Part 2

Although the people of Italy had no leisure in which to occupy themselves with farces and show-plays when the avalanche of the Northern people descended upon their cities and overran the countryside now desolated by famine, no sooner was a moment of respite conceded to this poor land than the taste for comedy and spectacles was born again of its own ashes.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, who lived in 1224, speaks of the comedy of his day as of a spectacle which had existed for many centuries before him. He calls comedy _histrionatus ars_ and comedians _histriones_.

When the feudal and barbarous nobility was compelled, under a pious pretext, to bear arms in the East to stem the incessant wave of Saracen invasion which threatened Christendom, the whole of Europe traversed the civilisation of the empire of the East, and it was upon their return from the Crusades that the pilgrims, their imagination fired by the marvels of Byzantium, performed the remarkable adventures of the knights-errant, miracles of saints and religious legends, first in Italy, and later in France. These were the sources of our theatre. In Italy the histrionic art began to assume two distinct manners: the sacred and religious mystery plays, and the comedies, which continued to be what they had been in the hands of the ancient Latin mimes—that is to say, burlesque farces, improvisations mingled with tumbling, dances and scraps of ancient pieces which the Italian dancers have preserved, often unconsciously, down to our own days.

“It is to the Italians,” says Voltaire, in his _Questions sur l’Encyclopédie_, “that we owe the vicious style of drama called _mystery plays_. They began in the thirteenth century and perhaps earlier, by farces drawn from the Old and New Testaments: an unworthy abuse which soon passed into Spain and France! It was a vicious imitation of the attempts which Saint Gregory of Nazianza had made to oppose a Christian theatre to the pagan theatre of Sophocles and Euripides. Saint Gregory of Nazianza infused some eloquence and some dignity into his pieces; the Italians and their imitators introduced into theirs nothing but buffooneries.”

With the fourteenth century Italy enters upon a new era, upon the epoch of reflorescence, the renaissance of arts and letters which was not experienced in France until a century later; nevertheless, in the beginning of the fourteenth century Italian influence inspired Luco, the Provençal poet, to compose a satirical piece against the Duke of Anjou, King of Naples. Towards the middle of the same century, Parasolz, another Provençal poet, composed a series of five pieces, or rather a piece in five chapters, against Jeanne I., Queen of Naples; therein her life, her adventures, her crimes, were dragged into the light of day under the titles of _L’Andreasse_, _La Tarenta_, _La Mahorquina_, _L’Allemande_, _La Johanella_. This satire was performed at Avignon, before the anti-pope Clement VII. (Robert of Geneva), who was so pleased with the work that he appointed Parasolz Canon of Sisteron.

The Italian language, having been purified by Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, and Ariosto, the fifteenth century was in Italy an epoch of taste, of art and of letters. Whilst in France the theatre was the monopoly of the religious confraternities, jealous of their privileges, in Italy it was always open to the productions of wit and of genius. Two distinct styles existed there: the noble tragedies and comedies written, memorised and recited, such as _Il Pastor Fido_ of Guarini, _La Calandra_ of the Cardinal of Bibbiena, _La Mandragora_ of Macchiavelli, _I Simili_ of Giorgio Trissino, _L’Aminta_ of Tasso, etc., etc.; and the free theatre of the improvisers given over to singing, dancing, raillery and facetiousness. Whilst in France one might take delight only in mystery plays, into which had been introduced, it is true, many profane and gross pleasantries, or in the plumed mountebanks, who swallowed swords and canes, walked on their hands or with blindfolded eyes, to the sound of tambourines, and performed what is still known to-day as _la danse des œufs_, in Italy the theatre was rediscovered, honoured and cultivated.

Whilst the Zingari, Bohemians or Gypsies, that errant race of Hindu _soudras_, overran Europe, and sometimes took the risk of displaying their _pupazzi_ or _magatelli_—which caused them in certain countries to be taken for sorcerers and got them condemned by sentence to be hanged and burnt—troupes of comedians and of buffoons, such as Martino d’Amelia and Gian Manente, went about Italy performing plays written by Poliziano, Macchiavelli, Ariosto, the Cardinal of Bibbiena, Nicolò Secchi, Tasso, Fedini, Guarini, and others, dramas, tragedies and pieces in which tragedy, comedy and satire were mingled, called _tragisatirocomedie_, improvisations upon given subjects, termed _commedie dell’ arte_, and lastly, _commedie sostenute_.

In speaking of the Italian comedies Montaigne says: “I have often conceived a fancy to write comedies such as those of the Italians who are so felicitous in that art. They find in everything something to excite their laughter; they are in no need to tickle themselves.”

Throughout the sixteenth century, down to the seventeenth, two distinct theatres were therefore in existence: one occupied by comedians who played impromptu (_commedia dell’ arte_) with Harlequin and other masked actors; the other occupied by the academicians, or academic actors, who performed written and regular pieces (the _commedia sostenuta_) which sometimes passed into the theatre of the buffo-comedians.

