedrolino's company in 1576, they were forbidden ^Baschet, ComSdiens italiens, 76. "Ancona, Origini, II, 464 f. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 15l to act because of the scandalous lives of some of their number, nothing remains to tell.^* Perhaps the machinations of Vittoria, who was by this time the star of the Duke's most favored company, the Confldenti, were to blame for the exile of her former confederates. It seems almost necessary to suppose some plot or inimical influence working against the G-elosi, for they were quite certainly not inefficient. That same summer they played before Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria and were by him pronounced "die best Gesellschaft so in gantz Italia von Comedianten. "*® Moreover in 1580 they conquered the reluctant good will of Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, and caused him to modify his prohibition of their plays so that they were allowed to perform in such pieces as were approved by an episcopal commission, — a triumph to which perhaps is due their reinstatement at Mantua in 1582. Fortunately the G-elosi were not under the exclusive patronage of the Gonzaghe at this period, for in 1583 Francesco Andreini de- clined the Duke's offer of a position in his new com- pany with the excuse that he is engaged to the "most famous S. Alvise Michiele, manager of the hall at Venice," probably the director of a public theater. For some years the Andreini and their friends seem to have been rather more bound to the noble family of Este than to any other, for they played at Ferrara quite regularly at carnival time. Between 1580 and 1599 they traveled from city to city in northern ^Easi, Comici italiani, I, 242. =° Trautmann, Ital. Schauspieler, 235. 152 THE COMMBDIA DBLL'aBTE Italy, making a name for themselves chiefly through the beauty and genius of their leading lady, Isabella Andreini, and the successes of her husband ia the Captain's role. In 1599 the Gelosi apparently went for the third time to France; they performed at court without molestation but of course as soon as they tried to take money for public plays at the Hotel de Bour- gogne, the Confrerie de la Passion again had them restrained. Eight days after they had received the writ from Chatelet, however, a permit was granted them, probably as a result of their having paid a large sum for the privilege.^'' By 1600 aU trace of them in Paris has disappeared and the court is ap- plauding a new and equally excellent troupe called the Accesi, proteges of the Duke of Mantua. But one more bow the Gelosi certainly made to French royalty, in 1603-4, just before the death of Isabella Andreini and the consequent retirement of her hus- band from the stage threw their fellows into such despair that they disbanded temporarily, to reor- ganize later under a different name.^^ Though the Gelosi deserve all credit as pioneers they were by no means the only actors who familiar- ized French audiences of the sixteenth century with the plays of their country, plays so much more lively "Eigal, Theatre frangais, etc., 48^9, and Basehet, Comediens ital., 103 f. The Italians were used to similar monopolies at home, cf. Jarro, L'epistolario, etc., passim, for details on the monopoly granted T. Martinelli by the Duk© of Mantua. ■* For biographical details on this interesting couple, who added the example of the most scrupulous regularity of life to their professional triumphs, cf. Easi, Comici italiani, I, under Andreini, and Bevilacqua, Gior. Stor., XXII, 109 f. THE coMMEDiA dell'abte 1 St- and dramatically effective than tlie pieces in the repertory of the Confrerie de la Passion. The Accesi, whose Arlecchino set the fashion for a long line of iniitators,^^ the Confidenti in 1584 and after, and especially the Fedeli, who under the leadership of Giovan-Battista Andreini preserved the scenarios and carried on the traditions of the Grelosi,^" — all these did their part toward making the French stage ready for Moliere. They were all exceedingly well- known and are often alluded to in the writings of the time. French poets rimed "histories" on the misadventures of "Pantalon Bisognoza,"** or wrote sonnets to Isabelle, "one of the gods disguised as a mortal," and to "admirable Arlequin, whose very posture is expressive. "^^ The Sieur de Eosni used the familiar Masks as illustrations in his pungent satire of courtly vices,^* and the Cardinal de Retz in his Memoirs constantly pillories his enemies under the stage names of the Italians, — Mazarin for one as a "vulgar Pantaloon" or as "Trivelino Prince."** Malherbe censures Arlecchino 's production of I dui "FoT the Accesi and Confidenti cf. Ancona, Origini, II, App. II. For the Martinelli, ibid., Ancona, Lettere di comici italiani, and Jarro, L'epistolario, etc., passim. Bnini, a member of the Confidenti, writes of them in his FrologM and his Fatiche eomiche. "G. B. Andreini made astonishing advances in staging ; he was particularly fond of presenting mythological-allegorical spectacles such as his own Centawa, three plays in one, in which all the characters of the first part are centaurs. "Loret in 1654; cf. Moland, Moliire, etc., 18'5-7. " Isaac de Eyer in 1600 and 1603 ; cf . Baschet, Comediens italiens, 134, 119. " In 1603. Cf . Baschet, Comidiens ital, 136-7. "In 1652 and after. Cf. Moland, Moliire, etc., 1»7 f. l54 THE COMMEDIA simili, "whicli is the Menaechmi of Plautus," un- certain whether "the sauces were bad or my taste corrupted," but sure that he came away "with no contentment except from the honor the Queen did me by her invitation. ' '^® Whether corrupted or not his taste must have been singular for Martinelli, the Arlecchino of the occasion, some ten days later writes to a Mantuan friend, "The comedy was most successful, contrary to all expectation ; but they are wild about comedies here so everything seems good. "3^ Before going on to follow the fortunes of othen traveling companies in other countries it may be\ well to pause awhile and ask just how much influence these strangers and especially their peculiar plays can be proved to have had on a foreign art greater than their own. Here again as in the case of the Eoman Mime there is danger of taking one set of facts out of their connection and of seeing them so isolated as more analogous to another set of facts than in their proper setting they really are. It will not do to stress too much an influence that was only one small element in the stream of Eenaissance life. The commedia dell' arte was not responsible for the mixture of classical and romantic material in Hardy's plays and in the English and Spanish drama, — a mixture quite as characteristic of the written as of the improvised Italian comedies, and very general in the theater of the period — ^nor was it responsible for the theory of love that underlay ■"Baschet, op cit., 242-4. This was in 1613 on Martinelli 's second visit to Paris. "Jarro, L'epistolario, etc., 57-8. 11 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 155 the conceits of its young heroes and heroines — these were ideas adopted by the actors in deference to academic taste, as we have seen. Nor is the habit of improvisation, of which a good deal has been made in studies of the Spanish gracioso and the Eliza- bethan fool, to be traced exclusively to imitation of the Zanni; improvisation, especially of sharp repartee, topical allusion and comic lazzi, is a uni versal characteristic of any really popular stage,*'' and if Shakespeare's or Lope de Vega's fools filled out their meager lines by quips of their own, they did it just as circus clowns or minstrels do it to-day, because they are moved to free expression by the nature of the entertainment they offer, not because they ape clever improvisatori, Italian or other. Neither can the many lazzi of the commedia dell' arte be made a fair test of their influence; farcical tricks, disguises, mock-fights and the rest are, like improvisation, very general appeals to groundlings and are found in medieval French and English plays long before there was any possibility of interaction with Italy. Moreover masks, inherited from the medieval theater, were sometimes wo,rn on the stage as late as Shakespeare's or even Moliere'ff day; Quince, you remember, silences Flute's' scruples as to acting Thisbe when he has "a beard coming" by assuring him he may wear a mask,** and Corneille remarks on the effectiveness of substi- tuting an actress with uncovered face for a masked "Cf. Hunter, Popular Bomances, etc., 390, for a St. George play in which the prose parts are improvised. "Midsummer Night's Dream., I, 2. 156 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE man, in female roles.^* For character types the same warning holds good ; resemblances are not to be too jubilantly noted between Pantalone, for instance, and the old fathers of French, English, Spanish plays of this period, for the Magnifico was probably not responsible for what may be due to a direct imi- tation of a common source, — some Latin or Latinate Italian model^or to a similar expression of conven- tional ideas as to the universal unlovely traits proper to all old men. In looking for signs of the commedia dell' arte in other countries therefore, I have left aside as irrele- vant much that might perhaps be construed into evi- dence and have regarded as conclusive only the plainest references to peculiarities undoubtedly belonging to the extempore plays. The most satis- factory of these are naturally direct allusions either to the Italian practice of improvising on a scenario, or to some of the Masks, or — of more uncertain value — ^to a ij^icsl commedia dell' arteTsiot\i,M there may be said to be such, a mountebank's perform- ance, for example. Interesting but not so germane to the matter are resemblances of plot and char- acter, — due quite as probably, I repeat, to a common source as to imitation. Finally there are likenesses "Corneille, Bxamen of La gaXerie du palais. "lie personage de nourrice qui est de la vieille comedie et que le manque d' actriees sur nos theatres y avait conserve jusqu'alors, afln qu'un homme le put representer sous le masque, se trouve iei metamorphos6 en celni de suivante, qu'une femme repr^sente sur son visage." Women on the French stage were known as early as 1545' but were not generally countenanced until nearly a century later. Of. Bapst, Essai sur I'Mst. du theatre, 177-8', and Eigal, TMatre frangoAs, 181. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 157 in comic lazsi, the most shaky of all evidence on which to found a theory of interaction. / France felt the Italian actors' influence somewhat /more definitely than other countries, as one might expect from the frequency of the visits of the foreign troupes to Paris and the intimacy of their associa- tion with their French competitorslTf TdJ the earlier half of the sixteenth century a numbey of the most popular Italian academic plays had been turned into French by Parisian dramatists; the/nine free ver- sions published by Larivey must have given in them- selves alone a powerful impetus i to imitation.*" When it is remembered that such pieces as these, performed by French professionals or amateurs, *" Thia is not the place to go into the question of the relation of Italian written plays to the French seventeenth century theater, yet the influence was so important that it ought at least to be noted in passing. As early as 154S Charles Estienne translated Gl'ingannati. P. de Larivey, himself of Italian extraction, followed Estienne 's example by issuing in 1579 his first six Comedies facetieuses: Les esprits, from Lorenzino de' Medici's L'aridosio. (1521.) Le morfondu, from A. F. Grazzini's La gelosia. (1551.) Les jaloux, from V. Gabbiani's I gelosi. (1545.) Les escoliers, from G. Kazzi's La cieca. (1563.) La veuve, from N. Bonneparte's La vedova. (1568.) Le laquais, from L. Dolce 's II ragazzo. (1539.) In 1611 three more translations from the Italian were issued by Larivey. La Constance, from Eazzi's Costanza. Le fiddle, from Pasqualigo's II fedele. Les tromperies, from N. Secchi's Gl'inganni. (1562.) Cyrano de Bergerac's Le pedant joue is an adaptation of Bruno's Candelaio, and so many other plays of the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth are to be traced to Italian originals. Cf. Ancien the&tre frangais in the Bibl. elzevirienne for all of liarivey's comedies edited by Viollet-le-Duc. E. Fournier, The&tre frangais au XVIe et XVIIe sidcles, I, 139 f ., reprints Les esprits, with an introductory note. 158 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB were supplemented by tlie Italian actors' presenta- tion of still others of their written plays and of commedie dell' arte, it is no wonder that the work of the greatest French comedian is full of trans- Alpine reminiscences. \ Moliere in his youth must cesteHy^y hay©:: geen- many Italian plays beth-in tbeseL.tran^ati«a&-and-in t]ae-0riginai7-t-he-lti4t(^ sometime^ improvised, some-, times fully writteii^And fie ^s cetraxnl^earned^ffom^ th^m^-even if he was not, as tradition says, partly trained by the famous Scaramouche.*^ On his re- turn from the provinces in 1659 he found Scara- mouche and his company established since 1653 in the Salle du Petit Bourbon, and for a few months the two troupes shared the hall, playing on alternate days ; a similar arrangement was made at the Palais- Eoyal in 1662 and lasted till Moliere 's death, the actors continuing on good terms, occasionally rivals but often associated together in entertainments before the court.*^ So intimate a connection between Moliere and his foreign co-workers no doubt gave rise to the story of * Moland, Moliere et la comidie italienne, 177, quotes a description of a probably imaginary lesson given Moliere by Tiberio Korillo, "le grand Searamouehe"; the legend of such a relation between the two actors was well-known in the seventeenth century and the Italian's picture was often published with the verses, II fut le maitre de MoliSre Et la nature fut le sien. For Searamouehe cf. Easi, Comici italiani, 1, and Croee, Teatri di NapoU, 582 f . The apoehryphal Vie de Searamouehe by Ms associate, Angelo Constantini has been proved a tissue of falsehoods. " Moland, op. cit., 7 f ., 178' and 262. This book, though superseded in some points by later investigations, remains the basis for all study of this particular connection. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 159 his having stolen his plots from the widow of an Italian actor who had preserved her husband's scenarios.** The legend is still further colored by numerous likenesses of dramatic method and in his earlier work, of theme and characterization, between the plays of the great French comedian and the Italians. The two little farces, his first essays in play-writing, La jalousie du bariouille and Le medecin volant, are both quite frankly imitative, ap- parently of scenarios.** The groundwork of both the pieces he brought back with him on his return to Paris were taken from Italian plays, Le depit amour eux from L'interesse of Niccolo Secchi,*' and L'etourdi from Niccolo Barbieri's L'inavvertito, the latter a comedy written up from a scenario and given in Paris as early as 1627.** The extraordinary mix- ture of satire, wild burlesque and tragedy in Le festin de pierre is the result of the poet's having " Toldo, Moli^re en Italie, Jour. Comp. Lit., I, No. I. "Neri, Gior. Stor., I, 75 f., publishes II medico volante, a "com- media dell 'arte distesa," i. e., an originally improvised play, written out fully after performance. Toldo, Alcuni scenari, etc., 462, sum- marizes the discussion of the relation of Molifire's play to Italian versions; there remains some doubt as to whether the French or the Italian form were the original. "First edition, Venice, 1581. Eiecoboni, Sist. du theatre italien, 14:1, called attention to this source of Le depit amoureux long before any one else noted it. Moland prints L'interesse in his edition of MoliSre, Oeuvres, III, 53 f. Eigal, MoU^re, I, 97, points out some other connections between MoliSre's comedy and Barbieri's Inavvertito and stiU other Italian plays. Cf. on this subject Despois, TMdtre frangais, etc., 59^0, for an argument on the question of MoliSre's indebtedness to the Italians. "Moland prints L'ina/vvertito in MoliSre, Oewvres, II, 159 f. L'etourdi also contains borrowings from Groto's Emilia and For- naris' Angelica; cf. Eigal, Moliere, I, 56 f. 160 THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aBTB borrowed his material not directly from the ultimate Spanish source but from a reworking of the story in a scenario, II convitato di pietra, played in Paris, 1657; Mozart's Don Giovanni reproduces the spirit of the scenario more nearly than Moliere's play, which is always just on the edge of escaping from burlesque and never quite succeeds in doing it.*'' Tartuffe, one of the greatest and most original dramatic creations of the world, does not perhaps owe his existence to the Italian theater, for had Aretino's Hypocrite and Scala's Pedant never trod the boards, Moliere would probably have unmasked hypocrisy in the form of his famous Jesuit. Yet as he had before him two convenient plots each effective • ly showing up an imctuous faux devot, he took from them both and especially from the scenario, hints and more than hints for his own drama.** Aretino's Hypocrite may have been drawn on the model of a pedant whom he knew in real life and whom he de- scribed as "the most oily, the most disgraceful, the " Molami, Moliere et la comedie italienne, l&l f., reproduces this scenario, one of the gayest and most eitravagently farcical ever plotted. Cf. Despois-Mesnard, Moli6re, Oeuvres, V, 13 f. For a scenario probably influencing Moliere 'a Monsieur de Pov/r- oeaugnac, cf. Toldo, Gior. Stor., XL VI, 128, and Alcuni scenari, etc., 474 f. Scenarios of apparent date c. 1660 contain the same plot and similar lazzi. "Neither Moland nor Despois-Mesnard say anything about Scala's scenario but Moland in Moliere et la comedie ital., 209 f. analyzes Lo ipocrito. After I had noted the resemblances between Tartuffe and II pedante, I found the same connection mentioned in VoUhardt, Archiv fur das studium der neueren Sprachen, etc., XCI, No. I, and in Toldo, Figaro, etc. Toldo, Alcuni scenari, 481, discusses the old scenario of Basilisco di Barnagasso, which tradition says influenced Tartuffe. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 161 most villainous you ever saw", a man who became the master of a large house through his hold on its mistress, and who lorded it over everyone including the lady's husband.** The comedy so mordantly satirizing this person or another like him, undoubt- edly contributed much to Scala's scenario,^" one of the most effective of his plots. In the first act of II pedante Cataldo, the pedant, appears as a mediator between Oratio and his father Pantalone, and is so plausible that the youth feels obliged to enlighten the audience in an aside on "the miserable nature of the pedant." In the second act — Cataldo drops out of sight in the lazzi and love-making scenes of most of the first — ^the hypocrite tells Pantalone that he will help him keep order in his house and prevent Isabella, the old man 's young wife, from disgracing her husband. A little later there is a comic scene between the peda- gog and his pupil Fabio, "pedantic rimes made by Fidentio, master of all pedants", and then a solilo- quy in which Cataldo muses on his skill in cover- ing "under the mantle of dissimulation and moral pretensions" all his rascality. The speech pre- ludes a conversation between him and Isabella; he accuses her of flirting with the Captain, she weeps, acknowledging her fault, and Cataldo with great dexterity insinuates she would do better to bestow her love on someone nearer home, namely, himself; "Cited by Graf, Nuova Antologia, Ser. HI, Vol. V, 412, from Aretino, Bagionamenti, Part I, Gior. II. "Scala, Teatro, etc., Gior. XXXI. For the influence of others of Scala 's scenarios in iFrance ef . ToHo, Mtudes swr le fhe$,tre de Begnard, Eevue d'hist. lit. de la France, X, I. 12 162 THE COMMBDIA DBLL'aBTB she consents on condition that he pacify her angry- husband. After more love scenes between the children of Pantalone and Gratiano, Cataldo tells his patron that Isabella is "the most honest woman in the world", calls her out and insists on peace and an exchange of kisses. In the third act Isabella in- forms her husband of Cataldo 's treason just at the moment when Pantalone is congratulating himself on having such a faithful friend. The old man will hardly believe her, repeating that he is sure the pedant is a "tremendously good man", but he at last consents to the plan his wife outlines, in order to discover the truth. He accordingly begs Cataldo to take charge of his house for a few days during his absence, an invitation immediately accepted with "many fine little words of praise for everyone." No sooner has Pantalone turned his back than Cataldo tells Isabella he dies for love of her, and she "to catch him with fair promises" bids him go to her room and wait for her. She then tells the two Zanni of her victim's helplessness in the house and they go in to execute a barbarous punishment. After yells from within, the unfortunate is brought out in his shirt, "bound with good cord"; he kneels to confess his scoundrelism and to beg for mercy, and the Captain recommends that he be let off with a sound beating and exile from the city. He is therefore flogged "very well" with three large clubs and driven off as " an infamous man and most hurt- ful, an example to all other pedants." Moliere adopts this "moral" conclusion rather than the 163 more cynical one of Aretino, in which the hypocrite goes entirely unpunished. ^+j5Moliere never quite emancipated himself from the prevailing Italianate f ashionsf although only in one other play did he take an Italian plot entire and adapt it to French taste in his own, manner. Don Garde de Navarre follows quite closely the outline of Cicognini's Gelosie fortunate del prenhipe Roderigo, itself prohably from a Spanish souyce.^^ The in- trigues of L'ecole des femmes and L'avare are in- deed of the Italian classical type but are so freshened and changed by the powerful characterization of the principal figures that they deserve to be called original in every respect.^^ On the other hand Les fourberies de Scapin, with its plot influenced by a scenario based on G-roto's Emilia, shows that as late as 1671 Moliere found it easy to slip back into the imitative habits of his youth. *** Moreover all the comedies in which Sganarelle takes a leading part, either as servant or rustic, husband, father or tutor, contain decided reminis- cences of the Italian style. The intrigue of Le cocu imaginaire,^* the absurd laszi in L'ecole des maris, "' Moland, edition of Moliere, Oeuvres, II, and Eigal, Moli&re, I, 127. Cf. Toldo, Alcuni scenari, 481. The French "opera eroica" reminds one now and again of the last nine extravaganzas in Scala 's book, except that it is in far better form than they and more homogeneous in tone. '^ The plot of L'ecole des femmes is found in a Neapolitan scenario, L'astute semplicitd di Angidla, cf. Toldo, Alcwni scenari, etc., 469. It- is uncertain whether the scenario is prior to the play or is based on it. "'Bartoli, Scenari ined., lix f. There is a chance that here too the Italian scenario is from Molifere's play. "Moland, Moliere et la comedie ital., S55, cites the scenario 11 164 THE COMMBDIA DELL'aHTE the choruses in L' amour medecin and the doctor's lingo in Le medecin malgre lui — to mention but a few of many Italianate motifs — ^prove how power- fully in small details Moliere was influenced by the dramatic tastes of his popular neighbors. But there is no need to point out many analogies of this kind, and certainly none to say anything about the in- debtedness of ballets like that in Le bourgeois gentil- homme or Le malade imaginaire to Italian example, — the commedia dell' arte has little part in this rela- tion. Neither is it necessary to examine in further detail Moliere 's burlesque doctors, his old men, his comic servants or his lovers, who owe much to the Masks but who are yet so individual. Anyone fa- miliar with Scala's and Bartoli's scenarios will note here and there as he reads Le malade imaginaire or another comedy, an old Italian joke skilfully re- furbished, a hackneyed situation vivified, or will catch a likeness to Gratiano or Pantalone or Arlec- chino as Argan or Monsieur Jourdain or Sganarelle gesticulates or turns a grinning face to the audience. Such occasional suggestiojas of tricks and comic ~peraKantTe\,Ql£haxacter, probablxi^ noted and later used to good purpose, seem to sum up Moliere 's indebtedness to i]iQ comwiec[ia~~dWf arte, aside from the plots he drew from scenariosT" •"s^ ;L6oking back into the seventeenth' century it is )apparent that in no other country of Europe did /'the Italians find so apt and illustridus a disciple ritratto ovvero ArleccMno comuto per opinione aa a doubtful source of Le cocu imaginaire; the scenario as we have it seems of later date than the play. Cf. Toldo, Alcuni scenari, 4S1, for another scenario of a similar character. THE COMMEDIA DELL'AETB 165 as Moliere. JTheir adventures in Grermany and Austria after 1560 seem to have left little trace except in their patrons' expense accounts and occa- sional letters. The musiciaiis who got up the im- provised play for the wedding of the County Pala- tine in 1568 had no company with them and do not seem to have stirred anyGerman dramatist to imita- tion.