It was Angelo Beolco, surnamed RUZZANTE, who was the first to open a career to the Italian dialects. In 1528 he presented his first prose comedy, in which each character spoke a different dialect. This entertainment became extremely popular. Every locality desired to have its own type represented in it. Hence its infinity of characters and of names, which may be summed up into a few principal types: Harlequin, Pulcinella, the Captain, Scaramouche, Brighella, Pantaloon and the Doctor.

Pulcinella had never ceased to exist from the days of the Atellanæ, in which he went by the name of Maccus, the _mimus albus_.

Casnar, Pappus, the flouted and ridiculous old man, became Pantaloon, and later Cassandro.

The two _Zanni_, Harlequin and Brighella, are the _sanniones_ of the ancient theatre; the first is a lackey or loutish peasant, stupid and gluttonous; the second is an astute and wily slave, avenging himself upon his masters by robbing them.

The ancient tradition has been preserved down to our own days in the garments of the characters of the Italian comedy. First the mask, which has been but little modified; for the principal types, such as Pulcinella, Harlequin, Brighella, Pantaloon, Coviello, Tartaglia, still wear the mask which, in itself, lends them an ancient character and, except in the case of old men, a nightcap which conceals the hair and so perpetuates the tradition of the shaven heads of the ancient mimes.

The tradition of that other part of the costume worn by the Greek phallophores was preserved by comedy mimes and buffoons down to the time of Louis XIII. It suffices to cast a glance at such illustrations as Callot’s _Les Petits Danseurs_, as Cerimonia, Smaraolo, Scaramuccia, Captain Spezza-Monti and others, to realise this.

Most of the characters also wore the mantle (_il tabaro_), and all the lackeys, like the slaves of the Atellanæ, appeared in short garments. The toga and the long robes were permitted only to the nobles and the old men.

The club of Pulcinella and the bat of Harlequin are probably no more than modifications of the curved staff of the peasants of the Greek theatre, the attribute of the Muse of Comedy.

Other essential analogies are to be considered. First, La Cantatrice included in all Italian troupes, who, in the manner of the ancient chorus, came to sing and to explain the scenes. Then the modern _planipes_, the Bolognese Narcisino, who still comes, by way of interlude, to chat with the public and scoff at the manners of the day; finally and chiefly the method of performing impromptu, the actors having memorised no rôles and playing after merely having read an outline of the subject nailed up in the wings. These resemblances and many others would prove that the Commedia dell’ Arte is no more than the continuation of the theatre of Atella with its improvisations and its free and often licentious scenes, mingled with songs and pantomime.

We have said that every province desired to be represented. Thus Bergamo provided Harlequin and Brighella; Milan supplied Beltrame and Scapino, who are merely varieties of Brighella and Meneghino; Venice contributed Pantaloon and his lackey Zacometo; Naples gave us Pulcinella, Scaramouche, Tartaglia, el Capitan (who became metamorphosed under his Spanish designation) and the Biscegliese. From Rome came Meo-Patacca, Marco-Pepe and Cassandrino, this last a more modern type, a sort of _monsignore_; Florence supplied Stenterello; Bologna, the Doctor and Narcisino; Turin, Gianduja; Calabria, Coviello and Giangurgolo; Sicily, the Baron, Peppe-Nappa, etc., etc.

Harlequin, Brighella, the Doctor and Pantaloon may be called the four fundamental modern masks.

Salvator Rosa indicated seven—namely, these four, and Pulcinella, Tartaglia and Coviello.

Why are these set apart to-day? Perhaps they are so old that they have fallen into disfavour. Where are the Menego, the Truffa, the Zaccagnino, Cavicchio, Bagatino, Ciurlo Guazeto and many others? But then—

“where are the snows of yesteryear?”

When Flaminio Scala travelled through Italy with his troupe, towards the middle of the sixteenth century, a few years after Beolco (Ruzzante), he found the personages of the Commedia already established, and the greater part of them baptized. Nothing remained for him but to bring them into action. Since the advent of the Christian era women had disappeared from the theatre; with the Renaissance they re-entered it again.

Flaminio Scala’s company played in Italy from the second half of the sixteenth down to the beginning of the seventeenth century; chiefly they performed _commedie dell’ arte_ upon subjects very succinctly sketched. Scala did no more than continue the performances of fables and farces which had been played long before his day. He has left us some fifty subjects, printed in 1611. Among the personages in these are Arlecchino, Pedrolino (Pierrot), Burattino, Fritellino, Capitan Spavento, Mezzetino, Pantalone, il Dottore, Cavicchio, and Flaminio Scala himself under the name of Flavio. Thus in the middle of the sixteenth century we find a considerable number of our Italian masks named and performing.