^'' The small trorupe led by Jacopo of Venice which gave La Calandra at Munich in 1569, perhaps the first organized company in Germany,'* pointed the way to many followers,'^ yet as has been said, beyond their pictures on the walls of Schloss Traus- nitz, they left no permanent memorial behind<^Y~^io- vanni Tabarin, Antonio Soldino and others whoBSf-' we meet often -itt France, were in Vienna in 1-&68- and' after-^soine of them- got as- far as -Dresden in 1600^* — ^but there was no Teutonic genius to take lessons from them and evolve masterpieces out of their skeleton plots^They doubtless helped to spread Italian culture,'* theatrical devices and cus- toms, though even in this their example worked more slowly here than elsewhere; lor instance it is not until 1654®*' that we hear of a performance on a German stage, at Basle, by a ' 'well-practiced com- " Orlando di Lasso did however leave some marks on German music ; cf. Bohn, Orlandus di Lassus als Komponist weltlicTier deutscher Lieder, Jahrbucli f. Miin. Geschichte, I, 184 f. " Trautmann, Ital. ScJiauspieler, 223-i. " Cf . the records listed in Trautmann, op. cit., passim, and in Meissner, Die engl. Komodianten, etc., 190^1, and elsewhere. ""Schlager, Wiener Sitzungsher., VI, 147 f., and Trautmann, op. cit., 292 f. "' Eeinhardtstoettner, Jahrbuch f. Miin. Geschichte, I, 93 f. •" Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany, cii-ciii and note I. 166 THE OOMMBDIA DELL'aETE pany" who boasted "repeated changes of expensive costumes, a theater decoratediii the Italian manner" and ' ' skilful women" in th^efcast. j^Spain received the Italians more sympathetically, probably because dramatic conditions and the status of actors in the two countries were very similar.*^ Cervantes' description df the strollers of his own time and nation is equally true of Italian players in the Cinquecento: "Inithe sweat of their brows they gain their bread by insupportable toil, learning constantly by heart, leading a gypsy life from place to place and from inn t^ tavern, staying awake to please others. . . . With their calling they deceive nobody, for continually/they bring out their wares on the public square, submitting them to^ the iuda- ment and inspection of pveryone."^^3fflier^l%asHEe^ same difference between well-paid private and un- certain public performances, the same alternation between prosperity and misery, for these playthings of a fickle world; the same difficulties with the authorities, — questions about the morality of come- dies, doubts as to the advisability of letting women take part in a public representation, condemnation of dances and farces, limitation of the hours and days of perforioance, regulation of the prices to be charged.«^YCTin spite of all opposition, probably all the more sturdily because of it, the Spanish drama grew and throve, and welcomed the visiting "Written e. 1565. Cited Eennert, Spanish Stage, 160. Of course conditions all over Europe were much alike at this time (cf. Bigal, Theatre frangais, etc., passim) but Italy and Spain offer particularly- close resemblances. "^Eennert, Spanish Stage, passim. - ;^. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 167 actors who gave so much to it and in turn learned much from it.** i Ganassa's repertory in Madrid, 1574,** was, ac- cording to a contemporary, j"comedias mimicas . . . y buf one seas," "trivial a^id popular," containing "the persons of Arlecchinq, Pant^one, the Doctor," improvised pieces undoubtedlyy*^ The next year Ganassa lent money toward building a public theater in Seville where he engaged tc/ give sixty perform- ances; whether because he T^as involved in this financial venture or because he found Spain a lucra- tive field for his efforts, he returned several times with his company and seems always to have fotmd a ready welcome. Others of his coixntrymen followed him to Madrid, — an Italian acrobat with his tumblers in 1582, "the new Italians" later ia the same year,** and in 1587-8 the brothers, Tristano and Drusiano Martinelli, with Madonna Angelica, wife of the latter.*^ MartineUi's company was quite "^ Spanish and Italian actors played side by side in other countries as well as in Spain, cf. Trautmann, op. dt., 250 and 305. Such eon- tacts help to explain the influence of the romantic Spanish drama on the oommedia dell'arte, shown in Scala's extravaganzas. ** Ganassa is the first Italian actor-manager in Spaia of whom much is known; that he was not the first there, is shown by the record of a troupe which gave a comedy by Ariosto at Valladolid in 1548. Cf. Creizenach, Geseh. des neueren Dramas, III, 167. °°Baschet, Comediens italiens, 4&, note 1, and 50. Cf. Eennert, Spanish Stage, 28 f . "' Eennert, Spanish Stage, 44, noting this company conjectures they were I Cortesi; I should be inclined to identify them with I Comiei Nuovi, formed at Mantua early in 1580 with Drusiano and Angelica at their head. (Solerti, Ferrara, etc., xcix f.) There is little proof for either identification. " Ancona, Origini, II, 478 f ., gives many letters from and about the Martinelli; cf. Easi, I, under Martinelli and Jarro, L'epistola/rio, etc. 168 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB certainly the Confidenti, then favorites of the Duke of Mantua, a prince whom with his son Angelica numbered among her lovers.®® This lady humorously- enough was licensed to play in Spain not on account of her beauty and talent, but because she was a married woman and in the protection of her hus- band. The authorities s^m to have blinked the fact that it was never to Drusiano his wife looked for protection.^^ All these companies pretty certainly played written as well as improvised comedies, yet since they spoke Italian they probably in Spain as else- where reserved their liveliest pieces, where gesture -^largely supplied speech, for the public theaters; the uncultured rabble could enjoy lassi, songs and dances and catch the easy drift of a simple plot without knowing the language. "Learned" plays, f pastorals and interludes were more appropriate for the court and for noblemen's haUs. In 1556 Lope de Eueda translated one of the best known academic comedies of the Cinquecento, Gl'ingannati — ^which Estienne had put into French as early as 1543 — and Solerti, Ferrara, etc., xcix, note 4, quotes a letter of 1582 describing how much in love with Angelica the Duke of Mantua was at that time. "Eennert, op. eit., 45-6. Cf. Ancona, Origini, II, 523, a letter of 1598, from a certain captain who complaina to the Duke of Mantua that he has supported Angelica and their son for years with the connivance of Drusiano, and that the husband now claims the child as his own, and abuses his wife, forcing her to go about begging "over di aprir bottega publica. " " The Confidenti had petitioned to be allowed to act with the women in their band — there were three — because they were "helpless" with- out them, and it was in answer to this request that the authorities modified their prohibition of women's acting, in favor of married women. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 169 throngliout his life lie seems to have been influenced by both Italian theory and practice.™ Lope de Vega, from his youth a frequenter of Italian plays, began his artistic career by the imitation of an Italian pastoral, Jacinta; his comedies show that he had taken lessons in the same school as Lope de Eueda, for like the commedia dell'arte they have three acts — though unlike them they are written and in verse — his lovers are often called Fulvio, Valerio, Ottavio, Isabella, Lucinda, and his clown has traits of the Zanni we know. With Calderon the influence worked the other way; Biancolelli took his scenario of L'impegno del caso from Calderon, a plot that was in turn borrowed by Thomas Corneille for his Engagements du hazard.''''- Such are a few exam- ples of an interrelationship that awaits further in- vestigation in the future. "V. de Amicis, L'imitazione latina, etc., 5-6. "Moland, Moliere et la comedie italienne, 369. Cf. also Brouwer, Ancora una raccolta, etc., 395, note 1, for another scenario from Calderon. CHAPTER VI. If owing to lack of published records traces of the commedia dell' arte in Spain are hard to find, the difficulty in England is rather that there is there too great wealth of accessible material and con- sequently a danger of seeing too many connections. Yet if we resolve to confine our notes on this small part of the Italian stream to unmistakable evidences of the Masks and other peculiarities of the im- provised plays, there will be no excuse for straying too far along seductive by-paths of analogy ; nor on the other hand will such a limitation prevent recog- nition of the undoubtedly close connection between Italian and Elizabethan drama. The relation that existed between the stages of the two countries is, as in France, here explicable mainly, I think, through direct contact between actors rather than through printed texts.^ Not only were Italian actors often in England, playing both at court and in the city, but they acted almost side by side with English companies on the continent, in Vienna frequently and in Paris and Spaia at times. * The only studies I know of the commedia dell 'arte in England seem to me to have erred from taking the problem too broadly. ScherUlo {La vita italiana, 338 f.) suggests Italian parallels for some of Shakespeare's characters and high-flown concetti which are prob- ably due to a general Renaissance fashion, far wider than the com^ media dell'a/rte. Schiicking {Stoffl. Beziehangen, etc.) is ready to see commedia dell'arte influence frequently when there is nothing to justify him. 170 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 171 On September 18, 1604, an Englisli troupe gave a tragedy before the Dauphin — ^the Gelosi and the Fedeli were then in Paris also^ — and according to Thomas Heywood such royal favor to British players was not uncommon. "The French king (he \ slays) allows certain companies in Paris and Orleans, Resides other cities; so doth the king of Spain in Civill, Madrill, and other provinces."* Nash, who was perhaps a member of one of these favored bands, tells of a meeting he had with a well-known Italian Zanni while he was on Ms travels : ' ' Coming from Venice the last summer, and taking Bergamo in my ways homeward to England, it was my happe, sojourning there four or fine days, to light in felow- ship with that famous Francatrip' Harlicken, who perceiuing me to be an Englishman by my habit and speech asked me many particulars of the order and manner of our playes which he termed by the name of representations : amongst other talke he inquired of me if I knew any such Parabolano here as Signor Ciarlatano Kempio. Very well (quoth I). . . . He hearing me say so, began to embrace me anew, and offered me all the courtesie he colde for his sake, saying that altho ' he knew him not, yet for the report he had heard of his plesance, he colde not but bee in love with his perfections being absent. ' '* ''Eigal, Theatre frangais avant la periods elassigue, 50, note. 'Apology for Actors (Shakespeare Soc, 1841), 58. Cf. Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany, exxxiv f . ; Meissner, Vie engl. Komodianten, etc., passim; Baschet, Comediens italiens, 100 f.; Meziferes, Predeees- seurs de ShaJcespeare, 35; Collier's edition of Memoir of A. Munday (Shak. Soe., 1851), xxxv. *An Almond for a Parrat (1590), ed. MoKerrow, Nash's Worlcs, III, 342. Easi notes no real Franeatrippa ; the Zanni mask was often called by that name however. 172 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE \ i As we know in general the repertories and the habits of the Italians who rubbed elbowslwith Eng- lishmen in all these foreign towns, as we recall how lively and amusing or how beautiful and impressive their plays could be and as, further, we ts ke into ac- count the then xmiversal custom of pirating plays from hearing them instead of copying them from printed versions, nothing seems simpler [than that the English actors should learn directly from their rivals. But before dogmatizing on this p(j)int it may be well to deduce in more detail the reasons for such an hypothesis. ; Italian musicians have already been mentioned as visiting England in the first half of the sixteenth j century; in the latter half there is much clearer evidence of regular companies of actors at court, ; though unfortunately as in other cotmtries the records here are unsatisfactorily incomplete, the \ foreigners being alluded to only by their first names J or even more vaguely, and very little information ( being vouchsafed as to what they played. In 1550 \ the Privy Council ordered one hundred pounds to be paid to "Alberto, Franciso, Ambrosio, Vincentio and Marck Antonio, the Kinges Majesties violen players, by way of his Hignes reward, ' ' for how long a term of service or for what kind of performances we are not told.^ ' Acts of the Frivy Council, II, 88. The man last named may quite possibly be the same " Marcantonio, veneto, " who with a neapolitan and a bolognese companion recited comedies with "music, singing and dancing" at Mantua, 1567; ei. Ancona, Origini, II, 477. For the others I have found no probable identification unless Franciso may be the same who in 1569 played at the imperial court; cf. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETB 173 Other payments are made to other Italians by the Privy Council from this time on, and the Eevels Ac- counts also refer occasionally to the representations by "the Italian players." Between February and November, 1573,^ "Ffor the Progresse to Reading and Lykewise ffor the Ayringes, Eepayryngs, Trans- latinges, preparing, ffytting, fCurnishing, Garnish- ing, Attending, and setting foorth, of sundry kyndes of apparell propertyes and ffumyture for the Italyan players"^ that ffoUowed the progresse and made pastyme fyrst at Wynsor and afterwardes at Eeading," various payments are made; a list of ' ' Implementes and Expences ' ' for these same actors includes ' ' a plank of flfyrr and other pieces of sawen wood. Golde lether for cronetes. Thred and sheperdes hookes. Lamskynnes for Shepperds. Horstayles for the wilde mannes garment. Arrowes for Nymphes. Lightes and Shepperdes staves. Hoopes for Garlandes. Baye Leaves and flowers. . . . The hyer of a Syth for saturne." Another entry about the same occasion under the caption, "hyer of Apparell," is: "iij devells cotes and heades and one olde mannes fries cote for the Italian prayers (sic) at Wynsor." Leone de Sommi could not but have approved the elaborateness of a piece in which nymphs, shepherds, wild man and Saturn were so appropriately equipped ! Probably so much Meissner, Engl. Komodianten, etc., 190. Meissner mistakenly identi- fies "Francesco Ysabell" of the Viennese record with the Andreini (who were not acting as early as 1560) and their company with the Crelosi. 'Feuillerat, Documents relating to the Office of the Bevels, etc., 225 f. 174 THE COMMBDIA DELL'aETE preparation was for a written pastoral, not merely for an improvised play.'' Other companies followed close upon. "Alfonso FerraboUe and the rest of the Italian players" were rewarded on February 27, 1576,^ for some kind of an exhibition at court, and Laneham in his lively style has given us an idea of what such a performance may in part have been.® He says at the Kenilworth festivities in 1576 : "Noow within allso . . . waz thear showed before her Highness by an Italian, such feats of agilitie, in goinges, turninges, tumblinges, castinges, hops, jumps, leaps, skips, springs, gambauds, soomersaults, caprettiez and flights ; forward, backward, sydewize, a downward, upward, and with sundry windings, gyrings and circimiflexions ; allso lightly and with such easiness, as by me in feaw words it is not expressible by pen or speech. ... I bleast me by my faith to behold him, and began to doout whither a waz a man or a spirite. . . . Az for thiz fellow I cannot tell what to make of him, save that I may gesse his back be metalld like a lamprey, that haz no bones but a line like a lute-string." On January 13, 1577, the Privy Council directed 'Wild men were favorite characters in the allegorical mascherate and intermedj of Italy; in a typical Florentine entertainment of 1543 they are made to sing a song as they conduct Eeason to the city. Cf. Tutu i trionfi, I, 533. There was also a tradition in England in favor of wild men and their appearance in court masques; cf. Chambers, Med. Stage, I, 18S, note 2, also A. H. Thomdike, Mod. Lang. Notes, XIV, No. 4. 'E. K. Chambers, Mod. Lang. Eeview, II, 5. ' Laneham' s Letter, in Nichols, Progresses, etc., of Q. Elizabeth, I, 440-1. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 175 "the Lord Mayor of London to geve order that one Dronsiano, an Italian, a commediante and his com- panye, may playe within the Cittie and the liberties of the same betweene this and the firste weeke of Lent."^" Although the name is spelt with an n instead of a « in the first syllable there is no doubt that the manager referred to is Drusiano Martinelli, who was in Spain with his wife and brother in 1587-8 and perhaps in 1582. It was in 1577-8 that the Gelosi were in Paris — they were in Blois in January, it wUl be remembered — and there seems no improb- ability in Drusiano 's having come from Italy with this company to which his brother later belonged, and in his having taken some of the players across the Channel; there was however another company in Lyons in November, 1576, and it may be that this was Drusiano 's band." Whoever they were these people with Martinelli must certainly have presented commedie dell' arte; not only was their leader, like his brother, a well- known Arlecchino, but they played in the city of London, and as has been suggested, the public per- formances of the Italians were more likely to be the readily-understood improvised pieces than the written ones comprehensible to a courtly audience.^ ^ They may very possibly have performed at court " Acts, etc., X, 144. The identification of Dronsiano with Drusiano, first made by Collier {Sist. of Eng. Dram. Poetry, 1826, III, 398, note), has been accepted by all Italian authorities without attempt to prove it from unpublished documents. "Easchet, CorrUdiens italiens, 71 f. "For Drusiano as head of the Duke of Mantua's men (1595), cf. Ancona, Origini, II, 518 f. 176 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE too, perhaps in pastorals and interludes, like the troupe for wliom the speeches in a Masque of Ama- zons and Knights were translated into Italian in 1579.^^* They may also have occasionally given in the city a written academic comedy like the Inganni compared by Manningham to Twelfth Night}* ;4^By all their repertory the foreigners probably ' scandalized the staid part of their London audiences, and that in more ways than one. Performances by women on the stage, £t custgiii- "w^iich Ck)ryat-had heard * -teth been sometimes used in Loiidon, " were unknown to the native British theater, and even had the women acted only in the most moral tragedies, they would have met with little favor.^,® Since their repertory consisted of "rather jigs than plays" with no emphasis on "teaching" and a great deal on "delightfulness" it is small wonder that the cock- neys took in reference to such antics a tone of repro- bation or contempt. Hear Nash for one speak of the "players beyond the sea "as "a sort of squirting baudie comedians that have whores to play womens' parts and forbeare no immodest speech or unchast action that may procure laughter," and, proudly, "but our Sceane is more stately furnisht than euer " Fleajj Chronicle History, etc., I, 26. In view of all these Italian performances it is not strange that aa M. Feuillerat says, ' ' entre 1578- 85 on a. 1 'impression d'assister, probablement sous 1 'influence de 1 'Italic, S. un brusque Spanouissement du genre" (i. e., the pastoral). " Manningham's Diary, Feb. 2, 1601/2. The play has been identified Tfith Gl'ingannati, by a member of the Intronati. " Women did not appear on the English stage regularly till after the Eestoration. Cf. Toldo, in Bev. d'hist. lit. de la France, April, 1896, 260 f. THE COMMEDIA 177 it was in the Time of Eoseius, our representations honorable and full of gallant resolution, not consist- ing like theirs, of a Pantaloun, a A^^lore, and a Zanie, but of Emperours, Kings and Princes."" The un- flattering judgment is echoed by Whetstone in the dedication to Promos and Cassandra: "At this daye the Italian is so lascivious in his comedies that honest hearers are greeved at his actions," and Gosson blames foreign example for the taint in English plays, "Baudie comedies in Latin, French, Italian and Spanish have been thoroughly ransact to furnish the playhouses of London. "^^ Indeed it is only an occasional aristocratic academician like G-ascoigne or Sidney who can be found to admit that "Italian toyes are full of pleasant sporte"^* and that the abuse of the unities, so common in English drama, is something which "at this day the ordi- nary players in Italy will not err in."^* Thomas Hey wood in similar strain speaks of "all the doc- tors, zawnyes, pantaloons, harlakenes, in which the French, but especially the Italians have been excel- lent" and considers, like the Italian critical theo- "Nash, Pierce Penilesse (1593), ed. Grosart, 92. Nash knew more than a little of Italian written plays, especially of Aretino's. Of. Summer's Last WiU and Testament, ed. Q-rosart, 146, 11. 1520-1; Strange News, 182, and Lenten Stuffe, 234, the last an allusion to Aretino's Puttana JErrante. "Gosson, Plays confuted in five actions (1582). "Prolog to the Glasse of Government. Cf. Stele Glas, These interludes, these newe Italian sportes And every gawde that glads the mind of man. Marlowe also alludes to Italianate courtly intermedj, Edward II, 1, 1. ^Sidney, Defense, 48. "Ordinary players" as contrasted with dilettanti academicians, of course. 13 178 rists, that comedy should have in derision "foolish innamorates " and "Pantaloons that have unthrifty sons."^^ Other specific allusions to the Masks are numerous enough. Shakespeare more than once uses "the old Pantaloon," the "lean and slippered Pantaloon," "the old Magnifico,"^^ as terms of contempt for some exemplar of old age's folly. Harvey in one of his letters refers to "a sorry Magnifico,"** and Middleton's Doctor in the Changeling (I, 2) hopes to improve the state of his idiot patient though hardly to stretch him up "to the wit of a Magnif- ico" — surely no great advance beyond imbecility! Later dramatists seem to have been just as severe toward "under-hearted, dull-blooded Pantaloon,"** who is portrayed as Pantaloni at his ugliest and silliest in Brome's Novella. The Zany, as the Elizabethans agreed to call the Italian servant-clown, frequently served to point a comparison in an English comedy. Biron speaks of Some earry-tale, some pleaseman, some slight zany, Some mumble-news, some trenelier-knight, some Dick That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick To make my lady laugh when she 's disposed.^^ Malvolio mentions the "fool's zanies" in the sense of foolish servants to the fool,** while Jonson more '^Apology for Actors, 43 and 54. == Taming of the Shrew, III, 1, line 37. As You LiTce It, II, 7, 158. Othello, I, 2, 12. ^ Foure Letters, ed. Collier, second letter. =* Brome, City Wit, V, I. ^'■Love's Labor's Lost, V, 2, 463. '"Twelfth Night, I, 5, 96. The critics have usually preferred to THE COMMEDIA DEIJL'aETE 179 definitely alludes to the Italian mountebank's attend- ant, "He's like a zany to a tumbler that tries tricks after him to make men laugh," and again, "The other gallant is his zany and doth most of these tricks after him."^'' Marston in the Malcontent (1604) refers to "the French Harlekene," quite possibly Tristano Martinelli who was making a name for himself in Paris during the early years of the century. Day also had evidently seen some Zanni act, for a page in his lie of Gulls (II, 3) says, "I, like Harlakene in an Italian comedy, stand making faces at both their follies." Whether Bottom's Bergamask dance has anything to do with an Italian- ate conception of the rustic's role is rather doubtful since Bottom was not a rustic but a ' ' rude mechani- cal, ' ' nor has he any traits in common with the Zanni from Bergamo, one of whose specialties was awk- ward dancing.^* Such general references — and they might be multi- plied — show plainly enough that the Italian actors were even more familiar to Englishmen than the scattering notices in official records would lead us interpret Zany as "an inferior buffoon" without regard to the func- tion of the clown in Italian improvised comedies. Cf. Furness Vari- orum edition of Twelfth Night on this passage, for a summary of the chief definitions of the term. Florio's, from the Worlde of Wordes (1598) is the best, for he as an Italian knew what he was talking about: "Zane: Name of John, Also a sillie John, a, gull or noddie. Used also for a simple vice, clowne, foole, or simple fellow in a playe or comedie. ' ' ^^ Every Man in his Humour, TV, 1. Cynthia's Bevels, II, 1. Cf. Day, Law Tricks, I, 10. ^Midsummer Night's Dream, V. Tiraboschi's Vocdbolario dei dialetti iergamaschi defines Bergamasca as ' ' sorta di ballo rusticale. ' ' 180 THE COMMBDIA DELL'aETE to suppose. The mimerous translations or adapta- tions of Italian plays offer another kind of proof of the same fact. Some of these versions, like Gas- coigne's Supposes, set the fashion for many imita- tions and are doubtless in that way responsible for some of the Italianate features of Elizabethan drama.^^ There is not wanting still more direct evidence of Englishmen's intimate acquaintance with the commedia dell' arte in particular. Whet- stone refers to the practice of improvisation in say- ing that the "Comedians of Eavenna" were "not tied to any written discourse" but had "certain grounds or principles of their own" on which to work.^" A clearer allusion is that in the Spanish Tragedy (IV, 1) : The Italian tragedians were so sharp of wit That in one hour's meditation They would perform anything in action. Lorenzo admits the possibility of this kind of playing, . . . for I have seen the like In Paris 'mongst the French tragedians. Hieronimo: In Paris? mass! and well-remembered! There's one more thing that rests for us to do . . . Each one of us Must act his part in unknown languages, That it may breed the more variety ; As you, my lord, in Latin, I in Greek, ^Cf. J. W. Cunliffe's edition of the Supposes, also his articles on Italian-Elizabethan connections, Pub. Mod. Lang. Association, noted below, bibliography. Cf. below, App. B. " Eeptameron of Civil Viscomses, 1582. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 181 You in Italian, and for because I know That Bellimperia hath practised the French, In courtly French shall all her phrases be. Bellimperia had been urged to take a part, for "What's a play without a woman in it?" Again a typical Italian suggestion is Balthazar's, It shall be played by princes and courtiers. Such as can tell how to speak ; If, as it is our country manner. You will but let us know the argument. So the tragedy is played from a scenario, though the poet condescends to set it down "in English more largely for the easier understanding of every public reader. "^^ Another description of an improvised play is found in a much later comedy, Middleton and Eow- ley's Spanish Gypsy, acted at court in 1623 or 1624. Eoderigo asserts (III, 1), . . , the scenieal school Has been my tutor long in Italy, and in Act IV, scene 2, Fernando precisely explains the method of that scenieal school: . . . There is a way "Which the Italians and the Frenchmen use, ''Act IV, sc. 4. That the piece was supposed to be played from a scenario is evident from the quoted passages, and still more from the spectator king's, "Here comes Lorenzo: look upon the plot, And teU me, brother, what part plays hef ' ' It has occurred to me that perhaps the arguments prefixed to Scala's plays may have been printed and distributed to the audience, as was done here in the Spanish Tragedy, and later at performances in the Comedie Italienne and the Foires in Paris. Cf. below, Chap. VII. 182 THE COMMEDIA DELIj'aBTE That is, on a word given, or some slight plot, The actors will extempore fashion out Scenes neat and witty. Eoles are then apportioned as in the Spanish Tragedy, Fernando directing the assignment as he glances over the plot : Let this father be a Don Of a brave spirit, . . . Play him up high; not like a pantaloon. But hotly, nobly, checking this his son, "Whom make a very rake-hell, a deboshed fellow. . . . Sancho demands ' ' one of the foolish knaves ' ' for his part, and in the next scene where the play begins he acts very much like a Zanni. In fact the whole of this play-within-a-play is much more nearly in the Italian manner than the tragedy plotted by Hiero- nimo, although the names and perhaps some of the conceits here are of Spanish inspiration. Whether Cleopatra's forecast of how "the quick comedians extemporally shall stage us" refers to the Italian practice, is doubtful,^^ yet there is one more unmistakable allusion to it in Brome's City Wit (1632) : "In that lies the nobility of the device; it should be done after the fashion of Italy, by our- selves, only the plot premeditated to what our aim must tend; marry, the speeches must be extempore." A much disputed phrase in Hamlet can, I think, only point to this same Italian custom of improvisa- tion on a plot. Polonius praises the traveling actors in terms very suitable to the wandering comici (II, 2); for them "Seneca is not too heavy nor " Antony and Cleopatra, V, 2. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 183 Plautus too light," they were the only men in the world * ' for the law of writ and the liberty. ' ' Surely Collier's common-sense interpretation of "the law of writ and the liberty" as written and improvised plays is more probable than the explanations of re- cent critics who would have the expression refer to ' ' regular and romantic plays. ' ' The modern distinc- tion would certainly not have occurred to Shake- speare whereas the difference in the two methods of acting fell within his own experience.^* It has often been questioned whether or not the English themselves ever learned to improvise in the Italian way from a scenario. The stage "plats" discovered by Malone among AUeyn's property are in form somewhat similar to scenarios though they give much more meager directions. One of them is a synopsis of a fully written play, the Battle of Alcazar, and it is quite possible that they all like this one may represent abstracts for use in rehear- sal, on the order of those described by De Sommi as aids to his company. All the plats were at one time in the possession of AUeyn's troupe and date from 1592 to 1600.3* They are little more than lists of entrances and exits with very few suggestions for the action, such as the scenarios give often quite in detail. The only one that bears any resemblance to an Italian improvised comedy is the Dead Man's Fortune, a fantastic intrigue with a prolog and mu- sical interludes in the Italian style, in which Panta- loon and his man "pesscode" take a prominent part. ^ Cf . Purness Variorum edition of Samlet for notes on this passage. '* These fragments are printed by Greg, Eenslowe Papers, 129 f . 184 THE COMMEDIA DEUi'ABTE If any of the pieces be from a commedia dell' arte it is this one, but as the outline will make sufficiently apparent, the difficulties in the way of identifying the source are very considerable :*® The plotte of the deade mans fortune/ Enter the prologue/ Enter laertes Eschines and vrganda Enter pesscode to him his father Enter Tesephon allgeryus laertes w"". atendantes : Darlow :lee : b.samme :to them alleyane and statyra Enter validore & asspida at severall dores to them the panteloun mus ique .....■...• Enter carynus and prlior to them statyra and alleyane Enter vrganda laertes E chines : Exit Eschines and Enter Bell veUe Enter panteloun & his man to them his wife Asspida to hir validore J^" Enter Tesephoun allgerius alcyane & statyra 8am ^th attendantes to them carynus & p rely or to them laertes & bell veile Enter valydore & asspida cuttynge of ruffes to them the maide Enter panteloun whiles he speakes validore passeth ore the stage disguisde then Enter pesscode to them asspida to them the maide w'". pesscodds apparell musi que ■ ' Enter carynus and prlyor =;= here the laydes speakes in prysoun " Greg, op. cit., 133 f. THE COMMEDIA DELIj'ABTE 185 Enter laertes & Bell veile to them the Jayler to them the laydes Enter Tesephon allgerius at severall dores disguised w"". meate to them the jayler Enter panteloun & pesscode = enter asspida to hir validore & his man.b. samme to them the panteloun & pescode w"". spectakles • ■ ■ • • musi que Enter tesephon allgerius w'". attendantes Dar & others to them Burbage a messenger to them Euphrodore = Robart lee & b samme *^™ Enter carynus & prior to them vrganda w*. a lookinge glasse acompaned w'". satires plainge on ther Instruments Enter carynus madde to him prelyor (d) madde Enter asspida & (validore) pescodde to hir Enters rose Enters panteloun & pescodde Enter aspida & validore disguised like rose w'^ a flasket of clothes to them rose w'". a nother flasket of clothes to them the pan- teloun to them (to them) pescodde muBique Enter kinge Egeron allgeryus tesephon Enter w*. lordes the (x) executioner w'". (is) his S^ont* sworde & blocke & ofiScers w'". holberds l^ter* to them carynus and prlyor then after that EscMnes the musicke plaies & ther Enters 3 an w°*ont tique f aires daneynge on after a nother disguise the first takes the sword from the ex ecutioner and sends him a waye the other 186 THE COMMEDIA DEULi'aKTB caryes a waie the bloeke & the third sends a waie(s) the offycers & vnbindes allgeryus & tesephon & as they entered so they departe Enter to them vrganda laertes and Esehines leadings ther laides hand in hand Enter the(n) panteloun & pescode Enter validore (and assipida) Enter asspida to hir rose Enter the panteloun & causeth the cheste or truncke to be broughte forth finis'8 Since this play was probably acted before 1593 it can have no coiinection with the only scenario in which Urganda figures, an eighteenth century parody of the lyric tragedy Amadis.^'' Moreover the plot is not definite enough to be traced to a particular source. It is hard to see how so slight an outline could have been developed even by actors used to improvisation, much less by those who never regu- larly practiced the art. Tarlton indeed was noted for his "piperly extemporising" in his clown's role*® and for the ease with which he made a jest off hand on matters of contemporary interest,*" and Wilson and Kemp were probably as expert, yet Eng- *■ Cf . Creizenaoli, GeschicMe des neueren Dramas, IV, 335-6. '^ Parfaict, Diet, des theatres, 1, 178. °' Harvey, Foure Letters, 1592, second letter. ^iNash, Fierce Penilesse, 66-7, speaks of a "ridiculous Asse," an astrologer, on whom "Tarlton at the Theatre made jests." Baker, Theatrum Bedivivium (1632), 27, pays a tribute to the clown's ex- tempore songs and (p. 34) to his powers in pantomine. Gf. Halli- well, introd. to Tarlton' s Jests, xxviii, and Meres, Palladis Tatnia, on "our witty Wilson." THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 187 lish actors as a class seem never to have worked out the flexible method of their foreign rivals. Nash's complaint that the players finished off his Isle of Dogs'^° must mean that they wrote up the acts he left incomplete, not that they supplied the dialog on the stage, for the play as published is fully written. Jonson with his delightful explicitness asserts that English plays are not like the Italian "extemporal" but all "premeditated things."*^ There is also Hamlet's invective against the clowns' abuses of their privileges, to prove that the best Elizabethan opinion was unfavorable to the lax Italian custom. This fact of stage history ought, I think, to be decisive for differentiating the English plats from scenarios and for labeling them abstracts of written plays for use in rehearsal.*^ Among many Italianate plots, many disguise and lazzi scenes that in Elizabethan plays may possibly be echoes of commedie dell'arte,*^ I have found but one that can with any probability be referred to a " Lenten Stuffe, ed. Grosart, 200, note. Nash says that he had him- self only finished the "induction and first act" of this piece, "the other five acts, without my consent or the least guessse of my drift or scope by the players were supplied." "■Case is Altered, II, 4. It ought to be added that Jonson refers to England as Utopia; perhaps a case could be made out on the basis of this to prove that improvisation was common in England and that Jonson looked to Utopia for better conditions. But this seems too far-fetched. " There was occasionally some improvisation in Elizabethan plays ; of. Greene's Ja/mes IV, I, 3, and similar passages in Marlowe's, Dr. Faustus, in the comic scenes. Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (1596), 23, speaks of the extempore rimes of the puppet showmen. "Cf. App. B. 188 THE COMMEDIA DELLi'aETE scenario source, — ^the mountebank performance in Volpone.** It will be remembered tbat the villain- hero of the comedy disguises himself as a charlatan in order to prosecute his design on Celia, the virtu- ous wife of Corvino. Jonson appropriately chooses a retired corner of St. Mark's Place, Venice, for this bit of action, probably because some traveler had told him that here the mountebanks were wont to assemble.*^ Mosca and Nano, Volpone's parasite and dwarf disguised, build a stage under Corvino 's window in the hope that Celia may be drawn out to witness the show. While the platform is being set up Peregrine and Sir Politick argue about these fellows : "Per. Who be these, sir? . . . Sir. P. Fellows, to mount a bank. Did your instructor In the dear tongues, never discourse to you Of the Italian mountebanks? . . . Here you shall see one. Per. They are quacksalvers, Fellows that live by vending oils and drugs. . . . Sir. P. They are the only knowing men of Europe ! Great general scholars, excellent physicians, . . . The only languaged men of all the world ! " II, 1. Koeppel, Qiiellen-Studien, etc., says nothing of this scene nor so far as I know does any other editor notice it particularly. " Although Jonson knew Coryat well he could not have buUt this scene on the description in the Crudities, for Yolpone was played in 1605 and Coryat was not in Venice till 1608'. Italian mountebanks probably performed in London as early as this, though the only specific reference I have found is that in Chalmers' Supplemental Apology, 209, note, a quotation from a warrant granted in 1630 to F. Nicolini and his company, "to dance on the ropes, to use interludes and masques, and to sell his powders and balsams." Evidently the "masques" belong to the "interludes," which latter must have been commedie dell'arte. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 189 Per. And I have heard, they are most lewd impostors ; Made all of terms and shreds, no less beliers Of great men's favors than their own vile med'cines; Which they will utter upon monstrous oaths ; Selling that drug for twopence, ere they part, "Which they have valued at twelve crowns before. Sir. P. Sir, calumnies are answered best with silence. Yourself shall judge. — ^Who is it mounts, my friends? Mosca. Scoto of Mantua, sir.*' Sir. P. Is 'the? Nay, then, I '11 proudly promise, sir, you shall behold Another man than has been phant'sied to you. Here he comes. (Enter Volpone, disguised as a mountebank Doctor, and followed by a crowd of people.) Vol. Mount, zany. (To Nano), Most noble gentlemen and my worthy patrons ! It may seem strange that I, your Scoto Mantuano, who was ever wont to fix my bank in the face of the public Piazza . . . should now, after eight months' absence from this illustrious city of Venice, humbly retire my- self into an obscure nook of the Piazza ... to tell you true I cannot endure to see the rabble of these ground ciarlatani that spread their cloaks on the pavement as if they meant to do feats of activity, and then come in lamely, with their mouldy tales, out of Boccaccio, *° Scoto was a real person, an Italian juggler who was in England about this time, as Gifford notes, ed. of Volpone, 204, note 3. Cf. James 1, Vaemonologie (Workes, etc., London, 1616, Bk. 1, 105). "He will learn them manie juglarie triekes at Gardes, dice, and such like, to deceiue men's senses thereby: and such innumerable false prac- ticques; which are prouen by ouer-manie in this age: as they who are acquainted with that Italian called Scoto, yet living, can report." 190 THE COMMEDIA DEULi'aBTE like stale Tabarine, the fabulist:*' some of them dis- coursing of their travels, and of their tedious captivity in the Turk's galleys,** when indeed were the truth known, they were Christian's galleys, where very tem- perately they eat bread and drunk water, as a whole- some penance . . . for base pilferies. . . . Well let them go. ... I have nothing to sell, little or nothing to sell. ... I protest, I and my six servants are not able to make of this precious liquor, so fast as it is fetched away from my lodging by gentlemen of your city, . . . blessed unguento, this rare extraction, that hath only power to disperse all malignant humours, that proceed either of hot, cold, moist, or windy causes. . . . 'Twill cost you eight crowns. And — Zan Fritada, prithee sing a verse extempore in honour of it."*° " Grifford assumes this Tabarin to have been the French charlatan of the Pont-Neuf who flourished in Paris some time between 1619-26, playing in farces which were accessory to selling his wares. Cf . Four- nier, Theatre frangais, etc., I, 498 f. As Volpone was acted in 1605 this identification of GiflEord's seems improbable. I rather think that the man alluded to in the text was that other and earlier Italian actor, Giovanni Tabarin, who had certainly been known to English troupes in Vienna and Paris, c. 1572. Cf. Easi, Comici italiani, II, 555 f. * Cf . Easi, op. oit., I, under F. Andreini, for an account of the adventure of this Capitano among the Turks; he spent several years in slavery to the Moslem. Andreini was also one of the most notable "languaged men" among the comici. " Garzoni, Piazza universale, mentions Zan Fritada more than onee. I quote one passage in Symonds' translation (Mem. of Count C. Gozzi, I, 76). "You will see our swaggering Fortunato and his boon com- panion Fritata . . . keeping the whole populace agape into the night with stories, songs, improvisations," etc. Zan Fritata was as much an historical person as Seoto. He is mentioned not only by Garzoni but in the Capitolo in morte di Simone da Bologna: Fritada ch'in virtu te generoa Be eanta e sona col Fortunat E sovra al banc a te vitorios. . . . THE COMMEDIA DELIj'aRTE 191 After Nano's uninspired song, Volpone continues : " Gentlemen if I had but time to discourse to you the miraculous effects of this my oil, surnamed Oglio del Scoto; with the countless catalogue of those I have cured of the aforesaid and many more diseases; the patents and privileges of all the princes and common- wealths of Christendom! . . . For myself I always from my youth have endeavored to get the rarest secrets, and book them in exchange or for money: I spared nor cost nor labour, where anything was worthy to be learned. ... I will undertake by virtue of chem- ical art, out of the honourable hat that covers your head, to extract the four elements; that is to say, the fire, air, water and earth, and return you your felt without burn or stain. . . . You all know I never valued this ampulla or vial at less than eight crowns; but for this time I am content to be deprived of it for six ; six crowns is the price, . . . I ask you not the value of the thing for then I should demand of you a thousand crowns, so that the Cardi- nals Montalto, Fernese, the great Duke of Tuscany, my gossip,^" with divers other princes, have given me ; but Cf. Carrara's reprint of ed. of 1585, p. 17. Carrara notes several poems by Fritata. It is interesting to compare Volpone 's praises of his drug to another paragraph from Garzoni (550 f.) in which is given an idea of the Italian charlatans' speeches on a similar subject. "Charlatans sell powders for indigestion . . . tapers for perpetual lights; the philoso- pher's oil, the fifth essence, to make you rich; oil of tasso iarbasso for chills; an ungent to give you a good memory; . . . lime paste to kill rats; . . . burning glasses to light fires from the sun; . . . spec- tacles to make you see in the dark." ™ Gossip, Comare or compare, was a very common term of address between the best of the comioi and their patrons, because princes, dukes and even kings and queens, stood sponsor to the children of their proteges. Cf. Jarro, L'epistolario, passim. 192 THE COMMEDIA DEULi'aRTB I despise money. ... I have neglected the messages of these princes, mine own officers, framed my journey hither, only to present you with the fruits of my travels. — Tune your voices once more to the touch of your instruments, and give this honourable assembly some delightful recreation. Per. What monstrous and most painful circumstance Is here, to get some three or four gazettes,"^ Some threepence in the whole! for that 'twill come to." Nano's song is more like a Zanni's tlian the first he sang: ' ' You that would last long, list to my song, Make no more coil but buy of this oil," etc., just the kind of jingle that could most easily be improvised. Volpone next, like the men he is imitating, comes down again in his demands : "Well, I am in a humdur at this time to make a present of the small quantity my coffer contains: to the rich in courtesy, and to the poor for God's sake. . . . There- fore, now, toss your handkerchiefs, cheerfully, cheer- fully ; and be advertised that the first heroic spirit that deigns to grace me with a handkerchief, I will give it a little remembrance of something. . . . (Celia, at a window above, throws down her hand- kerchief.) Lady, I kiss your bounty, and for this timely grace you have done your poor Scoto of Mantua, "^ Jonson 's local color is as usual exact ; a gazette is a small Vene- tian coin, mentioned by Garzoni as the object of the charlatans' efforts. This correspondence between Jonson and Garzoni, like several others, makes the hypothesis that the scene in Volpone was suggested by the Piazza universale, not improbable. Garzoni had not been trans- lated into English, but Jonson of course read Italian. THE COMMEDIA DELii ARTE 193 I will return you, over and above my oil, a secret of that high and inestimable nature, shall make you for ever enamoured on that minute, wherein your eye first descended on so mean, yet not altogether to be de- spised, an object. Here is a powder concealed in this paper, that made Venus a goddess (given her by Apollo), that kept her perpetually young, cleared her wrinkles, firmed her gums, filled her skin, coloured her hair; from her derived to Helen, and at the sack of Troy unfortunately lost; till now in this our age, it was happily recovered. . . . The rest of this present, remains to me, extracted to a quintessence, so that wherever it but touches in youth it perpetually pre- serves, in age restores the complexion, seats your teeth, . . . makes them white as ivory, that were black as — Corvino. Spite o' the devil, and my shame! come down here ; Come down — ^No house but mine to make your scene ? Signor Flaminio, will you down, sir ? down ? What, is my wife your Franeiscina, sir? No windows on the whole Piazza, here. To make your properties, but mine ? but mine ? (Beats away Volpone, Nano, etc.) Heart ! ere to-morrow I shall be new christened, And called the Pantalone di Bisognosi,^^ About the town." If it were not for the concluding hurly-burly one "^Gifford's note on Pantalone is inadequate, "i. e. the Zany, or fool of the beggars. Such at least is the vulgar import of the words, but Jonson probably affixed a more opprobrious sense to them." H. B. WiUdns, editor of a critical edition of Volpone, does not understand any better than Gifford the allusions to Fritata, Pantalone, etc. Franceschina was of course the servetta in Scala's scenarios and per- haps from them was adopted by Marston for the name of his Butch Curtisan; the connotation of the name was the opposite of maidenly or wifely virtue. Cf. the Franceschina of Chapman's May Day (1601). 