“This same Flaminio Scala,” says Riccoboni (in his _History of the Italian Theatre_, written in 1723), “caused his plays to be printed; they contain no dialogue, but merely expound the subject in simple scenarii which are not as concise as those which we use and attach to the walls behind the wings of our theatres, nor yet so prolix that one may derive from them the least hint of the dialogue: they explain merely what the actor is to do and the action in question, and no more.”

Evaristo Gherardi, on the subject of performances upon scenarii and the improvisation of the actors in the Commedia dell’ Arte, writes as follows:—

“... The Italian comedians learn nothing by heart, and to perform a comedy it suffices them to have glanced over the subject for a moment before entering the stage. Therefore the chief merit of their pieces is inseparable from the action; the success of their comedies depends absolutely upon the actors, who render them more or less amusingly according to the measure of their personal wit and as a result of the advantages of the situation in which they are placed when playing. It is this necessity of spontaneous performance which renders it so difficult to replace a good Italian comedian. There is no one who may not learn by heart and declaim on the stage what he has learnt; but it is a very different affair in the case of the Italian comedian. He who speaks of a good Italian comedian, speaks of a man of solid qualities, of one who performs from imagination rather than from memory; who in the course of performing invents all that he utters; who knows how to support his fellow-actor on the stage; in short, one who so perfectly weds his actions and his words to those of his fellow-actors that he enters at once into the play and action demanded by the others to such an extent as to make it all appear to have been preconcerted.”

Further, on this same subject, here are the sentiments of Riccoboni:

“One may not deny that it has graces peculiar to itself such as the written comedy may never boast. Impromptu affords opportunity for such variety of performance that although you may return again and again to see the same scenario performed, you will always witness a different piece. The actor who performs impromptu performs in a more lively and natural manner than he who discharges a rôle which he has learned by heart. The actor feels more deeply and consequently gives a better delivery to words proceeding from himself than it were possible to give to those borrowed from another by the aid of memory; but these advantages of the impromptu comedy are purchased at the price of great drawbacks; it is necessary that the actors shall be ingenious; it is essential that they shall be more or less of equal talent, because the weakness of impromptu lies in the fact that the best of actors depends absolutely upon those who are his partners in the dialogue; should he find himself playing with one who does not know how to seize with precision the moment of retort or who interrupts him imprudently, his subject languishes or the vivacity of his wit is stifled. Face, voice, sentiment even, may not suffice the actor who performs impromptu; he will not excel unless his imagination is lively and fertile and he is gifted with a great facility of expression, unless he possesses all the niceties of language and unless he has acquired all such special knowledge as may be necessary to enable him to deal effectively with the different situations in which he is placed by his rôle.”

The opinion of the witty and very artistic Président de Brosses (1740) may be added to the foregoing.

“This method of performing impromptu which renders the style very weak, renders the action on the other hand very lively and very true. The Italians are natural comedians: even among men of the world you will find in their conversation a fire which does not exist with us, lively though we are accounted. The gesture and the voice inflexion are always wedded to the subject in their theatre; the actors come and go, they speak and move as in their own homes. This action is natural in a very different sense and wears an air of truth very different from that which is seen when four or five French actors, arranged in line, like a bas-relief, on the foreground of the stage, recite their dialogue each speaking in his turn.”

Enough has been said to show that the Italian comedy is directly descended from the performances of the ancient Latin mimes; and the genre called _commedia dell’ arte_ in particular is none other than that of the Atellanæ. It is the only theatre in Europe which has preserved the traditions of antiquity. The theatre in France did not begin to take form until the Italian influence came to soften and to abolish the rudeness of the marvellous and grotesque French mystery plays.

It is often wondered how it could have been possible to play such scenes as that in which two actors, finding themselves on the stage, seek each other and speak without seeing each other; or sometimes five or six characters perform at the same time, forming nevertheless two or three groups, who again do not see one another. These scenes, which are constantly to be found in the plays of Plautus and Ruzzante, are to be explained by the shape and construction of the theatres of antiquity and of the Renaissance, of which a very beautiful specimen, the work of Palladio, is still to be seen at Vicenza.

The auditorium is constructed in the shape of a semicircle supplied with steps. It is surrounded by a colonnade, the intervals between the pillars forming the boxes, and by stairs leading to a gallery which crowns the whole. The stage consists of two parts, the proscenium, a semicircular platform which reaches to the foot of the steps, and behind this the stage proper, bearing the scenery. But the scenery was hung very differently from that in our modern theatres. The stage was divided into three arcades, and under each arcade one saw, upon a sloping ground, a real street with wooden houses; these streets, proceeding from the back of the stage, come to debouch upon the proscenium, which is deemed an open square. The actors may therefore perform and circulate through all the streets, conceal themselves, spy upon one another, listen, or very naturally surprise secrets and mysteries in such a manner as is often impossible in our modern theatres. A further great advantage was that the actors performing, whether on the proscenium or the stage, might be equally well heard in any part of the auditorium owing to its circular construction and to the fact that the stage was not raised as is the case with us. This theatre, called the Olympic, built by Palladio at the beginning of the sixteenth century, is an architectural gem.