14 194 THE COMMEDIA DELIj'aBTE could rest content in the assumption that Jonson was only describing from life a street performance he had witnessed, or perhaps that he vivified a trav- eler's tale to add color to his comedy. But the clos- ing action, the lady in the balcony, the lover dis- guised, the jealous husband, the beatings, above all the names, — Pantalone de 'Bisognosi, Flaminio, Franceschina, — suggest that Jonson had heard and was here reproducing part of an improvised farce. A scene from the first act of Scala's Fortuna di Flavio (Gior. II) furnishes a somewhat similar out- line and might easily have been given in London by some of the Italians who were there in Jonson 's life- time ; it was certainly acted in Paris by the Gelosi, whose character names Jonson puts into Corvino's mouth : "Arlecchino the charlatan (he is really the com- panion to Gratiano, chief charlatan) has the bench arranged for mounting to sell his wares; then the servants put on it a seat and a valise, then call the companions; Gratiano and Turchetto (the latter a girl disguised as a page) come out of the Inn, all mount the bench and Turchetto begins to sing and play; Flaminia stands at the window to see the charlatans; Burattino comes to listen; then Fran- ceschina comes, stops to look on; then Pantalone arrives, salutes Orazio and all stay to watch. Gra- tiano praises his goods, Arlecchino does the same; Turchetto plays and sings. The Captain seeing Flaminia at the window suddenly salutes her, Fran- ceschina salutes the slave-boy. The Captain ob- serves Arlecchino, recognizes him as the man who THE COMMEDIA DEUj'aBTE 195 holds in governance his lady, and pulls him down off the bench. Pantalone tells Orazio that the Captain is his enemy; Gratiano raises his hand against the Captain, the Captain the same to him; Arlecchino flees. Captain follows, and in the bustle the bench is overturned and everyone runs into his own house." The parallel is not close enough to press very far. The scene in the scenario is merely one of a kind extremely common in the commedia dell' arte, a kind that Jonson must have seen if he knew any impro- vised plays — and he could hardly escape at least a few in the theatrical world of his day. It is natural to him to minimize the rough-and-tumble action, which was the chief attraction of Scala's farce, and to increase the satirical color by Volpone's monologs and the comments of the bystanders. Jonson was not entirely individual however in disapproving and satirizing the mountebanks; the Elizabethans in general seem to have had no very good opinion of Italian charlatans. Nash speaks of "a tedious mountebank's oration . . . when in the whole there is nothing praiseworthy,"^^ and elsewhere mentions the " legerdemaine of these juggling mountebanks."^* The author of Muce- dorus (I, 1) remarks on an "obscure servile habil- lament" as appropriate to "a Florentine or a mountebancke, " and Chapman makes Monsieur tell Bussy that he is "more vainglorious than any mountebank."^* ^'Pierce Penilesse, ed. Grosart, 6. "lUd., 108. '^ Bussy d'Ambois, III, 1. 196 THE COMMEDIA DELI^'aKTE About 1617 a ridiculous Antimash of Mountebanks was given at Gray's Inn,^® merely a conglomera- tion of speeches and songs, "musicall charmes, familiar receipts," entirely unlike an improvised play though quite on the order of the Italian street performances that contributed so much to the corn- media dell'arte. The second song is a jingle that rings as thin as Nano 's extempore rime. From all diseases that arise From ill-disposed crudityes From too much study, too much paine, From lasines, or from a straiae, From any humours doing harme Be it dry, or moist, or eolde or warme, I come to cure whatere you feele Within, without, from head to heele. After four songs of this kind a mountebank in a "fantasticke" habit recites some of the "familiar receiptes," of which the most quotable is an "ap- proved medicine against melancolicke feminine": "If any lady be sicke of the suUens she knows not where, let her take a handfuU of scimples I know not what, and use them I know not how, applying them to the party greeved I know not who, and she shalbe well I know not when."^^ Arlecchino might have jested in just such terms as "Nichols, Progresses, etc., of Q. Elizabeth, III, 332. " Some of the horrid compounds listed by Wittipol among ' ' Spanish fucuses" {Devil is an Ass, IV, 1) remind one of Garzoni's account of the Italian charlatan's pharmacopia; in this case as elsewhere how- ever, it is not safe to stress the international analogy. English medi- cine was quite as magical and superstitious as Italian. Cf. F. Gren- don, Anglo-Saxon Charms. THE COMMEDIA DEL1>'aE.TE 197 these at the inanities of popular medical ignorance and its lingo, but so might a French or an English clown on his own impulse; the expression of such satire is as universal as the social phenomenon it ridicules and there is, I think, no need for assuming a definite and particular Italian model here any- more than in many of the situations and lassi which recall commedie dell' arte in Elizabethan comedies. Drayton indeed says severely that his countrymen are the "very apes and zanies ... of everything that they doe heare and see,"^* but I feel sure that while there was a distinct influence of the Italian on the English drama it was, as with Moliere, more general than special, and that there is little to be gained from forcing into the same category things essentially so different.^* Anyone who wiU take the trouble to turn to Bartoli's Onorata fug a di Lucinda and compare it to the Two Gentlemen of Verona, or who will read Peacock's abstract of Gl'ingannati with an eye to Twelfth Night, can see for himself certain likenesses of motivation and plot, even broadly of character, but still more strongly, as has been said about Tartuffe and II Pedante, he must be struck by vast differences in tone, technic and detail. So anyone who chooses may set Shakespeare's Holofernes beside Gratiano and may discover that they are both tiresome pedants who speak a would- be learned dialect of their own and make love absurdly; so Scala's Pantalone may be likened to "Poets and Poesie, 1627. ""Cf. Feuillerat's admirable diserimination of the spirit of the Italian pastoral from that of Lyly's pastoral plays, John Lyly, Part 11, 321 f. 198 THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aETE numerous old fathers on the English stage, but in order to do this, every individual trait must be peeled from the English characters, — Pantalone and Gratiano are of course to begin with little more than skeletons. If the commedia dell' arte is understood at all it must certainly be regarded as a repository of ancient themes and motifs some of which, like Latrocino's tooth-pulling,®" are often to be found in the English theater, — whether they came thither from the Italian stage or from native tradition. But as the scenarios already quoted have shown, the commedia dell' arte was little else than this literary and popular rag- bag, a kiad of Harlequin's suit in itself; it was not interested in ideas except very much at second-hand, nor in fine discriminations of character, while the Elizabethan drama at its best cared exceedingly for both. Moreover the Italians were never, as were the Elizabethans even at their worst, bent upon maintaining more than the merest pretence of de- cency and morality. Such wide divergencies in the way of attitude toward the material treated warn us not to give to the commedia dell' arte too promi- "In Middleton's Widow, IV, 2. Another Elizabethan lazzo that resembles Zanni's triekg are Bion- dello's impudence to Vineentio (Taming of the Shrew, IV, 4), cf. Scala's Gior. XIII, II Dr. disperato. Act I. In the same Italian play Pantalone is refused admittance to his own house, as is Antipholus of Ephesus, Comedy of Errors, III, 1. In Scala's Travagliata Isabella, Act III (Gior. XV), the two old men, Dottore and Pantalone, talk of a ' ' buona roba ' ' much in the style of Justice Shallow, S Henry IV, III, 2. Such instances might be multiplied almost indefinitely if they were significant of anything but common Eenaissance fashion. THE COMMEDIA DEIi'AETE 199 nent a place among tlie influences forming the Eng- lish, drama. On the other hand it will not do to discount en- tirely the importance of the improvised plays in London. They formed only a small part of the repertory of the actors who presented them and who introduced foreign audiences to many kinds of elaborate entertainments, but in themselves they were so lively and so clever that they would naturally give a great stimulus to students of theatrical technic, — enough has been quoted of defi- nite allusion to show the impression they made on English spectators. As models for imitation they could however offer something less satisfactory than the written plays, because they were in per- formance so fluid, so changing from day to day in matters of detail. For these reasons it is hard to trace English scenes to Italian; even comedies like Field's which in preponderance of incident, in cut- and-dried characterization and in commonplace ex- pression approximate nearest in effect to fiUed-out scenarios — even in these there is a difference in spirit between an English hack-writer and an Italian actor. The improvised plays went a step, several steps, beyond such wretched farces in the direction toward which they tend, — toward horse-play and boisterous license. It was not until the Eestoration had brought a different tone into the English drama that the commedia dell' arte was freely and openly imitated and of that change I shall have something to say in a moment. CHAPTER VII. It is all very well to be conservatively judicious in estimating the influence of the puppetlike Masks on foreign stages and cautiously sceptical in refusing to attribute great vogue to any one scenario, yet on the whole there is no denying that Arlecchino, Pul- cinella and their comrades did not dance and jest their way into European popularity without pro- voking a host of envious imitators. After the first quarter of the seventeenth century the machinery of the commedia dell' arte was constantly worked by all sorts of actors; its masked characters, broad jokes and improvised fun were introduced into scenes of written plays, into melodrammi and comic operas, and, most usually, into pantomimes and marionette shows where such farcical doings legitimately be- long. As the public became over-familiar with this kind of thing and cloyed by it, the professional players met the demand for novelty as many of them do to-day, by foisting onto their traditional repertory inventions suggested by their immediate audience and by the special abilities of their troupes. In Italy commedie dell' arte proper persisted side by side with the newer spectacular and musical entertainments ; the old-fashioned improvised plays were, however, varied by introducing into their ancient plots a quantity of minor Masks, while in the comic operas emphasis gradually shifted entirely away from plot and lassi to music and scenery. 200 THE COMMEDIA DEUj'aBTE 201 France soon tired of the regulation commedie dell' arte — the best jokes pall in a foreign tongue^ — and demanded of the Italians something that made a more direct appeal; accordingly about 1625 Gio- van-Battista Andreini's example was followed very generally in Paris and spectacular pieces became the most prominent on the Italian stage there. Parody and satire crept in as the result of much competition between rival companies, until with the invention of the pantomime the irregular troupes marked their greatest triumph. Finally from Paris Italian and French amusements made their way to England, — there the Christmas pantomime still pre- serves at least three of the old Masks. Some de- scription of these last resorts of Pantalone and his family must necessarily round out this history and it will be given here in summary fashion for the sake of completeness, not with any idea of tracing a direct line of evolution between the commedia dell'arte and products so unlike itself. It was only in Italy and. chiefly on the popular stages that the improvised pieces held their own until the strife between two Venetian theaters brought about important reforms at the close of the eighteenth century. In Italy the improvised jokes of the Masks were understood; what cared the pit how often it saw a familiar intrigue if only the time- worn incidents were shuffled into a combination that seemed fresh and then were painted over with some gay local color? Old men therefore might always be represented as infatuated with pert serving- maids, lovers might eternally plot to abuse their 202 THE COMMEDIA DEIIi'aBTE elders, faithless youtlis be tirelessly pursued by the sweetheart they have abandoned, knavish lads per- petually plan the discomfiture of some overconfident enemy, — all the ancient round of action might go on by the ancient methods. So in fact it did. Tricks, practical jokes, disguises, pretended madness and death were however given force by repetition and reduplication; where one "pretended lunatic" to a scenario sufficed Scala, the eighteenth century de- manded four at least ; where Isabella Andreini chose one disguise and found it enough throughout one play, Grherardi's Colombine must needs keep her audience awake by tormenting Arlequin in a con- stantly changing personality, now as doctor, now as lawyer or peddler.^ Duplication of plot interest was not the only way of stimulating interest in the old repertory. A second and rather more inspired method was by freshly studied satire on this or that locally noto- rious individual or class, — of course the most natural development of the practices of the earlier actors, those first presenters of Pantalone as Venetian Magnifico and Arlecchino and Pedrolino as Berga- mask peasants. Mccolo Barbieri crystallized the prosperous rustic of the country near Milan in his creation of Beltrame.^ The famous Mask of Sten- torello originated in Luigi del Buono 's not imkindly caricature of lower class Florentines and rapidly ^ Gherardi, Theatre italien, Colombine avocat pour et centre, I, 291 f. ' Barbieri was at the head of a company in Paris, 1625-8, and played in Italy also. Cf. Bartoli, Seen, ined., exliii, and for Beltrame, the scenario published by Toldo, Gior. Stor., XL VI, 128 f . THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 203 became typical of these cheerful good-for-naughts.^ Another north Italian personage was the weari- somely prolix Desevedo de Mai Albergo of Parma, a modification of Dottor G-ratiano, whose suggestive name derives from the Latin Desapidws* The southern provinces were even more fertile in comic characters than was the north of Italy. Scaramuccia, one of the most notable of this group, ' ' dressed all in black, his sword on his thigh, ' ' was like most of the Masks born in Naples, "a cowardly bully. "^ Among his friends are Griangurgolo, a large-nosed, gluttonous Calabrian ne'er-do-well;® Guappo, or Vappo, a popular Neapolitan parody of the medieval knight f Eogantino, a cowardly Eoman brute, and his more courageous and cheerful cousin, Meo Patacca.^ • Jarro, Maschera di Stentorello, describes the character (p. 48) as "lepido, non sourrile; allegro, non cinico e salace . . . raffigurare il popolano fiorentino della piu infime . . . classe. ' ' 'Bartoli, Scenari ined., elxxxii-iii. Desevedo appears in one of the scenarios in the same volume, La hellissima commedia in tre persone. Cf. also Eieeoboni, Hist, du theatre italien, 56. ° Croce, Teatri di Napoli, 128. The Neapolitan Mask Croee defines as "a person who spoke a coarse dialect full of awkward provincial- isms, and who sometimes appeared as a 'gentiluomo di seggio,' was more often confused with the Captain, sometimes practiced other trades" (Pulcinella, 94). Scaramuccia was the creation of Tiberio JPiorillo who made a great name for himself in France in the seven- teenth century; cf. Easi, Comici italiani, I, und«r Fiorillo. "The name may be translated Jack-the-Glutton. Cf. Scherillo, Comm. dell'arte, 108, note 2; Croee, Pulcinella, 102, and Teatri di Napoli, passim; Senigaglia, Cap. Spavento, 166 f. Eieeoboni gives a picture of Giangurgolo and he appears in two of Bartoli 'a scenarios, I qaattro pazsi and I tappeti ovvero Colafronio geloso. ' The name is from the Spanish for ' ' elegant " ; cf . Senigaglia, Cap. Spavento, 173 f. and 178 f. ' The connection of comic types with different localities cannot be 204 THE COMMEDIA DEUj'aKTB Pulcinella, one of the oldest southern Masks, be- came one of the most widely famous and was one of the longest lived. In his later days he has often been noticed by visitors to Italy; Baretti says of him severely, "there is not a single good trait in him; his cunning is very low, he is always outdone when he meets with a person of sense, so that in the end he is generally discovered, imprisoned, whipped and hanged."^ Gtoethe, speaking to Eckermann of the Pulcinella he saw in his youth in Naples, gives him a better character and reports some of his doingSj.^ a little in detail: "One of the chief jqkes_of this_hero^ '" of low comedy,,.^. ,, corisisfed in jeeming_jpme^ toforget Ms part as a,n actor. Hepretended to have^ returned home, talked familiarly; with„„Ms.-iaSUll}, told them about^the piece in which^Le_acted, and pf another in which he wasjaljHSt.o act. 'But, my Sear husband,' Ms wife would-^elaim-,..'you appear to forget the august companyjnwjtose jresence you avej^ ' E vero ! E vero ! ' returned Pulcinella ; recol- lecting himself, he returned to-his-foxmer part. The theatre of PuIcTneHa is in such repute that no one in good society boasts of having been there. Ladies . . . never go at all; it is only frequented by men. quite denied, yet there is no need to go as far as Mercey; he said that ' ' every province ' ' of Italy had its eomie Mask, ' ' the personi^ fication of the ridiculous elements and moral habits of its people." (Eev. des deux mondes, 15 avrU, 1840, 196 f.) There was too much variety in the various presentations of the same Masks to permit call- ing them the invariable personifications of local traits. Mercey is always the disciple of Sehlegel; here he leaves too much out of account the influence of each actor in the creation of the Masks, and emphasizes too much the influence of climate. • Italy and the Italians, Chap. I, cited Collier, Punch and Judy, 58. THE COMMEDIA DEUj'aETE 205 Pulcinella is, in fact, a sort of living newspaper. Everything that has happened in Naples during the day may be heard from him in the evening. How- ever these local allusions, combined with his low popular dialect, make it almost impossible for for- eigners to understand him. "i" / Evidently the Mask and his name simply gave a kind of external unity to the performances of a versatile entertainer who probably wove his topical allusions into a threadbare plot, much as the Pul- cinella of to-day still does in Naples,^ ^ in the manner of innumerable humble wits in other European theatres de quartier. Most of the characters in these modern pieces are not masked, many of the plays themselves are partly written, yet since a good part of the dialog and songs has to do with matters of recent occurrence and there is therefore need for much improvisation, it is here that the last real com- medie dell' arte are to be sought. Here and in the marionette theater the Masks sur- vive because they furnish a convenient machinery, not because they are made to resemble very closely their predecessors on the Cinquecento stage. Col- lier's ingenious history of Mr. Punch assumes that his hero derives in a direct line from a Roman Mime through Pulcinella, but never was analogy '"Conversations of Goethe with EcTcermann, Bohn's edition, 440, under date of Feb. 14, 1830. "Lyonnet, Pulcinella et compagnie, gives an interesting account of the modern theater where the present Pulcinella amuses his audi- ence nightly as his predecessor did in Goethe's experience, — ^with topical allusions and low farce. Cf. Mercey, Eev. des deux mondes, XXT and XXII. 206 THE COMMEDIA DELIj'aIITE harder pressed to the violation of probability. Every age and country of the world, from China centuries ago to Elizabethan England and beyond, has had its own puppet-plays and has put into them old stories of its own. Most of the Italian burattini act out, quite seriously, chivalric legends of Charle- magne and his peers ; many others present scenes of everyday life in a broadly farcical manner. The particular English play of Punch and Judy recorded in Cruikshank's comic pictures owes something to many sources, chiefly to popular tales and songs, and little or nothing to the commedia dell' art eP Eather may its ancestry be vaguely traced perhaps to those "motions" and "puppetry and pied ridicu- lous antics" inveighed against by Chapman and Johnson in more than one jealous outburst.^^ The kind of stale or coarse wit, that has now been driven to the lowest genre theaters and to the most farcical marionette booths, prevailed till the mid- eighteenth century on many stages of a better class. ^ Collier asserts, p. 62, that the puppet-play he reproduces is from the repertory of an Italian showman, but aside from the appearance of Scaramouch there is nothing peculiarly Italian in the piece. "Magnin's Sist. des marionettes (1853) still remains of value for the number of facts from various sources it contains. Cf . the more modern studies of Creizenach, Gesch. des neu. Dramas, and Warsage, An royaume des marionettes. For the Elizabethan "motion," Bar- iholomew Fair, V, 1 and 3. For the modem Italian puppets, KtrS, Studj di poesia popolare, 11 f., and Toldo, Gior. Stor., LI. 1 f. The generic name burattini for the small wooden actors has been assumed to be derived from the Zanni Mask, Burattino; there exists a play of 1628, Le disgrazie di Bwattino. It seems quite as likely that the Mask may have got Ms name and some part of his stupid knavish character from the puppet. THE COMMEDIA DEIJj'aBTE 207 Goldoni in his youth, enemy though he was to the improvised plays, certifies that commedie dell' arte were given everywhere and especially in Bologna by "people of merit," and excellently given with ap- plause.** He further witnesses to the practice of gentlemen who so loved comedy that they maintained a troupe at their own expense, although the actors had nothing to play but old repertory. The last statement was hardly true even for comedy, — ^and of new tragedies and musical plays there were more than enough — yet such comedies as pretended to be new were probably written, either fully or ia epitome, after traditional patterns.*' Goldoni himself fol- lowed the line of least resistance in his earliest work, and indeed never quite ceased to compose scenarios or to call some of his characters by type names. He was moreover so bound by the old academic con- ceptions of the nature and technic of the drama and so hampered by the habits of the actors for whom he wrote that it is marvellous his plays remain as fresh and lively as they do. Though tradition and convention held him down he nevertheless pointed the way for theatrical progress and through his own efforts effected a real reform. He began by criticizing with a keenness born of ardent love the theaters and actors of his Venice. He found "dirty and scandalous intrigues," in- terpreted by actors who evaded their responsibilities of expression by hiding behind masks, and for a ^'■Memorie (17SS), II, 185. "Memorie, I, 206-7. Cf. I, 142, where Goldoni states his wish to see a real comedy "non amando io le arlecchinate. " 208 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE /poet's words substituted tlie mechanical repetition /) of a few hackneyed conceits and the easy common- places of daily talk. Very few like Sacchi, the Vene- tian Arlecchino of the day, worked hard to give variety and snap to their dialog, imitating their illustrious predecessors of the Renaissance in the study of "poets, orators, philosophers, Seneca, Cicero, Montaigne," and turning all appropriately to foUy.^^ To relieve their general poverty of ideas ^oldoni early in his career set himself definitely to the task of suppressing the four best known Masks, and substituting for their tedious stupidities his own humorous and realistic comedy of character.^''' So radical a change, he fortunately told himself, must be slowly entered upon; actors must be handled with gloves, the public must be stimulated to an interest that would make it more attentive, more willing to follow the intricacies of a new plot and the subtleties of delicate character-drawing than to guffaw from habit over stale, hackneyed scenes. At_first jtheref ore tha refonner^ wrote scen arios ia wHch^e hhiiselllook a part, by example stimulating others to take the pains he took. His next step was to outline plots 'with all but one role left to im- provisation and that one, the principal, written out in fuU.^^ Later he introduced the Masks by their ^'Memorie, 1, 304r-6. " Memorie, II, 1S5 f. "La mia reforme tendeva alia soppreasione deUe quattro maschere della commedia italiana, ' ' i. e., Pantalone, Dr. Gratiano, Brighella and Arlecchino. Ee, Gior. Stor., LVIII, 167 f., shows in detail how much Goldoni learned from the popular Venetian theater of his day. "Memorie, 1, 297. Of. II, 207 f. Goldoni (76., II, Chap. 2) men- tions the many hundreds of concetti he wrote for insertion in im- provised plays. THE COMMEDIA DEIiL'ABTE 209 old names into written plays, adapting their func- tions more or less flexibly to the general conception of their roles. Luckily for Goldoni his ideas were not too far in advance of his times to be immediately successful; he firmly believed in the academic shib- boleths, — that comedy should observe the unities, should deal with middle and low-class life, and should aim chiefly at the correction of public morals by "delightful teaching. "i" All these preposses- sions together with his careful study of public taste and anxious conciliation of the actors for whom he wrote made the children of his brain seem not too imfamiliar to be welcome.^** Nevertheless he and his work had at first to en- counter bitter opposition. The old Masks did not die without a struggle. Eepresented by a rival theater and a satiric playwright they made a last stand for their lives, or rather for their position in respectable society, and for a moment they were again as popular as at the height of their fame. Carlo Gozzi, the mouthpiece of the conservatives, gave himself to the battle with all the force of his bizarre genius and of his personal dislike for Groldoni and,f or the actors of the new pieces. This man gives out, he says of his rival, "that he wishes to do away with the four worthy and amusing Masks of the old " Cf . prolog to Terenzio and Memorie, I, 199 f . and II passim. * Goldoni 's account of how he rearranged the plot of Eichardson 'a Pamela when he dramatized it, shows the care with which he observed the prejudices of his public; because a Venetian would never under- stand a noble lord's making a marriage with a serving-maid, Goldoni has Pamela's father represent himself as a Jacobite earl in disguise, and Pamela therefore becomes a proper match for "Milord B. " 15 210 THE COMMEDIA DELL'ABTE Italian theater and with the harmless material of the professional improvised comedy, treating it, wrongly and shamefully, as foolish, immodest and hurtful"; he then goes on with blind injustice to accuse Goldoni's plays of being "one hundred times more suggestive, more immodest and more perni- cious to the public" than the scenarios.^ ^ Vitupera- tion alone however was too feeble to combat the popularity of this "pernicious" innovation and Gozzi was driven to innovate on his own account. He wrote for certain actor friends of his own a series of curious extravaganzas which he called Fiabe — Tables is an inadequate translation — for which he gathered material everywhere. His idea was to use the old Masks in new plots combining the intrigue of some well-known fairy tale with pungent satire on contemporary events, and not least on Goldoni and his co-workers. Pantalone, Brighella, Tartaglia, Arlecchino, Truffaldino and his wife Smeraldina, were allowed to improvise large portions of their roles, introducing lazzi, puns and folk-songs as they chose, but the serious persons in the plots — ^Kings, Queens, ministers and lovers — had most of their speeches written for them by the author of the scenarios, and written often in mock-majestic verse parodying some utterance of the enemy. Spectacle, music and gorgeous costume helped the ingenious invention and Gozzi was rewarded by a momentary ^ Grozzi, Memorie, 1, 34. I pass hurriedly over this eighteenth cen- tury struggle because it has been well treated in English by Symonds, Mem. of Count C. Gozzi, introduction, and by Vernon Lee in her Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy. Cf . also Magrini, I tempi, la vita e gli scritti di C. Gozzi, and Masi's edition of the Fiabe. THE COMMBDIA DEIoL'ABTE 211 popularity as great as his rival's. Goethe remarks to Eckermann on Gozzi's troupe, "The effect pro- duced by these people was extraordinary."^* The world looked, wondered and laughed and fancied it was applauding a resurrection of the "ancient Italian comedy." Yet what it saw was really one more proof that the Masks were being driven into alien territory. Gozzi's Fiabe depended for their popularity much more on music, machinery and premeditated, very local satire than on the im- provised jokes and lassi of their clowns, and in so far they resembled many of the half -written pieces at the Comedie Italienne in Paris during the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries. Scala's extrava- ganzas, his Enchanted Tree, his Orseida, his Inno- cent Persian Maid, his Rosalha the Witch, had ministered in their day to the aristocratic craving for elaborate scenic complications of all sorts, and Giovan-Battista Andreini with his theatrical ma-- cbinists had brought similar magnificence within reach of the populace. "\ Loret writes in 1658 of the marvels of the Italian stage : La grande troupe italienne . . . Font voir de telles raretes Par le moyen de la machine, Que de Paris jusqu'a la Chine On ne pent rien voir maintenant Si pompeux ni si surprenant. Des ballets au nombre de quatre, Douze ehangements de theatre, Des hydres, dragons et demons, ^Goethe, Conversations, etc., 437 and 439. 212 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE Des mers, des forets et des monts, Des decorations brillantes, Des musiques plus que cliarmantes, De superbes habillements. . . . Ne font que le quart des merveilles."^ So mucli energy seems to have gone into these scenic inventions that there was little left for the creation of new plots. In fact the Fedeli and their suc- cessors preserved as repertory many of the old scenarios once given by the Gelosi, and this passing down of actual scenarios together with the training of young actors by their elders, explains the preser- vation of ancient plots, lazzi and Masks and makes certain changes in method and product all the more worth noting.** As to the necessity for these changes Du Bos speaks emphatically: "We have had within these fourscore years two different companies of Italian comedians established at Paris. These comedians have been obliged to speak French, since it is the language of those that pay them, but as the Italian pieces which are not composed in our own manners are incapable of amusing the public, the comedians have found it also necessary to act such pieces as are written in the French manner." He adds that the French require "more probability, regularity ^ Cited Despois, Theatre frangais sous Lovis XIV, 58, note. " The Comedie Italienne was established by royal privilege on a footing of legal equality with the Comedie FranQaise in the seven- teenth century ; the Italians were allowed to play at the Petit-Bourbon in 1658, at the Hotel Guenegaud in 1673, after 1680 at the Hotel de Bourgogne. Cf. Despois, op. cit., 57-63. THE COMMEDIA DEIJIj'aETE 213 and dignity in dramatic poems than is commonly insisted upon on the other side of the Alps."^^ Probability and dignity are certainly about the last characteristics that would occur to a reader of the scenes from the Italian repertory published by Gherardi in 1700. Most of his plays are pri- marily musical comedies with vaudeville features, — songs and choruses, dances and "turns," suited to the trick-performances and rope-walkers who com- posed the majority of the Italian troupe.^* A large number of his scenes were written, some in Italian, most in French with a dash of Italian — it is the latter that Gherardi published — and into them is worked a deal of satire on contemporary vices and follies. The Masks did their best to ridicule by parody the serious operas and plays of their rivals at the Opera and the Comedie Frangaise.^^ Colom- bine as Venus, Arlequin as Vulcan, Pierrot as Mer- cury, singing their way through long stanzas of doggerel,^* must have been absurd enough, and even '^'Du Bos, Critical Reflections, I, 140. ^ Cf. the melodrammi giocosi so popular in Italy at this time and later, many of which are printed by Solerti, Albori, etc., passim, by Arteaga, Bivoluzioni, etc., and in the Baccolta di melodrammi giocosi, etc., ■passim. " Bartoli, Seen, ined., xcii f ., and AdemoUo, Una famiglia,, etc., introd. For Gherardi ef. Easi, Comici italiani and Parfaiet, Sist. du theatre italien, 121. His plays have been studied by Guillemot, Eev. contemporaine, 2e serie, LI, 92 f., and by Toldo, Alcimi scenari, etc., 461 f., and in Eassegua nationale, 16 aprile, 1897. ^ Les adieux des officiers, ou Venus justifi&e, IV, 295 f . The vogue of parody was started on the French stage by L. du Peschier's Com4die des comedies, a. 1629, a piece purporting to be from the Italian but probably original. Printed Foumier, Theatre frangais, etc., I, 519 f. 214 THE more absurd Colombine as Apollo and Arlequin as Thalia, exchanging repartee and lassi over a donkey named Pegasus,^* or Arlequin-Phaeton in an elabo- rate burlesque of Quinault's mythological opera of that name. Arlequin Protee makes fun of Berenice, and in Le tombeau de Maistre Andre there is not a little mockery of the high-sounding passions of Le Cid.^'> Parody of serious dramatic art was not the only form of satire that Gherardi and his company per- mitted themselves. Castigat ridendo mores was their motto and they justified it by their wholesale exposure of social rottenness. The vanity and fri- volity of women, the money basis beneath pretences of love, the hoUowness of professions of honor, the corruption of public officials, the charlatanry of the so-called learned classes and the pedantry of the Academy, all are unsparingly revealed with a cool cynicism that is perhaps the best witness to the truth of the portrayal. Everything in Gherardi 's theater is "to laugh" ; we cannot imagine one of his old men weeping "for tenderness" like Scala's Pantalone when his lost daughter is restored, or one of his young lovers, like Scala's Flavio, nobly rescu- ing at the dictates of honor the friend who has be- trayed him. Every mention of love and honor is greeted on this later stage with a sarcastic grin; if a lover is faithful he must be a fool is the assump- ''Les CUnois, IV, 199 f. *■ Sometimea the satire was very personal; cf. Arlequin ling&re du Palais, in which a prominent actress at the Frangais is ridiculed under the name of Chimlne. A number of plots were taken by G-herardi from Molifere, cf. Toldo, Moliere en Italie. THE COMMEDIA DEIjL'aBTE 215 tion, — ^he ouglit therefore to be thwarted and duped in his attempts to gain back his love. The explana- tion of this scepticism is perhaps that public interest was beginning to shift away from the individual problems that make Scala's themes now look so narrow and his satire so hackneyed, and that the growing consciousness of larger social relationships was stammeringly coming to expression in many places of which this vaudeville theater was one. At the end of the seventeenth century unfortu- nately there was no chance for anything like free speech. In 1697 the Comedie Italienne was closed by the police for some reason not yet quite clear, pos- sibly because, as St. Simon says, their comedy La fausse prude had offended Mme. de Maintenon, quite as probably on account of some more subtle criticism of the corrupt authorities.*^ The actors scattered, some to Italy, some to the irregular French companies who gave more or less illegal performances at the Foires. In 1716 many of them were recalled and reestablished in the Palais-Eoyal as the "Eegent's Company" giving as their opening piece an ancient scenario. La finta pazza, probably the same that Scala had printed more than a hun- dred years before.*^ Under the ambitious leadership of Luigi Eicco- boni this Italian company went through various vicissitudes whose history is only pertinent here in "^ There is a general tendency to accept St.-Simon 's statement, although no proof of it in the shape of the offensive comedy or of other documents has come to light. Of. Despois, Thedtre frangms, 69-70, and^arfaict, Diet, des Theatres, VI, 455. ^'Parfaict, Diet, des Theatres, II, 607-8. 216 THE COMMEDIA DELIi'ABTB its bearings on the commedia dell' arte. Eiccoboni had already attempted in Italy to forestall Goldoni's reforms by substituting literary comedy for impro- vised farces and so doing away with the Masks ; he had translated and played successfully several of Moliere's masterpieces and had studied dramatic theory and technic and the history of the theater so thoroughly that he was able to write two treatises, one in prose and the other in verse, praising his pro- fession and his country's stage.^* In one of these little books he characterizes Scala's scenarios as "tres-scandaleux" and points out the great improve- ments later actors have made both in written and in improvised plays ; impromptu dialog, he goes on to say, may be very delightful when given by a lively and well-trained troupe, must be tedious and wretched when even one member of the band is mediocre.^* It is probably he who in a prolog to one of the plays given by his company in Paris, 1725, defines his art in terms that Goldoni might have used: "A comedy . . . should have one aim, to amuse the mind, — but by enlightening it; to win the heart, while purifying it; if it does not satisfy ''Cf. Easi, Comici italiani, II, vmder Eieeoboni; Ademollo, Una famiglia, passim; Albert, Theatres de la Foire, 94 f., and Toldo, MoUere en Italie, 69. ""Sist. du theatre italien, 61 f. Of. Gherardi's Avertissement to his first volume: "Qui dit bon comedien italien dit un homme qui a du fond, qui joue plus de 1 'imagination que de mfimoire; qui compose en jouant, tout ee qu'il dit; qui scait seconder celuy avee qui il se trouve sur le thgatre; c'est k dire qu'U se marie si bien ses paroles & ses actions avec celles de son camarade, qu'U entre sur le champ dans tout le jeu & dans tous les mouvemens que 1 'autre luy demande." THE COMMEDIA DELL'aRXE 217 morality and feeling, it is no comedy but a miserable farce. ' '^® With all Ms learning and good intentions Eic- coboni unluckily was without the genius that gave success to Goldoni's not dissimilar theories. Most of the productions at the Italiens on which he spent so much thought were too dull to compete with the Opera and the Frangais. The Italian company therefore in 1721 installed itself at the Foire St.- Laurent, gave up all pretence at high art and frankly catered to the paying multitude, who only demanded "new lazzi by Arlequin."*® Their repertory of farces, parodies and musical vaudeville was a con- tinuation of that played by Gherardi's troupe and differed from it rather by its new and up-to-date satire and its somewhat more ridiculous exaggera- tions than by any vast improvement in method, such as the manager claimed.^^ The Masks lived on, at least the more important did, and carried over their names and some of their peculiarities of cos- tume into the exceedingly popular entertainments of the Foires. By 1751 a critic can say that the Italians have been obliged to give up most of their absurdities, such as the mixture of dialects, and to eke out their poor acting by ballets. He goes further : ' ' The Italian comedy can never be thought anything but foreign to our manners and imper- " Quoted by Albert, Theatres de la Foire, 117. This is of course the old academic definition of comedy, inherited from sixteenth century elassieista ^ Albert, op. cit., 116 f ., and Lanson, Hommes et lAvres, 267-9. " Les parodies du nouveau theatre italien, 4 volumes. Cf. Lanson, op. cit., 261 f. 218 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE fectly played by actors of different provinces of Italy; it should be viewed critically, for it is very undisciplined ; it should indeed only be regarded as a kind of supplement to a more useful and better constructed drama."** Such a supplement French playwrights like Marivaux and Eegnard and Beau- marchais might be said to have made of it; they took certain ideas of plot and lassi from the Italian stage, and in their Arlequin and Figaro created characters that have often been compared to the Masks,** — unconvincingly, for such individual, fully written comedies, whether sentimental or farcical, are very imlike commedie deU'arte.*" When Goldoni reached Paris shortly after the middle of the century he found the actors for whom he had come to work quite divided in their wishes; most were accustomed to improvising some of their scenes and nearly all were used to vaudeville and averse to mastering the difficulties of interpretation offered by good comedy. He was accordingly hampered in his activity as he had been in Venice, and neither his scenarios nor his written plays were at first successful.*^ Even as late as 1772 Grimm found that the Italian company gave one of Goldoni 's comedies wretchedly "because they are not in the habit of learning their roles by heart, still less of ^ Maillet-Duelairon, Essai sur la eonnoissanee des theatres fran- gais, 31. " Cf . Toldo, Figaro et ses origines, and Lanson, op. cit., 241 f . " The very high-minded and sentimental hero of Marivaux' Arleqmn poli par amour, for example, is absolutely different from Soala's Arlecehino. " Goldoni, Memorie, III, passim, especially Chap. III. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aKTE 219 learning verse," moreover because they have forgot their own language for French.*^ Although Gol- doni's efforts were still further hindered by the union of the Opera Comique with the Oomedie Italienne in 1762, a combination which increased the vogue of miscellaneous musical extravaganzas,** he nevertheless did slowly progress toward apprecia- tion and toward his goal, the reform of the stage. The French liked his plays, his example influenced French taste and by 1780 the commedia dell' arte had gone as completely out of fashion in Paris as in Italy." Meanwhile in the booths of the great Fairs of St.- Grermain and St.-Laurent had been worked up through force of circumstance a new kind of amusement, the pantomime, in which the Masks continued to show their agility. This style of entertainment did not originate among the Ital- ians but was the answer of lively brains among the so-called Forains (actors at the Foires), to pertinaceous attempts made by the privileged theaters to suppress them. Beginning in a modest way about 1660 or earlier as mere tricksters in side- shows, these humble actors had become in a short time popular enough to draw large crowds.*® They " Grimm in a letter of 22 Oct., 1772 ; cited AdemoUo, JJna farmglia, etc., L, note. "Memorie, III, 9-10, and AdemoUo, op. cit., xlviii and notes. Cf. Albert, op. cit., 252. " Easi, Comici italiani, II, 643-4. "Campardon gives 1595 as the earliest date for the establishment of the Foires, but theatrical performances did not begin there till c. 1660. 220 THE COMMEDIA DEIii'ABTE gave outdoors on their long, narrow balconies simple little pieces requiring at most three or four speakers, — farces, called Parades, which like the early Italian contrasti, made no pretence to elaborate plot or to refined wit ; they show superlatively well the tendency of true popular entertainment to revert to quarrel- some horse-play and to the coarsest indecency.*® The dialog — in French — ^was partly improvised and partly learned by characters who bore stock names and dressed in a stereotyped manner. Among the performers, especially after the closure of the Comedie Italienne in 1697, were a few Italians, and to their influence was due the appearance of Scara- mouche, Trivelin, Arlequin and Isabelle in the Parades.*^ Such brief pieces made no painful demands on the attention, the acting was of the liveliest, and conse- quently the public flocked in such numbers to the Foires that the dignified Comedie Frangaise and the Italiens before its suppression, suffered a serious falling-off of patronage. The privileged theaters were powerful enough to obtain injunctions against their rivals, prohibiting one after another dialogs, parodies, monologs, songs and ballets. The Forains answered each decree by the most ingenious eva- "Cf. the collection of Parades published in 1756, Theatre des Boulevards, etc. The editor describes the pieces as "farces de tete sur des plans qu'ils (i. e. the actors) en avoient conserves par tradi- tion, ou qu'ils avoient eux-m§mes composes." In manner of compo- sition therefore, as well as in style of wit, the Parades resemble simple commedie dell 'arte. " The two best studies of these very interesting irregular theatres are Campardon 'a Les spectacles de la Foire, and Albert 's Les tMatres de la Foire. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 221 sions of its spirit in pieces that never failed to keep the letter of the law. When all speech was forbidden them they went on acting silently, enlightening the audience the while as to the progress of the fable by ecriteaux — scrolls of explanatory verses let down from the ceiling of the stage. When this in turn was forbidden they passed about among the spectators a printed outline of the plot with the songs fully written out, and when the orchestra played the air the house was encouraged to sing the gay words on the programs.*^ So through one curious innovation and another the buoyant Forains maintained their popularity to such a degree that their respectable competitors saw the folly of trying to repress natural instincts by legislation and ceased to prose- cute brains too clever and individuals too courageous to be intimidated. Meanwhile the pantomime had come to stay. It was found a convenient form for the representation of extravaganzas even after the immediate neces- sity fpr doing without speech had passed away. The favorite personages introduced into it from the Italian stage were the Pantaloon — sometimes under other names — ^Arlequin, Scaramouche and Colom- bine. Yet it is chiefly by their names, their agile dances and their comic lazzi that they resemble the Italian types. Arlequin did indeed retain a costume of many colors and a black half -mask like those of ancient days, but the others were modishly tricked out in the fashion of the hour, and moreover had **For a fuller description of these devices with illustrative cuts, cf. Albert, op. cit., 44 f. 222 THE COMMEDIA DEULi'aETE their wits as mucli bettered as their garb by the Parisian atmosphere. Early in the eighteenth century, as I have already said, the pantomime crossed the Channel and be- came very popular in London. The way had been prepared for it by a tolerably long process of familiarizing the English public with the Italian stage, a process begun perhaps by Drusiano in 1577-8. In 1658 was printed by Sir Aston Cokayn, Trappolin suppos'd a Prince, which according to the author's account seems possibly to have been from an improvised original: Gallants, be 't known, as yet we cannot say, To whom we are beholding for this play : But this our poet hath licensed us to tell, Ingenious Italy hath liked it well. Yet it is no translation ; for he ne 'er But twice in Venice did it ever hear.** In 1661 was published a versified piece of satire in which Mounsier Pantaloon took a part^" — an indi- cation that English acquaintance with the Masks was carried on after the Jacobean expressions of it referred to in the last chapter. "A Dialogue 'between two other Giants, Mounsier Pantaloon and Signor Sancho: with a cue of Jack FhanaticTc concerning tfce late conflict between them on Tower Hill. '" Cf . Scott, Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc, XI, 442-3. Miss Scott' caHs the play ' ' an adaptation of an Italian tragi-comedy in prose and verse entitled TrappoUno creduto principe, as the Prologue explains." There was an old scenario among those in Biancolelli 's collection (mid-seventeenth century) called Arlecchino creduto principe, played in Paris 1716 and 1740 (Parfaiet, Diet., etc., I, 222) which may have had something to do with Sir Aston 's play. The theme is a favorite in the commedia dell'arte, cf. Brouwer, Ancora una raccolta, 396, for an account of a seventeenth century scenario, II creduto principe. THE COMMEDIA DEIii'ABTE 223 Evidently Eymer a little later considered Italian example familiar enough, to be dangerous to the solidity of British taste, for in his essay on the Tragedies of the Last Age (1678) he criticizes the quarrel of Melantius and Amintor in the Maid's Tragedy thus: "Harlequin and Scaramouttio might do these things. Tragedy suffers 'em not; here is no place for cowards, nor for giddy fellows & Bullies with their squabbles. "^^ The same serious-minded critic in another essay calls the great scene in Othello effective because of the "Mops & the Mows, the Grimaces, the Grins & Gesticulations. ' ' Such scenes as this (he adds) "have made all the World run after Harlequin & Scaramouche."^^ Probably Eymer had seen the Italians act, perhaps when a company of them visited London in 1673, the same described in one of Dryden's prologs: The Harlequin merry-andrews took their place, And quite debauched the stage with lewd grimace ; Instead of wit & humours, your delight Was there to see two hobby-horses fight ; Stout Searamouehe with rush lance rode in And rode a tilt at Centaur Arlequin."^' If Harlequin and Searamouehe were disapproved by literary censors there is evidence of their popu- larity with the uncritical multitude. The public taste for parody and rude fun, whetted by such exhibitions as Dryden contemns, demanded from '^ Spingarn, Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Centwy, II, 204. "M Short View of Tragedy (1693), ed. Spingarn, op. cit., II, 239. "^ Prolog to the Silent Woman, 1673. From the allusion to Centaur Arlequin I infer that the play was one of Gherardi's collection, prob- ably going back to G.-B. Andreini's Centawa. 224 THE COMMEDIA DEULi'aKTE this time on increasing recognition and satisfaction in the theater. Perhaps it was the Italians who spurred John Wright to parody a version of Seneca's Thyestes in English heroic couplets, by a MocJc Thyestes, "A Farce in Burlesque Verse," performed with applause the same year as its model.^* Certainly it is Italian example that ac- counts for Mr. Mountford's Life and Death of Dr. Faustus made into a farce. . . . With the Humours of Harlequin and Scaramouche,^^ a piece full of commedia dell'arte reminiscences. Scaramouche takes the role of "Wagner — ^very blasphemously too — and Harlequin is brought in chiefly for the sake of his lazzi and to fight with Scaramouche. He de- scribes himself, this shade of Arlecchino, as "poor Harlequin : by the Learned I am called Zane, by the Vulgar Jack Pudding. I was late fool to a Mounte- bank ; last night in the mistaking the PipMn I eat up a Pot of Bolus instead of Hasty Pudding; and devoured three yards of Diaculum Plaister instead of Pancake, for which my Master has turned me out of Doors instead of "Wages." In farcical scenes the two clowns bind themselves to the devil, try to conjure out of a primer and are frightened by various enchantments which disappear whenever in "In 1674. Cf. Langbaine, Account of the Drama, 514. "^ The original was printed in London, 1697 ; it has been republished by Francke, 1886. Cf. Dieblers, Faust-und-Wagner pantomimen in England, Anglia, VII. There are of course reminisoences of Marlowe quite as patent as of the commedia dell'arte. Cf. Eavenscrof t 's Scaramouche a Philosopher, Harlequin a School- toy, Bravo, Merchant 4" Magician, a comedy after the Italian manner (London, 1677), a farce based in part on MoliSre's Fov/rieries de Scapin, and through that going back to an Italian original. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 225 their swearing they mention the name of God. Such nonsense apparently was just what the British audi- ence liked, for the play had a tolerably long run and set the fashion for other farces, one of which at least was directly modeled on it^* and others taken from Gherardi's collection. . In 1718 a French company presented at Lincoln's- Inn-Fields The Two Harlequins," A Farce of Three Acts, written by Mr. Noble and Acted by the King's Italian Comedians at Paris," according to the title- page of the French and English edition published in London the same year. A comparison with Les deux Arlequins in Gherardi's third volume^'' shows it to be identical with the French text printed on alternate pages of the English book ; the translation is literal, even stupidly so, for the author reproduces an entirely irrelevant note of "Mr. Noble's" on Baron, ' ' the never-too-much regretted French come- dian," who had had a part in the original production of the play. The comedy is one of the few that Gherardi prints almost in full; there are but two improvised scenes, the first and second of the second act. These bits of extemporized fun are thus described in the English version : "In this Italian Scene, which begins the second Act, Harlequin appears as pursued by Marinetta, ™ TMa waa a Drury Lane pantomime, HarlegvAn Dr. Faustus, by J. Thurmond. " Les deux Arlequins, comedie en trois actes mise cm theatre par M. Noile, 4" representee powr la premiere fois, . . . le se de Septembre, 1691. Gherardi, Theatre italien, III, 311-380. Another translation from Gherardi was E. B. 's Foire at St.-Germain, London (1718?), from Theatre italien, VI, 203 f., Eegnard's La Foire St.-Germain, pi. 1695. 16 226 whose Love and Passion he had slighted. This Scene contains what she says to him to endeavor to raise his Love ; he scornfully refuses, and gives her to understand he loves only Colombine, which dec- laration inspires Marinetta with Sentiments of Rage and Jealousy, and Harlequin goes off rallying and laughing at her." In the next scene "Marinetta transported with Eage and Jealousy, swears to be reveng'd of Harlequin, threatens to kill him, and at the Time she is in the Height of her Passion and taking for the other, says these words with a great deal of warmth ..." and there follows a written speech beginning "Perfidious, ungrateful Traitor, too hateful object, ..." But the details of Mari- netta 's tragical mirth need concern us here no more than the intricacies of the tedious brief plot, an intrigue of the Menaechmi type. Lassi abound, with all the mistakes, the disguises, the falls and the beatings that could be desired; one scene (II, 10) contains a parody on Le Cid; at the close of the play "the Bottom of the Stage opens with grotesque Musicke, and four little Harlequins dance with Scaramouche. . . . Between the Musicke and the Dance a Voice sings two Couplets in Praise of old Age. ' ' In short the farce is an excellent example of an old scenario expanded to suit the taste of a later age^ ^^^ySJoout the time this was being played in London Addison saw Arlecchino in Italy and was pleased with him : "Harlequin's part is made up of blunders and absurdities ; he is to mistake one person for an- other, to stumble over queens and to run his head THE COMMEDIA DEIJL. 'ARTE 227 against every post that comes in Ms way. This is all attended with something so comical in the voice and gestures, that a man . . . can hardly forbear being pleased with it."^* It is hardly conceivable that if Dryden and Rymer had seen Arlecchino in his own Italian environment they would have given so mildly apologetic a portrait of him, and yet had they lived a little longer both the old critics might have modified their judgments — though probably toward greater severity — after seeing frequent per- formances of Italian comedies in London by their proper actors. The French troupe which gave to English audi- ences The Two Harlequins was followed across the Channel in 1724 by an Italian company, perhaps by more than one, a few of whose plays have left printed records, text and translation having been apparently popular enough to warrant publication. The title of one reads, Arlecchino Principe in segno . . . or Harlequin Prince in a Dream, German baron, flying phisitian, S pretty Marget; a comedy (or pantomime in five acts) as it was acted . . . in the Haymarket by the Company of Italian Come- dians.^^ The rage for pantomimes seems to have been in full swing"" and in the way to be satisfied by ^MemarTcs on Italy, ed. of 1718, 77. ""Printed London, 1724. The piece seems to be a eonipound of Arlecchino finto principe, an old scenario played in Paris, 1716 (Parfaict, Diet., I, 222), II medico volante, and either Arl. Baron allemand, ou le Triomphe de la Folic (played in Paris, 1712) or Arl. iarone tedeseo, probably the same as the above except that it was in Italian, played in Paris, 1716 (Parfaict, Diet., I, 203 and 241). Of course other plot elements entered into the composite. "John Eich, who became the English Harlequin, had much to do 228 THE COMMEDIA DEIXi'aBTE the most ridiculously conglomerate entertainments, made up often from half a dozen old scenarios, as this is. Three plays from the repertory of these visiting Italians are all that the British Museum preserves f^ how many others may have been printed and lost, or have been given and not thought worth keeping, must be a matter of conjecture. That Eiccoboni was in London in 1727 with a troupe and that he pub- lished two of his treatises there®^ proves the liveli- ness of British interest in the strangers and their work. Even more convincing as to the vogue of the farces and of their influence on the English theater is the vast amount of imitative material that sur- vives. To-day it is hardly possible to think of a Drury Lane pantomime without Harlequin and Colombine, their burlesque love affairs and their with setting the fashion; one of his earliest pantomimes was built on an Italian French plot. The Cheats of Scapin or the Tavern-Bilkers, "an entertainment of dancing, action and motion only," 1702. Cf. Wyndham, Annals of Covent-Garden, I, 12. "ie disgratie d'ArleccMno, viz. Harlequin's misfortunes; or his marriage interrupted 'by Brighella's cunning, perhaps identical with the Disgratie d'ArleccMno, played in Paris, 1716 (Bartoli, Seen, ined., xli), or with the opera comique of the same name, sung at the Foire St.-Germain in 1721 and characterized by Parfaict as "du dernier miserable." {Diet., II, 319; the abstract makes this piece appear a poor copy of Les deux Arlequins.) Le furiarie per vendetta or Brighella's revenge . . . with Barle- quin's transformation, etc., possibly a version of the ever-popular Fourberies de Scapin, or perhaps an enlarged and pantomimic render- ing of the Fourleries d'Arlequin, given in Paris, 1722 (Parfaict, Diet., II, 634), which the editor calls "a tissue of scenes from the ancient Italian theater." "^AdemoUo, Una famiglia, etc., 22. Eiccoboni 's poem, Dell' arte rappresentativa, was dedicated to Lord Chesterfield. THE COMMEDIA DEUj'ABTE 229 fantastic ill-luck, yet in the early years of the eigh- teenth century imitation of the Italians was not confined to giving free versions of the Masks ; there were many allegorical-mythological pantomimes, forerunners of certain operas that we know.®^ Our concern is not with these last but with the Harle- quinades proper, those gay absurdities for which the general formula is an elopement and a pursuit. Harlequin or Scaramouche is nearly always the hero of the piece, Colombine the heroine ; they may in the first acts be dressed and disguised in any number of ways, just as they were for some of the Franco-Italian performances in Paris;®* they may belong to any country and to any rank of life from imperial to peasant, but they are always faithful lovers persecuted by a cruel father, who rush away from his tyranny into dangers they have not fore- seen and who are forced to assume disguises beneath their dignity. At the end they are sure to be happily reconciled to their parent in the time-honored manner and to pose for the audience in their typical costumes and names. The reason for this almost "" Such as the Mars and Venus presented at Drury Lane, 1717. Wyndham, Annals, etc., I, 12. °' Of the musical and pantomimic pieces listed by Parf aict of which Arlequin was the hero and of their settings, a few titles will show the variety. Arl. dans le Chateau enehante (I, 222) ; dans les lies, triomphe ameriquain (lb.) dans I'ile de Ceylon (I, 222-i); Em- pereur dans la lune, from one of Gherardi's comedies (I, 229); Arl. Endymion (I, 230) ; Arl. et Sea/pin magiaiens par hazard (I, 232) ; Arl. finto astrologo, 'bambino, statua e perrequetto (I, 240) ; Arl. Grand-Mogul (I, 247) ; Arl. forme par magie et domestique par in- trigue (lb.). All these and many more as extraordinary were played in the first half of the eighteenth century. 230 THE COMMEDIA DBLL'aBTE unvarying plot outline is that it furnishes an admir- able pretext for the rapid transformations and spectacular changes of scene which gave its true charm to the pantomime. A "prospectus" of one of these extravaganzas is like the scenario of a corn-media dell' arte except that it gives more detailed directions as to comic busi- ness and that it reproduces in full the songs and choruses. Occasionally there is some versified dialog printed but ordinarily such speech as is allowed is in prose. As to the details of style and incident it is useless to generalize; each outline mixes in varying proportions, instrumental and vocal music, dances of different kinds, gesture and brief monologs or conversations. The most start- lingly various elements in the spectacle were the transformations either in an individual actor or ia the whole scene. One of Eich's successes was Harlequin Sorcerer^^ in which the protagonist is hatched from an egg by the heat of the sun, and an eye-witness says, "from the first chirping in the egg, his receiving motion, his feeling of the ground, standing upright, to his quick trip around the empty shell, through the whole progression, every limb had its own tongue and every motion a voice."®® Nearly a century later the very elaborate panto- mime of The Silver Arroiv or Harlequin and the Fairy Pari Banon shows the hero in a more normal "^ A dramaticlc entertainment caXl'd Sarlequin a Sorcerer; with the Loves of Pluto and Proserpine. (One act in verse, by L. Theobald, Loudon, 1729.) ™ Quoted by Wyndham, Annals, etc., I, 6, from Jackson 's Hist, of the Scottish Stage. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 231 role, while it is Ms environment that changes with lightning rapidity from "a terrific representation of the Fire-King's abode," to "a rich Persian Chamber" and that again to "a Eange of Bed- Eooms in the King's Arms," an old-fashioned Eng- lish Inn.®^ Into this last scene is introduced a lazzo as unconnected with the plot as much of the comic business in the commedia dell' arte: "At the opening of the scene," the prospectus tells us, "a numerous group of various characters are ushered into their sleeping-rooms. Harlequin appears and determines^ on having some fun, to which end he knocks at all the doors, producing a ludicrous effect, the different characters appearing half undressed ; others in their Night-Gowns, &c. ; this furnishes the Clown with an idea; no sooner do the characters return than he dresses the warming-pan grotesquely and the alarms the Inn. A dreadful bustle then takei place." Harlequin's "ideas" are after all not Ms own but merely slight variations on ancient ways/of appealing to simple wits by surprise, awkwardnjess and indecorum.** Perhaps the best general conception of the panto- mime in its first flush of success is to be gained from a satiric poem, Harlequin-Horace, or the Art of " Airs, Choruses ^ Business . . . in a new pantomime of the Silver Arrow; or Harlequin 4" the Fairy Pari Banon . . . Theatre Eoyal, Drury Lane. (London, 1819.) "* The English pantomime is worthy of a volume to itself. Such titles as I have collected will be found in App. B; here my purpose is only to suggest a few possible analogies between the pantomime and the commedia deU'arte. Cf. further, Wyndham, Annals, etc., I, 8-10. 232 THE COMMEDIA DEUO'ABTE Modern Poetry, a virulent assault on the British stage of 1731 and on John Rich in particular as responsible for the prevalent "joint-mixture of Trick and Buffoonery."^" Like the moralists of the sixteenth century the clerical author, Mr. James Miller, accuses Harlequin of having by a single wave of his hand conjured "the whole Town every Night into your Circle; where like a true Cunning-Man, you amuse 'em with a few Puppy's Tricks while you juggle 'em of their pelf"; the women in the audi- ence, he adds, "are now (thanks to your Instruc- tions, Sir) as impenetrable Proof to anything that tends to put them out of Countenance . . . as . . . yourself. ' ' In the poem the means to these ends are described with some minuteness : .... 'tis Aegri Somnia now must please, Things without Head, or Tail, or Form, or Grace, A wild, forc'd, glaring, unconnected Mass. . . J" In one Scene make your Hero cant and whine, Then roar out Liberty in every Line ; Vary one Thing a thousand pleasant "Ways, Shew Whales in Woods and Dragons in the Seas. . . .'^ Begin with Bluster and with Bawdry end. . . .'^ The Feats of Faustus and the Pranks of Jove Chang 'd to a Bull to carry off his Love; The swimming Monster and the flying Steed, Medusa's Cavern and her Serpent Breed, Domes voluntary rising from the Ground, "° Printed anonymously, London, 1731, but since ascribed to the Kev. James Miller; dedicated in a heavily abusive letter to "J..n E. .h, Esq.," of course John Rich. " Barlequin Eorace, p. 2. "J6., p. 6. "/6., p. 8. THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTB 233 And Yahoo Rich transformed into a Hound, All acted with a Show of Truth deceive Which if related we should ne'er believe. . . . The number of your Acts we never mind, For modern Poets scorn to be confin'd. . . . Be sure to introduce a Ghost or — God, Make Monsters, Fiends, Heav'n, Hell, at once engage, For all are pleas 'd to see a well-filled Stage; The antient Chorus justly 's laid aside, And all its office by a Song supply 'd. . . .'' The reason for such lawless doings is once more, as of old, laid at the door of the multitude, undiscrimi- nating and coarse : Long labour 'd Rich, by Tragick Verse to gain The Town's Applause — ^but labour 'd long in vain; At length he wisely to his Aid call'd in. The active Mime and checker 'd Harlequin. Nor ruled by Reason, nor by Law restrain 'd. In all his Shows, Smut and Prophaneness reign 'd.'* Alas for the Eeverend Mr. James Miller and his f uhninations ! In 1814 a better-natured satire wit- nesses how popular during all these years had been the pantomime, how delightful it still was. This piece is itself a farce, Harlequin Hoax,''^ and an ex- cellent example of the very absurdities it ridicules. The plot "proposed" for the pantomime — the little "76., p. 25 f. "76., p. 30 f. " Or a Pantomime Proposed, by T. Dibdin, played at the Theatre Eoyal, Lyeeum, and printed in London, 1814. Two other satires of the same general character are The British Stage; or the Exploits of Sarlequin, a farce, . . . London, 1724, and Marleqmn Student; or the Pall of Pantomime, with the Bestoration of the Dram,a, . . . London, 1741. 234 farce deals witli a set of theatrical people planning a new entertainment — ^is thus outlined: "Harlequin is carried up on the tail of a kite, and when at the top of the theater, drops through a trap at the bottom, and returns enveloped in flames, as if shot from the crater of a volcano; then thrown into a cascade of real water with sufficient force to let the splash he makes convince the audience that the ele- ment is genuine. ... To meet Columbine at the street-door Harlequin throws himself out of a three pair of stairs window, and is caught with his head in a lamp-iron; the lamp-lighter pours a gallon of oil down his throat . . . and sticks a lighted wick in his month and a set of drunken bucks, having no better business on earth than to break lamps, knock his nob to shivers and all go to the watch-house together." Among the directions for Harlequin's lazzi are, "Cut a mug at the clown, come the sly, queer the old one and brush off with a roley-poley," obligingly interpreted by Harlequin's running around the stage, making faces at Liston, giving him a hard slap, pulling away Raymond's chair just as he is about to sit down, falling, jumping up and running off.''* A spectacular conclusion, — a Temple of Concord with fireworks — rounds out the perform- ance in the conventional manner and must have served to blunt yet further the already dull points of the satiric dialog. This lively production was hardly of course ex- pected to stop the vogue for pantomime in England and certainly had not that effect. Harlequin, Co- '"Harl. Hoax, p. 10. THE COMMEDIA DELL'ABTE 235 lumbine and Pantaloon danced and stumbled and joked on, as in fact they still do in London at Christ- mas time, keeping only their names and a hint in their costmnes to remind the audience of their Italian forebears. The names indeed as in the case of so many traditional titles, soon began to have a kind of significant personality of their own; each came to stand for some leading trait of the character that bore it. Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, was satirized in 1705 as "Harlequin le Grand,"'''' and in 1750 the Wesleyan preachers were ridiculed inUhe guise of Harlequins dressed as old womeh.''* Pantaloon and Harlequin are the favorites among the Masks when it comes to using their names as convenient proverbial tags; if Gratiano, Brighella and the rest figure in the same useful way, it is only in Italy where they were best known.''* Occasionally into modern experience comes some further reminder of the commedia dell' arte. Bri- ghella has a part in "Wagner's youthful opera. Lie- '"A Dialogue hetween Louis le Petite (sic) and Harlequin le Grand . . . (London, 1705?). Cf. Sari. Hydaspes, or the Greshamite . . . (London, 171&), and The Harlequins, A Comedy after the manner of the Theatre Italien (a political satire on affairs in Ireland), London, 1753. There is nothing Italianate about this last but the names of two or three characters. '* Harlequin Methodist. To the tune of An Old Woman cloathed in Gray . . . (London, 1750?). " Alexander VIII for instance was popularly christened Papa Panta- lone, 1690; cf. AdemoUo, Teatri di Soma, 173 and 184. Cf. above, chap. V, for earlier examples of the satirical use of the Mask names. In Italy there were many political songs like Pantalon, Armgo de la Verity. Canzonetta sopra la Guerra seguia (sic) nel Cremonese I'Anno 1647 e 48 . . . (Milano, 1650?). The British Museum con- tains several Dutch Harlequinades which seem to prove that the custom of such satire spread to Holland. 236 THE COMMEDIA DEUj'AETE besverbot,^° another Zanni in Lothar's Arlecchino Re, a band of traveling actors in Ganne's Saltim- banchi and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. M. Moland was so impressed with the dramatic quality of Scala's plots that he translated and amplified several of them into short stories.^^ Maurice Sand with the aid of several clever friends tried successfully to** practice the art of improvising dialog on his private stage at Nohant.^^ Later another French enthusiast published an earnest plea for reviving the ancient Italian custom in a new Parisian theater.*' Belside all these artificial and more or less senti- mental attempts to revivify the commedia delVarte, there remain those actual relics of its habits and its types on the popular Italian stages already described. /Whether or not improvised comedy will ever live /again as a serious art such as it undoubtedly was in the sixteenth century, might be debated at some length, though for the most part inconclusively and on the rather unsteady ground of theory. Looking back into the Cinquecento and recalling how the custom of improvising dialpg from a scenario grew up in response to a particular situation too compli- cated ever to recur again, it seems as though the peculiar union of individual initiative and coopera- tion required for such extempore art, would not be " Wagner was influenced by Gozzi in Ms two early operas Vie Feen and Liebesverbot. Of. his autobiography, My Life (N. Y., 1911), I, 87 and 140. ''Moland, Les meprises, comedies de la EenaissoMce racontees. ^' Sand, Masques et Bouffons, introduction. *^ Marazin, Le theatre des Boulevards et la comedie improvisee. THE COMMEDIA DELL AETE 237 possible in different circumstances. On the other ^ hand the blase and unthinking public to which the '^i commedia dell'arte all through its history has chiefly ; appealed, is always with us, ever ready to regale its I bourgeois taste by laughing, as its kind laughed three ; centuries ago, at progressive ideas and at the • victims of the social majority — the weak, the stupid, the deformed, the aged — by watching physical dis- tortions and by listening to tawdry music and to vulgar innuendo. Our cheaper theaters — by cheaper I do not mean necessarily low-priced — still present ad nauseam the stale old devices that the Italians made so effective in regular plots. According to a rough classificaiton all the kinds of material that went into the commedia dell'arte are still flourish- ing among us, and are likely to flourish for as long as human nature finds amusement in old stories, blows and quarrels, indecorum, surprises and the si^t of the "biter bit." This sort of entertainment exists frankly for mer- cenary purposes, of which the least disreputable is to give the multitude what they like. It has nothing to say, no "problem" interests ever get into it except as matter for ridicule ; the suffragette, for " example, is appearing at this moment on numerous vaudeville stages, tricked out and shouting like the absurdest strong-minded female who ever loomed large and threatening in an old-fashioned imagina- tion. Just so the Ibsenesque new woman was pil- loried a generation ago in travesties that now seem tame as well as meaningless; just in this spirit the commedia dell'arte in its prime "took off" the intel- / 238 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE lectual problems of the sixteenth century, those earnestly debated questions of individual relation- ships that if not to-day supplanted have been at least freshly restated in the light of more complex social analyses. Farce of this kind always ex- presses the habitual reactions of the plain man to situations that the serious dramatist regards as offer- ing food for pamful attention and opportunity for reconstruction. V The finer issues that absorb keen, observant, far-sighted leaders, touch the comimon- place majority of course, only to a vaguely uncom- fortable fear and distrust that must relieve itself in boisterous laughter until it grows so alarmingly conscious that it calls for organization and perhaps opposing warfare. If this point of view is justifiable the commedia dell' arte will be seen to belong to the class of drama that has contributed nothing to the spiritual advance of mankind. Gherardi and his collaborators indeed now and then glimpsed an interesting fresh idea and tried to make something telling of it, but in general the machinery of the improvised plays crushed the individual innovator. If one member of a troupe were more critical, more intellectually alive than the others, he was much more likely to be drawn into the easy mass judgments and habits of his fellows than he was to raise his comrades to his level. So the professional comedy moved along, well in the rear of progress, scattering amusement more or less questionable on its way, and remarkablp chiefly for the brilliance of its technic. i, What its perfect execution must have done to im t THE COMMEDIA DEUL'aBTE 239 prove dramatic methods is easier to imagine than to estimate very exactly. The spontaneous dialog, ^ even though it was interrupted by set speeches, may \Vell have helped to break up, by force of example, the ponderous tedium of rhetorical academic at- tempts at play-writing. The need for padding thin plots must have stimulated the invention of stage machinery, ballets and variety features. Still more the necessity of the most flexible adaptability among the actors must inevitably have brought about an ii^provement in theatrical training. In such ways as these the professional comedies in their best period attained to a delightfulness that covered their poverty with splendid show, that spurred on Moliere's genius and left not even Shakespeare untouched. APPENDIX A. SCENABIOS. The following is a list of the chief printed and manuscript collections of scenarios and the principal plays that have been published singly so far as I have been able to trace them. The oldest known scenario that can be certainly dated is the one I quote at length above, Chapter IV, republished by Stoppato from: TJn discorso degli trionfi, Giostre, Apparati, e delle cose piu notabile nelle sontuose Nosse dell'Illustris- simo et Eccellentissimo Signor Duca Guglielmo, Primo Genito del Generosissimo Alberto Quinto, Conte Palatino del Reno e Duca di Baviera alta e hassa nell'anno 1568, a 22 de Fehraro, ecc, ecc, di Massimo Trojano da Napoli, Musico dell'Illus. ed Ecc. Signor Duca di Baviera. In Monaco . . . MDLXVIII. Alessandro Piccolomini who died in 1578 is said to have written thirteen scenarios, work which Eossi conjectures would belong to his youth ;i this would put the recognition of the improvised comedy before 1568. Still, as the scenarios of Piccolomini have not survived if they ever existed, the play at the Bavarian court must stand as the first of its kind. The most important collection of outline plots, the oldest and one of the largest, is that of fifty pieces ^ Eossi, Lettere di M. A. CaXmo, Ixxx, note I. 240 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 241 made by Flaminio Scala* from whicli several examples are given above, Chapter IV. It undoubt- edly contains a number of plots many years older than the date of publication of the book, for the Grelosi, Scala's troupe, began to play at least as early as 1570; moreover no capocomico of those days would print outlines of pieces that were new and might be stolen by rival companies. It is impossible to date exactly the other scenarios in collections that have survived. A. Bartoli has printed a volume made up of twenty-two outlines from a MS. in the Magliabecchiana, written in the eighteenth century but containing older pieces.^ There are eighteen comedies, one tragedy, one "opera tragica," one tragi-comedy and one "opera mista. ' ' At least one of the comedies is taken from a large collection made by Domenico Biancolelli which exists in manuscript in Paris.* Another large manuscript collection (one hundred and three pieces) is that of Basilio Locatelli, to be found to-day in the Casanatense in Eome and in an abbre- viated form in the Oorsiniana.^ The latter has been * II teatro delle favole rappresentative overo la ricreatione eomica, hoscareccia e tragica, divisa in cinquanta giornate composte da Fla- minio Scala. detto Flavio, comico del serenissi/mo signor duca di Man- tova. In Venetia . . . 1611. ^A. Bartoli, Scenari inediti delta commedia dell' arte . . . (Firenze, 1880), a volume of the Saccolta di opere inedite o rare di ogni secolo della letteratura italiana. *The titles of Scala's, Biancolelli 's and Locatelli 's scenarios, as well as those of later date scattered in various records of the stage are printed by Bartoli, Seen, inediti, xxviii f. 'Valeri, Gli scenari inediti di Basilio Locatelli (Eoma, 1804), has shown that the two volumes in the Casanatense are the originals from which the Cardinal Maurice of Savoy had the two volumes in the Cor- 17 242 described as a handsome manuscript of the seven- teenth century in two volumes, containing the out- lines of sixty-six comedies, ten tragi-comedies, ten pastorals, two "opere turchesche," one "opera reale" {La gran pazzia d'Orlando) and one tragedy. Brouwer has shown that Locatelli's scenarios were not all his own, for the two examples this modern scholar prints, La Turchetta and La Tavernaria, nearly resemble Porta 's comedies. La Turca and La Tabernia. The Masks in the collection, this editor points out, are similar to those in Scala's plays and in the plots published by Bartoli, except that Pulci- nellla does not appear in them at all. Pulcinella is however a leading figure in the large Neapolitan collection rediscovered in recent years by Croce.® These two thick manuscript volumes belong to the end of the Seicento and contain in all one hundred and eighty-three scenarios. The first volume is entitled : Gibaldone di Soggetti da recitare all'impronto. Alcuni proprij, e gl'altri da diversi. Raccolti di D. AnnibaZe Sersale Conte di Casamar- ciano. It is a quarto of 479 pages. The second volume is called: Gibaldone comico di varij suggetti di Commedie ed opere Bellissime copiate da me Antonio Passante detto Oratio il Calabrese, per com- mando dell'EcG. mo signer Conte di Casamarciano. siniana compiled. For a description of the shorter collection cf. F. de Simone Brouwer, Due scenari inediti del secolo XVII, Gior. Stor., XVIII (1891), 277 f. Cf. also Croce's review of Valeri's book, Gior. Stor., XXIX, 212. °B. Croee, Una nuova raocolta di scenari, Gior. Stor., XXIX (1897), 211 f. P. Toldo, Di alcuni scenari inediti della commedia dell'arte, etc., E. Accademia di scienze, Atti XLII (1907, 460 f.) examines in detail several pieces from this collection, dating them c. r57&-1700. 243 1700. The titles given by Croce show nothing start- lingly different from those of other collections except that as I have said Pulcinella takes a very prominent place in them; he seems to be the sub- stitute for Arlecchino and appears in the titles as "burlato," "innamorato," "pazzo per forza," "dama gelosa," etc. One play, I quattro Pulcinelli, must be a reductio ad absurdum of the Menaechmi theme. Two more collections in manuscript that await further investigation are those discovered respec- tively by De Simone Brouwer in the Casanatense in Eome (forty-eight scenarios), and by V. Eossi in the Correr Museum at Venice (fifty-one pieces), of which the discoverer has printed a description and two examples.'' A number of eighteenth century volumes published in Paris are important for the later history of the commedia dell' arte, of which the chief are the Dic- tionaire des theatres de Paris and the Histoire de ' a. F. De Simone Brouwer, Ancora una raecolta di scenari, in Bendi- conto della reale aoeademia dei Lincei, classe di scienze morali, storiehe e filologiclie, Ser. V, vol. X (Eoma, 1901), 391 f. This collection belongs to the end of the seventeenth century, though a number of the titles of the separate plays listed seem to go back as far as 1642; of these the most interesting is a version of Calderon's Medego de su honra. There is also a version of La regina d'Inghilterra, for which cf. above, Chap. IV. b. V. Kossi, / Suppositi dell'Ariosto ridotto a scenario di commedia improvvisa (Bergamo, per nozze namini-Fanelli, 1895). This sce- nario is from the same seventeenth century collection as the one pub- lished by Eossi in G. B. della Porta ed un nuovo scenario, L'astrologo, in Eend. del reale istit. lombardo (18«6), Ser II, vol. XXIX, 14 f. Eossi thinks Porta himself was not the author of this scenario of his play. 244 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aUTE I'ancien theatre italien depuis son origine en France jusqu'd sa suppression en I'annee 1697, by the brothers Parfaict.® The two Italian actors who were most prominent in the role of Arleqnin in France at this period each got out a collection of plans on the order of commedie dell' arte, P. F. Bian- colelli, "dit Dominique," Le nouveau theatre italien (Anvers, 1713), and E. Gherardi, Le theatre italien de Gherardi (Paris, 1700 and after). The six volumes of the latter contain only the French and French-and-Italian written scenes of the partly im- provised plays of all sorts given by Gherardi and his Italian company. A number of single scenarios have been published in recent years of which I note those that I have been able to examine myself. Bbouwee, F. De Simone, Due scenari inediti del secolo XVII, Gior. Stor., XVIII (1891), 277. CoEBONi, P., Cristoforo Colomho nel teatro (Milano, 1892), 196 f., a scenario on Columbus played at Genoa, 1708. Gozzi, C, II contratto rotto, an eighteenth century scenario, in his Opere, IV, 35. Maddalena, E., Una scenario inedito, from the Bibl. Palatina in Vienna ; pub. in Sitzungsberichte der kaisl. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, phil.-hist. Klasse, CXLIII (1901), part 16, 1 f. Maetucci, G., Uno scenario inedito delta commedia dell' arte; Flaminio disperato, from an early ' Cf . bibliograpliy for full titles of these books. Bartoli lists the most important titles of scenarios from these sources, Seen, ined., xxvii f . THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 245 seventeentli century MS.; pub. in Nuova An- tologia, Ser. II, vol. LI (1885), 219 f. Neei, a., Una commedia dell' arte, a description of a comedy written up from an improvised play, ap- parently the source of Moliere's Medecin volant; the Italian play is dated Milano 1673. Gior. Stor., I (1883), 75 f. Cf. Toldo, Alcuni scenari, etc., 462, for a discussion of this scenario. Ee, E., Scenari modenesi, from the Bibl. Estense in Modena, two scenarios apparently of the six- teenth century, showing some resemblances to Scala's plays. Gior. Stor., LV (1910), 325 f. ScHEEiLLo, M., La commedia dell' arte in Italia (Torino, 1884), chap. VI, TJn scenario di G. B. della Porta: La Trapolaria. Stoppato, L., La commedia popolare in Italia (Padova, 1887), chap. VI, Uno scenario inedito, from the Museo Correr in Venice, a seventeenth century MS. Also the scenario cited above, Trojano's. ToLDO, P., TJn scenario inedito della commedia dell' arte, of the seventeenth century, apparently an influence on Moliere's M. de Pourceaugnac. Gior. Stor., XLVI, 128. Baktolomei, G., Didascalia, cioe dottrina comica (Firenze, 1658), contains six scenarios or sketches of the commedia di mezzo which the author wished to introduce to the attention of academies. They were a kind of compromise between the professional and literary plays. APPENDIX B. The Influence of Italian Comedy in England. I wish to call attention here to a triple influence of Italian on English drama ; first, to the known trans- lations and adaptations of Italian plays into Eng- lish ; second, to possible traces of Italianate taste in English comedies ; third, to the vogue of the Italian- French pantomime in England, I. Italian models have been traced for the follow- ing plays : BuGBEABs, c. 1561 ; from A.-F. Grazzini, La spiritata. Cf. Archiv fiir das Studium der neueren Sprachen, XCVIII, 1897, XCIX, C. Chapman, G., May Bay, pr. 1611; from A. Pic- coloiriini, Alessandro. Cf. Stiefel in Shake- speare Jahrbuch, XXXV, 1899, 180 f. Cheeke, H., a certayne Tragedie written first in Italian by F. N. B., entituled Freewyl . . . pr. c. 1589; from F. Negri Bassanese, Lihro Arbi- trio. Cf. M. A. Scott, Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc, XI, 1896, 435. Dymock, C, II Pastor Fido, or the FaithfuU Shep- heard, 1607; from B. Guarini, II pastor fido. Cf. Scott, loc. cit. Gascoigne, G., The Supposes, 1566, from L. Ariosto, I suppositi. Ed. J. W. Cunliffe (Boston, 1906). Gismond of Salerne, 1567/8; from L. Dolce, Bido (and other sources). Cf. J. "W. Cunliffe, Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc, XXI, 1906. 246 THE COMMEDIA DELL'aBTE 247 JoNsoN, B., Alchemist, 1610, largely influenced by Bruno, II candelaio. Cf. paper before the Mod. Lang. Assoc, of America by C. Gr. Child, 1905. KiNWELWEESH, F., aud GrAscoiGNE, Gr., Jocttsta, 1566, from L. Dolce, Giocasta. Ed. J. W. Cunliffe (Boston, 1906). Laelia, a Latin university play, 1590, a translation of Gl'ingannati, by a member of tbe academy of the Intronati at Siena. Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, I, 196-7, erroneously attributes Gl'in- gannati to G. B. della Porta ; the authorship has been much disputed, but the probable authors have been narrowed to two, A. Piccolomini and L. Castelvetro; cf. Gr. Cavvazzuti, Grior. Stor., XL, 1902, 343 f. Schelling, op. cit., I, 196 f., and II, 77-8, lists a number of other Italian plays translated into Latin at the English uni- versities. One of these, Euggle's Ignoramus, taken from Porta's La Trapolaria (pi. 1615), was translated into English by Coddington and printed in 1662. Maeston, J., What Tou Will, pr. 1607, is a free ver- sion of Sforza degli Oddi's / morti vivi; cf. Holt- hausen's examination of the relation in Shake- speare Jahrbuch, XLI, 1905, 186 f . MuNDAY, A., Fidele and Fortunio, the deceiptes in love Discoursed in a Commedie of ij Italyan Gent{lemen) . . . by A. M. . . . 1584. Cf. the Malone Society reprint, 1909. From L. Pasqua- ligo's II Fedele, a comedy translated into French by Larivey in 1611. An English Latin version of II fedele also exists, Victoria. 248 THE OOMMEDIA DELIi'ARTE [?Eeynolds, H.] Tasso's Aminta, 1628. Cf. Scott, loc. cit. Shakespeabe, W., Twelfth Night, c. 1600, a very free adaptation of Gl'ingannati. The Italian play in an abbreviated translation is given in the ap- pendix to the Variorum edition of Twelfth Night, ed. H. H. Fnrness, from T. L. Peacock's Worhs (London, 1875), 276 f. Cf. W. W. Greg, Mod. Lang. Rev., 1900, 189. ToMKis, Alhumazar, 1615; from Porta, L'astrologo. Cf. W. Konig, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, IX, 1874, 209. In addition to these satisfactory attributions I note a few suggestions which are interesting though inadequately proved. Ceeizenach, "W. M. a., Geschichte des neueren Dramas, IV, 247, remarks on parellels between Jonson's Epicoene and Aretino's Marescalco. Ibid., a suggestion of the Italianate character of The Wit of a Woman (pr. 1604) and of Mid- dleton's No Wit, No Help like a Woman's. Klein, J. L., Geschichte des Dramas, IV, 548 f ., com- pares Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well to B. Accolti's Verginia, a connection that a careful reading of the two plays does not con- firm. Ibid., IV, 786 f., likens the Two Gentlemen of Verona to Parabosco's II viluppo and Twelfth Night to N. Secchi's Gl'inganni, as well as to Gl'ingannati. Cf. Ulrici's criticism, Shake- speare Jahrbuch, VI, 1871, 351. THE 249 Ihid., V, 385 f., compares Othello to Dolce 's Mari- anna and Romeo and Juliet to Groto's Hadriana, not convincingly. Wabd, a. W. a., Hist, of English Dramatic Litera- ture, 1899, 1, 247, compares Heywood's Play of Love (c. 1530) to an Italian frottola, but with- out suggesting a definite Italian origin for it. II. A few of tlie minor plays of the period which seem to me most decidedly Italianate in tone and theme are: Anon.: Fadr Em, pi. c. 1593, has a hero "innamo- rato per fama," a theme of love versus friend- ship, disguises, a pretence on the part of the heroine that she is blind and deaf. The last comic device is similar to Isabella's frequent pretence of madness in Scala's scenarios. Misognus, c. 1570?, may possibly be of Italian derivation; the kind of plot and characters suggest such an origin. Mucedorus, pr. 1598, is a romantic extravaganza with a hero "innamorato per fama," like Scala's Trineo. Of. L'Orseida, above. Chap. IV. The tone of Mucedorus is however on the whole that of medieval romance and Italian court pastoral rather than that of the usual commedia dell'arte. The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, pi. c. 1582, is a characteristic court entertainment suitable for acting by either Italian or English players. Chapman's comedies are all similar to Italian plays 250 THE COMMEDIA DEIjL'aETE but only one has been traced to a definite source (cf. above). All Fools contains a particularly- good example of the Pantaloonlike old father in Gostanzo (cf. especially IV, 1) of the Gra- tiano in Dr. Pock (cf. Ill, 1), and the deceiv- ing young lovers and their servants, much as they appear in the commedia dell' arte. The sub-plot is moreover built on jealousy and centers in a group of low-class characters, like the Brighella or Burattino sub-plots of some of Scala's scenarios. Day, J., Humor out of Breath, pr. 1608, is an in- trigue comedy of the Italianate order. Law Tricks, pr. 1608, is one of several plays in- debted to How a Man may choose a Good Wife from a Bad, and through that may possibly go back to a novella of Cintio (cf. Baskerville, Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc, XXIV, 1909, 726) or it may be based on an Italian comedy derived from Cintio. Lyly, J., Mother Bombie, pr. 1594, has a duplicate plot interest, which makes me think it may be from an Italian original rather than from a play by Terence. Cf. however Bond, ed. of Lyly's Works, II, 473, note on the Italian Influ- ence on Lyly, and Feuillerat, John Lyly, 320 f. Field, N., A Woman is a Weathercock, pi. 1609, and Amends for Ladies, c. 1612, are especially full of the hackneyed commedia dell' arte tricks, dis- guises, concetti, etc. Maeston, J., Parisitaster, pr. 1606, has been traced to the Decameron, III, 3, but may be from an THE COMMEDIA DBLIj AETE 251 Italian comedy on the same novella. For the connection with Boccaccio, cf. Koeppel, Quellen- Studien, 27. MiDDLBTON, J., The Widow, c. 1608-9, is a play that has been accounted for from the Decameron, III, 3, and II, 2; cf. Baumann, Middleton's Lustspiel The Widow u. Boccaccio's II Decam- eron, etc. (Halle, 1904). The disguises in this play, together with the window flirtations and the charlatanlike performances of Latrocino (IV, 2), are commedia dell'arte features. So too are the scenes in which Martia in a shirt is mistaken for a lad. III. The following titles of typical farces and pantomimes show a commedia dell'arte influence after the Restoration : A Collection of the most esteemed Farces and Enter- tainments performed on the British Stage. . . . Edinburgh, n. d. (mid-eighteenth cen- tury?). Harlequin Hydaspes; or the Greshamite, a mock opera (in prose and verse). London, 1719. The British Stage ; or the Exploits of Harlequin, a farce (a satire on the public taste for panto- mime). London, 1724. A dramatick entertainment call'd Harlequin a Sorcerer ; with the Loves of Pluto and Proser- pine. London, 1725. Harlequin Student; or the Fall of Pantomime, with the Restoration of the Drama, an entertain- ment, etc. London, 1741. 252 THE COMMEDIA DBLIj'aBTE Harlequin Incendiary or Colombine Cameron. A musical pantomime. London, 1746. Harlequin Mungo; or a Peep into the Tower; a new pantomimical entertainment, . . . London (1750?). Harlequin Premier ; a farce. . . . (Brentford) 1769. The Witches; or Harlequin's Trip to Naples (verses illustrated by a series of plates cut to form different combinations). London, 1772. The Choice of Harlequin; or the Indian Chief; a pantomimical entertainment, in two parts. London, 1782. An exact account of the favorite pantomime called Harlequin's Chaplet. London, 1790. The History and comical adventures of Harlequin and his pleasing companion Columbine. Hol- born (1790?). Sketch of the Story, etc., with the songs and recita- tives in the . . . Entertainment of the Talis- man; or Harlequin made happy, etc. . . . (London) 1792. The Savages; or Harlequin Wanderer. An Enter- tainment of song, dance and comic spectacle, etc. (London) 1792. A correct account of the celebrated pantomime entertainment of Harlequin's Museum or Mother Shipton Triumphant, etc. London, 1793. The Witch of the Lakes; or Harlequin in the He- brides, as performed at Sadler's Wells. (Lon-„ don) 1797. Airs, duets and choruses in a new pantomime called THE COMMEDIA DELL'aRTE 253 Harlequin and Quixote; or the Magic Arm. (By J. C. Cross.) London, 1797. Sketch of the Mountain of Miseries; or Harlequin Tormentor, a comic entertainment. . . . (Lon- don) 1797. Songs, Choruses, etc., in the new pantomime of Harlequin's Tour, or the Dominion of Fancy, as performed at the Theatre-Eoyal, Covent- Eoyal, etc. London, 1800. Harlequin's Amulet, or the Magick of Mona. The songs, choruses, etc., with a description of the pantomime. London (1801?). Dibdin, T., Harlequin Hoax; or a Pantomime Pro- posed. A comic extravaganza. . . . London, 1814. Songs, Duets, Choruses, etc., in the new grand pantomime called Harlequin Whittington, or Lord Mayor of London. . . . The Whole ar- ranged by Mr. Farley. London . . . 1814. The new pantomime of Harlequin and Fortunio ; or the Shing-Moo and Thum-Ton, with a sketch of the story, etc. London, 1815. Airs, choruses and business with a description of the scenery in the new pantomime of Harlequin and the Dandy-Club ; or 1818. (London) 1818. Choruses, recitative and Dialogue with a short description of the Business of each Scene of the new pantomime called Harlequin Munchausen or the Fountain of Love, in which those real facts recorded by that Caleb Traveller, Baron Munchausen, have been varied and expanded according to the admitted privilege of Panto- mime. . . . London . . . 1818. 254 THE COMMEDIA DEIjL'aETE Airs, Choruses and Business ... in a new panto- mime of the Silver Arrow; or Harlequin and the Fairy Pari Banon. . . . (London) 1819. Harlequin and O'Donoghue, or the White Horse of Killarney. An . . . equestrian . . . panto- mime. . . . (1850.) Good-night, Signor Pantaloon. A comic opera ia one act. Adapted from the French. . . . (1850?) BIBLIOGRAPHY. I list here the principal works that I have used exclusive of the scenarios and English and Italian plays catalogued in Appendices A and B. I give the titles, place and date of publication in each case, but sometimes, especially in the case of old books, abbreviate a little by the omission of inessentials. AccoLTi, B. : Verginia, comedia . . . recitata nelle solenne noze del magnifico Antonio Spannochi nella inclyta cipta di Siena. Firenze, . . . 1513. Ademollo, a. : Alessandro VI, Giulio II e Leone X nel Carnevale di Eoma. Document! inediti. (1499-1520.) Firenze, 1886. Una famiglia di comici italiani nel secolo decim- ottavo. Firenze, 1885. Intorno al teatro drammatico italiano dal 1550 in poi. Nuova Antologia, I marzo, 1881, 50 f . Teatri di Eoma nel secolo decimosettimo. Eoma, 1888. Albert, M. : Les theatres de la Foire. (1660-1789.) Paris, 1900. Illustrated. Allacci, »L. : Drammaturgia . . . accresciuta. . . . Venezia, . . . 1755. AxLEN, p. S. : The Medieval Mimus, Modern Phi- lology, VIII, Jan. and July, 1910. Amicis, V. de: La commedia popolare latina e la commedia dell 'arte. Napoli, 1882. 255 256 THE COMMEDIA DEIjL'aETE L'imitazione latina nella commedia italiana del secolo XVI. Firenze, 1897. Ancona, a. d' : Due farse del secolo XVI. Bologna, 1882. (Scelta di curiosita letterarie, No. 187.) I dodici mesi dell 'anno nella tradizione popolare. ArcMvio per lo studio delle tradizioni popolari, II, 1883, 239 f . Lettere di comici italiani del secolo XVII. Per le nozze Martini-Benzoni. Pisa, 1893. Origini del teatro italiano; libri tre; con due appendici suUa rappresentazione drammatica del contado toscano e sul teatro mantovano nel ■ secolo XVI. Torino, 1891, 2d ed., 2 vols. La poesia popolare italiano. . . . Livorno, 1878. Sacre Eappresentazioni dei secoli XIV, XV e XVI. Firenze, 1872, 3 vols. Studj suUa letteratura italiana dei primi secoli. Ancona, 1884. Varieta storiclie e letterarie. Milano, 1885. 2 vols. E CoMPAEETTi, D. (ed.) : Canti e racconti del popolo italiano. Torino, 1870-1891. 9 vols. Andkbini, F.: Le bravure del Capitano Spavento, divise in molte ragionamenti in forma di Dia- logo di F. A. da Pistoia Comico geloso. . . . Venetia, 1615. (First ed., 1607.) Nuova aggiunta alle Bravure del Capitano Spa- vento, di Francesco Andreini. . . . Venetia, 1614. Andbeini, Gr. B. : Lo SpeccMo, composizione sacra e poetica; nella quale si rappresenta al vivo 1 'Imagine della Comedia, quanto vago, e de- THE COMMEDIA DELL'aETE 257 forme sia alhor che da Comici virtuosi, e viziosi rappresentata viene. . . . Parigi, 1625. Teatro celeste, nel quale si rappresenta come la Divina bonta habbia cMamato algrado di Beatitudine, e di Santita Comici Penitenti, e martiri. . . . Parigi, 1624. Andeeini, Isabella: Lettere d 'Isabella Andreini Comica gelosa, et academica intenta nominata I'Accesa. . . . Venetia, 1607. Fragmenti di alcune scritture. . . . Venetia, 1627. Mirtilla, pastorale. . . . Verona, 1588. Aristotle: Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, ed. S. H. Butcher. London, 1907. 4th ed. Aegteaga, E. : Le rivoluzioni del teatro musicale italiano dalla sua origin! fino al presente. . . . Venezia, 1785. 3 vols. Banks, J.: The Unhappy Favorite, or the Earl of Essex. . . . London, 1685. Bapst, G. : Essai sur I'histoire du theatre, la mise- en-scene, le decor, le costume, I'eclairage, I'hygiene. Paris, 1893. Baebieei, N. : La Supplica, ricoretta ed ampliata. Discorso famigliare di Niccolo Barbieri, detto Beltrame, diretto a quelli che scrivendo o par- lando trattano de 'Comici, traseurendo i meriti delle azzioni virtuose. . . . Venetia, 1634. Baetoli, a.: Scenari inediti deUa commedia del I'arte, contributo alia storia del teatro popolare italiano. Firenze, 1880. (In Raccolta di opere inedite o rare di ogni secolo della letteratura italiana.) 18 258 THE COMMEDIA DELl'aBTE Babtoli, F.: Notizie istoriclie de'comici italiani che fiorirono intorno all 'anno MDL fino a'giomi present!. . . . Padova, 1781. 2 vols. Baschet, a,: Les eomediens italiens a la cour de France sous Charles IX, Henri III, Henri IV et Louis XIII. Paris, 1882. Bates, E. S. : Touring in 1600. Boston and New York, 1911. Illustrated. Beaxjvoie, E. de: II Pulcinella et I'homme des madones. Paris, 1834. Belando, v.: Gl'Amorosi Inganni, comedia . . . di V. B, detto Cataldo Siciliano. . . . Paris, 1609. Beolco, a. : Tutte le opere di Messer Angelo Beol- cho. . . . Vicenza, 1584. Bevilacqua, E. : Giambattista Andreini e la com- pagnia dei Fedeli. Griornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, XXIII, 1894, 76 f., and XXIV, 82 f. (BiANCHi, L. de) : Le cento e dodici conclusioni in ottava Eima del plusquamperfetto Dottor Gra- tiano, Partesana da Prancolino, comico geloso. . . . 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In Hazlitt's Shakespeare's Library, London, 1875, Vol. VL Wtndham, H. S. : Annals of Covent Garden Theatre from 1732 to 1897. London, 1906, 2 vols. Zanetti, Z. : La medicina delle nostre donne, studio folk-lorico. Citta di Castello, 1892. INDEX. Academies, 17, 19, 52, 78, 81, 98, Aminta, 148, 248. 247. Academy, French, 214. Accesi, 152-3. Accolti, B., 248. Actors, Italian, importance in re- lation to the commedia deW- arte, 18 f., 21, 28; early con- nection with mystery plays, 27 f . ; with mountebanks, 29 f . ; with courts, 28, 50 f ., 100, 119, 137, 141 f., 147 f., 191; dilet- tanti, 57, 69,'l63; education, 79 f., 97 f., lO'lf.; formation of companies, 28, 50 f., 82 f.; number in troupes, 58-9; pay- ment of, 149; association with foreigners, 158, 166 f., 212 f., 223 f., 227. Addison, J., 226 f. Adieux des officiers, Les, 213. Adriano, 150. Aliumazar, 248. Alchemist, The, 246. Alessandro, 246. Alexander VIII, 235. Alichino, 10. All Fools, 250. Allen, P. S., 26. AUeyn, E., 183. All's Well that Ends Well, 15, 248. Alvida, L', 119. Amadis, 186. Ambrosio, 172. Amends for Ladies, 250. Amour medecin, L', 164. Anconitana, L', 54. Andrd, Maitre, 142. Andreini, F., 47, 92 f., 99, 151. Andieini, G.-B., 153, 201, 211. Andreini, Isabella, 80 f., 85, 87, 112, 152, 202. Andria, N., 142. Angela, 48-9. Angelica, L', 138, 159. Angeloni, F., 62. Aniello, S., 91, 136. Antim^sk of Mountebanks, 196. Antony and Cleopatra, 182. Aretiuo, P. di, 160, 248. Ariosto, L., 57, 94, 167, 246. Aristotle, influence of, 67, 83, 136. Arlecehino, 5, 39, 41, Chap. IV passim, 171, 224; origin, 10 f.; in pantomime, 221 f.; in sat- ire, 235. Arlecehino creduto principe, 222. ArleccMno lingere du PoZow, 214. Arlecehino Phaeton, 214. Arlecehino poli par amour, 218. Arlecehino Frotee, 214, ArleccMno re, 236. Arlequin, cf. Arlecehino. Armani, V., 81 f . Astrologo, L', 248. Astute semplicitd d'Angiola, L', 163. As You Like It, 178. Atellanae, cf. Mime, Eoman. 280 INDEX 281 Austria, 165. Barbieri, N., 138, 159, 202. Baretti, 204. Bartholomew Fair, 206. Basilisco di Bernagasso, 160. Basle, 165. Battle of Alcazar, The, 183. Bavaria, Ferdinand, Duke of, 64, 103, 151. Beaumarehais, 218. Bellay, J. du, 43. Beolco, A. (II Euzzante), 52 f., 69. Beltrame, 202. Bergamo, 42, 171. Bergamask, 179. Bianehi, L. de', 36. BianeoleUi, N., 169, 241. Biancolelli, P. F. (Dominique), 244. Bibbiena, cf. Dovizj. Biron, 178. Blois, 149, 175. Boccaccio, G., 85, 189. Bologna, 77, 207. Borromeo, C, 61, 151. Bos, Abb6 Du, 23, 212. Bottom, 179. Bourgeois gentilhomme, Le, 160. Brantome, 141. Bravo, 8, 83. Brighella, 12, 210, 235. Brome, E., 178, 182. Brouwer, De S., 243, 244. Bruni, D., 89, 136-7. Bruno, 246. Bruscello, 2. Bucco, 25. Buckhurst, Lord, 144 f. Bugiears, 246. Buono, L. del, 202. Burattini, cf. marionettes. Burattino, 35, 39, 206. Burbage, E., 183 f . BurcMella, II, cf. Molino. Cakmdra, Za, 116, 143, 165. Calderon, 169, 243. Calmo, A., 69, 80, 86. Camilla, 104 f. Candelaio, II, 246. Canto di Zanni e di Magnifichi, Vn, 43 f. Capitaine Fracasse, Le, 9. Capitano, 5, 8, 41 ; origin, 46 f . connection with bravo, 47 with military mercenaries, 47 with Miles Gloriosus in Eoman and academic comedy, 92 f . Capitano, II, 83. Capitano Spavento, 92; Chap. IV passim; Bravure, 93 f. Carnival festivals, 28, 50 f . ; songs, 43 f.; plays, 37 f. Castelvetro, L., 247. Cataldo, 161 f. Cava, 22. Cecehini, P. M., 51, 87. Celia, 82, 90. Censorship of the theater, 61, 151, 166, 220 f. Centaura, La, 223. Cervantes, 166. Changeling, The, 178. Chapman, G., 15, 69, 195, 246, 249. Charivari, 10. Charlatans, cf. mountebanks. Charlemagne, 206. Chatelet, 152. Cheats of Scapim., The, 228. Cheeke, H., 246. Chiusette, 37. 282 INDEX Cicero, 23. Cicognini, 163. Cid, Le, 214. City Wit, The, 178, 182. Classics, influence on comedy, Chap. Ill, 'passim, 120. Clisia, La, 77. Cocu imaginaire, Le, 163-4. Cokayn, A., 222. Cola, 12, 38, 130 f. Collier, J. P., 183. Colombina, 5, 11. Colombine, 202. Comedie des comedies, La, 213. Com^die italienne in Paris, 201, 211, 215, 219 f. Comedy, compared to farce, 216- 7, 237 f . Comedy of Errors, The, 15, 69, 198. Comioi, cf. actors. Commedia dell' arte, defined, 2f.; themes, 15 f.; origin, 18 f., 21 f., 28 f., 99, 102; popular influences on, 65 f ., 110 f . ; classical influences on, 97 f., 110 f. ; reasons for popularity, 101, 147; decline in popu- larity, 139; influence abroad, 154 f . ; contributions to other forms of drama, 172, 198, 200 f ., 212, 217, 219 ; analogies to other forms of drama, 201, 222, 234 f . Commedia erudita, 67 f . ; distinc- tion from commedia dell' arte, 84, 115, 134 f., 137; influence abroad, 157, 168, 180 f. Concetti, it., 13, 36, 80, 85, 87 f ., 95, 137, 155, 208. Confidenti, 150, 153, 168, 212. Oonf rfirie de la Passion, 149, 152, 153. Contrasti, defined, 53, 59, 220. Cf . folk plays. Contratti rotti, I, 244. Convitato di pietra, II, 160. Corneille, T., 169. Coryat, T., 30 f ., 60 f ., 67 f ., 176. Costumes, 63 f., 173 f., 221. Courtesans, in comedy 105 f., lllf.; Venetian, 30, 60 f. Courts, influence on comedy, cf. actors. Coviello, 95. Criticism, academic, 17, 67 f.; responsible for the theory of the Eoman origin of the com- media dell' arte, 21 f.; influ- ence on the practice of the Italian actors, 17, 70 f., 122, 125, 177 f ., 207, 209, 212, 216 f. Cruikshank, G., 206. Cueva, G. della, 61. Cymbeline, 16. Cynthia's Revels, 179. Dante, 94. Day, J., 250. Bead Man's Fortune, The, 183 f. Decameron, The, 15, 85, 250. Depit amoureux, Le, 159. Desevedo di Mai Albergo, 203. Desiosi, 62, 82. Deux Arleguins, Les, 225. Devil is an Ass, The, 196. Devils as comic characters, 27. Dialect in comedy, 6, 55, 66, 205. Dido, 246. Disgratie di Burattino, Le, 206. Disguise in comedy, 11, 16, 49, 55, 61, 98, 106 f., 124, 128-9, 133. Doctor Mask, 5, 7, 35 f ., 40 f. Doctor Faustus, 187. Dolce, L., 246, 247, 248. INDEX 283 Dominique, cf. Biancolelli. Don Giovanni, 1, 160. Don Garde de Navarre, 163. Dorsennus, 24-5. Dovizj, Card. B. Dovizj da Bib- biena, 57, 116. Drayton, M., 197. Dresden, 223. Drury Lane Theater, 228. Drusiano, cf. Martinelli. Due simili, I, 153. Duplication of characters in comedy, 202. Dutch Cortizan, The, 193. Dymock, C, 246. Eckermann, J. P., 204, 211. Ecole des femmes, L', 163. Ecole des maris, L', 163. Elizabeth, Queen, 129 f., 144, 174. Emilia, L', 139. Enchanted Tree, The, 119, 123 f., 211. Engagements du hazard, Les, 169. England, Chap. VI passim, 201. Epicoene, 248. Este, house of, 58, 148, 151. Este, Ercole d', 56. Este, Isabella d', 51. Este, Lucrezia d', 145. Estienne, C, 168. Essex, Earl of, 129 f. Etourdi, L', 159. Every Man in his Bumour, 179. Extravaganzas, 99, 120 f., 139, 219 f., 221 f. Fabio, 35. Fair Em, 249. Farce, nature of, 109 f., 237 f . Farces, cf. folk plays. Farsa, 2, 136. Earse cavaiole, 104. Fausse prude. La, 215. Fedele, II, 247. Fedeli, 82, 153, 171, 212. Ferrara, 56, 65, 146, 148, 151. FerraboUe, A., 174. Festin de pierre, Le, 159. Fiabe, 210 f. Fidele and Fortunio, 247. Field, N., 6, 250. Figaro, 218. Finta pazza. La, 215. Fiorilli, T., 203; relation to Mol- i6re, 158. Fiorillo, S., 11. Fiorina, La, 54. Flaminia, 64, 73, 82, Chap. IV passim. Flaminio, Chap. IV passim, 193. Flavio, Chap. IV passim, 214. Cf . Seala. Florence, 112. Foires, St. Germain and St.- Laurent, 215 f., 217, 219. Folk plays, 26; 28, 37, 42, 53 f., 122 f. Polk songs, 36, 37, 210. Folk tales, 37. Fornaris, P. de, 138. Forsennata prinoipessa. La, 118. Fortuna di Flamio, La, 194r-5. Fortunio, 34. Fourberies de Scapin, Les, 163, 224, 228. Fracasso, 9. Francatrippa, 22, 171. France, 145 f., 157, 201. Francesehina, 5, 48, 49, Chap. IV passim, 193. Franciso, 172. Francolino, Gratiano da, 84. 284 INDEX Fraugipani, 149. Freewyl, 246. Fritellino, 51. Frottola, 38. Furberie di Scappino, Le, 139. Gabriele da Bologna, 85. Gabriele deUe Haste, 150. GaUrie du Palais, La, 156. Ganassa, A., 96, 145-6, 148, 167. Ganne, 236. Garzoni, T., 30, 34 f., 49 f., 180. Gascoigne, G., 69, 177, 246, 247. Gautier, T., 9. Gelosi, 61, 82, 95, 99, 111, 171, 175, 194; history of, 147 f., 241. Gelosia, La, 57, 98, 112, 118, 135. Gelosie fortunate del prmcipe Soderigo, Le, 163. Genericci, cf. concetti. Genoa, 148. Germany, 165. Gherardi, E., 213 f., 225, 238, 244. Ghosts in comedy, 12. Giangurgolo, 203. Gianni, cf. Zanni. Gilles, 1. Gismond of Saleme, 246. Goethe, J. W. von, 204, 211. Goldoni, C, 207 f., 216, 218 f . Gonzaga, C, 78. Gonzaga, G., 51. Gonzaga, house of, 151. Gonzaga, L., 145. Gosson, S., 177. Gozzi, C, 209 f., 244. Graeioso, 155, 169. Gran' pazzia d 'Orlando, La, 242. Gratia.no, 5, 7, 49, 84, Chap. IV passim, 197, 203, 210; crea- tion of, 7; connection with charlatan, 35 f., 138; aca- demic influence on, 84 f. C(m- clusioni di, 36 f. Graziani, 65. Gray's Inn, 196. Grazzini, A.-F. (II Lasca), 43, 246; his carnival songs, 43 f. Cf. 82. Greco, G., 53. Grimm, W., 218. Groto, L., 139, 248. Guappo, 9, 203. Guarini, B., 246. Hadriana, 248. Samlet, 3, 17, 182, 187. Hardy, A., 154. Harlequin, cf . Arlecchino. Harleqwin Soaai, 223 f. Sarlequin Horace, 231. Harlequin Prince in a Dream, 227. Harlequin Sorcerer, 230. Harley, A. de, 10. Hellequin, 10. Henri II, 116. Henri III, 65, 149. Henri IV, 146. Henry IV (2), 198. Henry V, 6. Henry VIII, 142. Herculaneum, 22. Herodas, 25. Heywood, J., 249. Heywood, T., 171, 177. Holofemes, 84, 197. Homer, 75. Horace, critical theories of, 18, 68. H6tel de Bourbon, 150. Hotel de Bourgogne, 152, 212. INDEX 285 Hotel Uuenegaud, 212. How a Man May Choose a Good Wife, 250. Sumor out of Breath, 250. Ignoramus, 247. Impegno del caso, L ', 169. Immortali, 52. Improvisation, 2 f ., 17, 55, 100, 155, 180 f., 186, 205, 216, 238. Inavvertito, L', 138, 159. Incantesimi, Gl', 115, 116. Ingannati, Gl', 98, 157, 168, 176, 197, 247, 248. Inganni, Gl', 115, 176, 248. Innamorato, 4 f., 9, 87 f., Chap. IV passim. Innocent Persian Maid, The, 211. Interesse, L', 159. Intermedj, 49, 77 f., 119, 135, 168, 174, 177. Intronati, 81, 98, 247. Invaghiti, 78. Ion, 72, 79. Ipocrito, La, 160. Isabella, 82, Chap. IV passim, 161 f. Cf. Andreiui, I. Isle of Dogs, The, 187. Jacinta, 169. Jaeopo of Venice, 165. Jalousie du barbouillS, La, 159. James I, 189. James IV, 187. Jocasta, 247. Jonson, B., 15, 136, 178, 187, 188, 246, 248. Judy, 1, 205. Jugglers, cf. mountebanks. Kemp, W., 171, 16. Kenilworth, 174. La-Oharite-sur-Loire, 149. Laelia, 247. Lancelloti, Card. O., 62. Lancret, 1. Laneham, E., 174. Larivey, P. de, 157, 247. Lasea, II, cf. Grazzini. Lasso, O. di, 104 f., 165. Law Tricks, 250. Lazzi, definition, 3, 155; ex- amples, 12 f., 39, 65-6, 121, 124, 133, 230-1, 234. Leo X, 51, 116. Leoncavallo, 236. Libro arbitrio, 246. Liebesverbot, 235. Life and Death of Dr. Faustus, etc., 224. Lincoln, Earl of, 145. Linz, 143. Loeatelli, B., 241. London, 141, 175. Lope de Rueda, 168-9. Lope de Vega, 155, 169. Loret, 211. Lothar, 236. Love, as theme of comedies, 1 5 f ., 85 f.; theory of love, 87, 132, 154-5; Platonic, 16, 68, 87. Love's Labour's Lost, 178. Lyly, J., 250. Lyons, 143, 175. Macchiavelli, N., Maccus, 22-5. Machinery, cf. stage. Mad Princess, The, cf. La for- sennata pri/ncipessa. Madness in comedy, 17, 114, 123, 202. Madrid, 141, 146, 167, 171. Maggi, cf . May plays. 286 INDEX Magicians in comedy, 18, 27, 35, 123. Magnifico, cf. Pantalone. Maid's Tragedy, The, 223. Haintenon, Mme. de, 215. Malade imaginaire, Le, 164. Malcontent, The, 179. Malherbe, 153. Malvolio, 7. Mamdragola, La, 85. Manningham, J., 176. Mantua, 62, 119, 145. Mantua, Duke of, 62, 70, 80, 145, 150-2, 168. Mareantonio, 172. Marescaleo, II, 248. Marguerite de Valois, 146. Maria, A., 142. Manage de Figaro, Le, 1, 139. Marianna, 249. Mariano, Fra, 51. Marini, 94. Marionettes, 200, 205 f. Marivaux, 218. Marston, J., 179, 247, 250. Martinelli, Angelica, 167 f. Martinelli, D., in Spain, 167 f . ; in London, 175. Martinelli, T., 59, 63, 167; in Paris, 154. Masaeone, 142. Masks (visards), 11, 42, 155-6. Masks (type characters), defini- tion, 3 f . ; number and variety, 5, 59, 64, 83, 200; origin, 21 f., 203-4; imitation abroad, 177, 182; decadence, 139, 208; introduction into opere buffe, 217; into parodies, 217 f. Masque of Amazons and Kmghts, 176. Maasimiauo, 70 f . May Day, 246. May plays, 2, 46. Mazarin, Card., 153. Medici, Catherine de', 116, 141. Medici, Ferdinand I de', 112. Medecin malgre lui, Le, 164. MSdeoim volant, Le, 159. Medico volante, II, 39, 159, 227. Melodramma, cf . musical plays. Menaechmi, 125, 243; reworked by Scala in The Twin Cap- tains, 125 f . ; by Noble in The Two Sarlequins, 225-6. Meo Patacca, 203. Merry Wives of Windsor, The, 6. Mezzetino, 12. Middleton, T., 15, 178, 181, 248, 251. Midsummer Night's Dream, The, 178, 179. MUan, 61, 148. Michiele, A., 151. Miles gloriosus, cf. Capitano. Miller, J., 231 f. Mimes, Eoman, 25, analogy to commedia dell' arte, 21 f., 83, 154. Mimi centunouli, 23. Minturno, 22, 85. Mirtilla, 88. Misognus, 249. Mock Thyestes, The, 224. Moland, L., 236. Moliere, 153, 158; association with Italian actors, 158 f., use of scenarios, 159; influenced by commedia dell 'arte, 159 f ., 197, 239. Molino, A. (II Burchiella), 80. Monferrato, 63, Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, 160. Montaigne, M. de, 48. INDEX 287 Morality plays, 54. Moresca, 78. Morti vi/vi, I, 247. Mother Bombie, 250. Mountebanks, 29 f., 61 f.; kind of entertainments, 37; Cory- at's impression, 30 f.; traces in comedy, Chap. II passim; English opinion of, 188 f., 195 f. Mozart, 160. Mucedonis, 195, 249. Munday, A., 247. Munich, 103, 141, 165. Musical plays, 124, 125, 139, 172, 200 f., 210 f., 213 f., 217, 221, 229. Musicians, Italian, 142, 165. Mystery plays, 21, 27, 52, 75, 119. Naples, 203 f. Nash, T., 171, 176, 187, 195. Nevers, Duke of, 145. No Wit, no Selp like a Woman 's, 248. Nobili, F. de' (H Cherea), 51. Nogent-le-Boi, 148. Nordlingen, 143. Novella, The, 178. Novelle, as sources of comedy, 15. Oddi, S. degli, 247. Onorata fuga di Lucinda, L', 197. Opera luffa, 125, 139, 200. Opfira Comique in Paris, 219. Opera mista, 118 f . Opera regia, 125. Oratio, Chap. IV passim, 150. Orfeo, 52. Orseida, L', 122 f., 211, 249. Othello, 178, 249. Ottonelli, 16, 146. Pagliacci, I, 236. Palais-Eoyal, 158, 215. Pamela, 209. Pantalone, 5 f ., e4r-6, 86, Chap. IV passim, 137, 156, 161 f., 183, 193, 197, 210, 214; origin, 42; traits, 5, 84; in satire, 153, 222, 235. Pantomime, 200; in France, 219 f.; in England, 1, 222 f., 228 f ., 251 f. Pappus, 4-5. Parabosco, 248. Parades, 219 f. Parfaict, 244. Paris, 141, 142, 146, 175. Parisitaster, 250. Parlement, 148-9. Parody, 17, 87, 110, 213 f . Pasqualigo, L., 247. Pasquati, G., 149. Pastor fido, II, 246. Pastorals, 18, 751, 77, 119 f., 168, 173-4, 176. Paul T, 62. Pazzia, La, 112. Passie, cf. madness. Peasant in comedy, 18, 53. Pedante, II, 160, 161, 197. Pedrolino, 5, 12, 39, 65, 97, Chap. IV passim, 150. Perucci, 100. Petit-Bourbon, Salle du, 158, 212. Petrarch, 87 f., 94^5. PhUip II, 146. Piccolomini, A., 240, 246, 247. Piissimi, V., 65, 111, 147, 150 f. Plato, 72, 79, 136. Plats, 183 f. Plautus, 67-8. 288 INDEX \ Play of Love, 249. Poetics, 67; cf. Aristotle and Horace. \ Polcinella, J., 11. • Pontano, J. J., 43. Porta, G. B. della, 11, 138, 242, 243, 247, 248. Portrait, The, cf. II Bitratto. Prima donna, 5. Privy Council of England, 174. Prologs, 77, 135 f . Promos and Cassandra, 111. Pulcinella, 5, 204 f., 242; origin of name, 10 f . Pulcinella dalle Carceri, 11. Pulcinelli in carnival songs, 11. Punch, 1, 23, 205 f . Puppet play, cf. marionettes. Pyrgopolinices, 83. Quattro Pazzi, I, 203. Quattro Pulcinelli simili, I, 243. Queen of England, The, 129 £. Babbioso, II, 83. Baphael, 116. Bare Triumphs of Love and For- tune, The, 249. Beading, 173. Eegnard, 218, 225. Eetz, Card, de, 153. Eieciolina, Chap. IV, passim. Riccoboni, L., 23, 26, 215, 228. Eich, J., 227, 230, 232. Bitratto, II, 111, 112. Bitratto, II, ovvero Arlecohino cornuto per opinions, 164. Bivali, I, 98. Bodiana, La, 54. Eome, 62. Bomeo and Juliet, 72, 248. Bosalba the Witch, 211. Eogantino, 9, 203. Eossi, N., 22, 66. Eossi, v., 243. Eowley, W., 181. Euggle, 247. Euzzante, cf. Beolco. Eymer, T., 223. Sacre Bappresentazioni, cf. mys- tery plays. Sacchi, 208. St. Bartholomew, 146. St.-Simon, 215. Sand, M., 236. Sannio, 23. Satire in farce, 237 f. Saltimbanchi, cf. mountebanks. Scala, F., 98, 125, 135; his book, 11, 99, 111, 117 f., 125 f., 128, 163-4, 194-5 202, 211, 214-6, 240-1. Scarmouche, cf. Scaramuccia. Searamuceia, 40, 158, 203, 206. Scenarios, 4, 76, l^V'^^O; ex- amples, 103 f., 112 f ., Chap. rV passim, 138 f., 187, 240 f. Schlegel, A. W., 23. Scoto of Mantua, 189. Seechi, N., 159, 248. Senex, 86. Servetta, 5, 48, 86. Servus, 86. Seville, 167, 171. Sganerelle, 163. Shakespeare, 15-6, 155, 178, 239, 248. Sidney, P., 84, 177. Siena, 81. Silver Arrow, The, 230 £. Simone, 150. Sixtus V, 62. Smeraldina, 210. INDEX 289 Soldino, A., 144, 165. Sommi, L. de, 70 f., 100, 173, 183. Soubrette, cf. servetta. Sorel, 147. Spain, 166 f. Spanish Gypsy, The, 181. Spanish Tragedy, The, 180. Spavento, cf. Capitano. Spiritata, La, 246. Stage, public and private, 118; setting, 116 f., 211-2; proper- ties, 117 f., 129, 173, 211-2. Stentorello, 202. Strasino, 51. Strega, La, 57, 77, 116, 136. Supposes, The, 69, 180, 246. Suppositi, I, 116, 243, 246. Surrey, Earl of, 88. Tabarin (1), 143-4; (2), 165, 190. Tabernia, La, 242. Tamburino, 34. Taniburlaine, 17. Taming of the -Shrew, The, 198. Tappeti, I, 203. Tarlton, E., 186. Tartaglia, 210. Tartuffe, 160, 197. Tasso, T., 94-5. Tavernaria, La, 242. Teatro Olimpico, 67. Terence, 68. Theater, 58, 60 f ., 232. Cf . stage. Thraso, 8, 83. Thyestes, 224. TonibeoAi de Maitre Andre, Le, 214. Tomkis, 248. Tragedy, 68. In improvised form, 118, 121, 129. 20 Translations from the Italian, French, 157; English, 180; Spanish, 168-9. Trapolaria, La, 11, 138, 247. Trappola, 93. TrappoUn suppos'd a Prince, 222. Trappolino, 12. Trausnitz, 146. Travagliata Isabella, La, 198. Trivelino, as satiric term, 153. Trojano, M., 103, 240. Truflfaldino, 210. Turca, La, 242. Turchetta, La, 242. Twelfth Night, 16, 176, 178, 197, 248. Two Gentlemen of Verona, The, 15, 197, 248. Two Harlequins, The, 225. XTmidi, 59. University plays, 247. Valladolid, 167. Vappo, cf. Guappo. Vaudeville, 6, 13, 95. Vauquelin, Sieur de la Fresnaye, 146. Venice, 30, 42, 51, 60, 65, 148, 188, 201. Verginia, 172, 248. Veridieo, cf. Sommi. Verona, 64. Vicenza, 67. Victoria, 247. Vienna, 141-3, 146, 165. Viluppo, II, 248. Vittoria, ef. Piissimi. Volpone, 188 f. Wagner, R., 235. Watteau, 1. 290 INDEX What ¥ou Will, 247. Whetstone, G., 177, 180. Widow, The, 198, 251. Wilson, E., 186. Wild Men, 173-4. Windsor, 173. Wit of a Woman, The, 248. 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