On the occasion of the fêtes with which the city of Lyons received Henry II. and Catherine de Medicis in 1548, the Florentine merchants established in that city brought at their own expense a troupe of Italian comedians to perform the Cardinal of Bibbiena’s _La Calandra_ before the King and Queen of France. But the Italian comedy theatre was not seen in Paris until 1570, when it was established there by one Ganasse or Juan Ganassa. Here both tragedy and comedy were performed, and “The charge of admission was up to five or six sous for each person.” Ganassa’s troupe, authorised by letters patent from the king, does not appear to have made a long sojourn in France. Ganassa had been in Spain in the early years of the reign of Philip II. managing a company of Italian comedians, who performed farces in the Italian language. In this company were included Harlequin, Pantaloon, the Doctor, Pagliaccio, Burattino, and Tabarino whose homonym enjoyed later on so great a vogue in the Place Dauphine in Paris. The performances of these personages and their costumes achieved a great success in Spain, where they made a protracted sojourn before going to France.

Porbus shows in one of his pictures a ball or _divertissement_ at the Court of Charles IX. in 1572. In this the king and all his courtiers are to be seen in the costumes of various Italian buffoons. The Duke of Guise (le Balafré) appears as Scaramouche, the Duke of Anjou (Henry III.) as Harlequin, the Cardinal of Lorraine as Pantaloon, Catherine of Medicis as Columbine, and His Very Christian Majesty is seen cutting capers under the mask of Brighella. Singular prelude to the horrible tragedy of the 24th August of the same year!

In 1571 the Italian troupe, known under the name of _I Comici Confidenti_—that is to say, the confident comedians (confident, it was understood, of the indulgence of the public)—journeyed through the provinces of France. The performances of this company consisted in impromptu comedies, pastorals and written comedies and tragedies.

The famous Celia, whose real name was Maria Malloni, was one of the members of this troupe, as was also Bernardino Lombardi, actor and poet, and Fabrizio di Fornaris, known by the name of Captain Crocodile—Capitan Cocodrillo.

At about the same time a second troupe, under the name of _I Comici Gelosi_ (that is to say, zealous, anxious to please the public), came also to France to perform the same style of pieces. This troupe also included some excellent actors, such as Orazio Nobili, of Padua, Adriani Valerini, of Verona, known under the name of Aurelio, and the beautiful Lidia, of Bagnacavallo.

In 1574 the two rival companies amalgamated into a single troupe, which took the name of _I Comici Uniti_ (the united comedians); but the Masters of _la Passion_ caused the theatre to be closed.

At the end of 1576 the two united troupes separated once more, and again resumed their respective titles of _I Confidenti_ and _I Gelosi_. It was then that Flaminio Scala placed himself at the head of the _Gelosi_, and travelled through France and Italy alternately, always encouraged by the greatest success. This troupe was in Venice when Henry III. summoned it to Blois, whence he commanded it to Paris. The arrival of these artists, in 1577, is announced by _L’Etoile_ in the following terms:—

“In this month the Italian comedians called _li gelosi_, whom the king had sent for from Venice, and whose ransom he had paid, they having been captured by Huguenots, began the performance of their comedies in the Salle des Etats at Blois; and the king permitted them to charge a half testoon to all who should come to see them play.”

“On Sunday the 19th of May, the Italian comedians, surnamed _li gelosi_, began the performance of their comedies at the Hôtel de Bourbon, in Paris; they charged the members of their audience a fee of four sous per head, and such were the crowds they attracted that the four best preachers of Paris had not amongst them all as many present at their sermons when they discoursed.”

“On Saturday, the 27th July, the Italian comedians, _li gelosi_, after having presented at Court letters patent accorded them by the king, permitting them to perform their comedies notwithstanding the prohibition of the Court, were dismissed under plea of objection with prohibition ever to obtain and to present such letters to the Court subject to a penalty of ten thousand livres, to be paid into the poor-box. Notwithstanding this inhibition, in the early part of the following September they renewed the performance of their comedies at the Hôtel de Bourbon, as before, by the king’s express command; the corruption of these times being such that comedians, buffoons, harlots and mignons enjoy the fullest credit with the king.”

But this company did not long remain in Paris.

“Long sojourns” (says M. Charles Magnin) “were not the custom of these itinerant troupes, and moreover the magistrates, being little in favour of the establishment of new theatres, sustained with rigour the monopoly of the ancient confraternity of _la Passion_, which was then being infringed by professional comedians at the Hôtel de Bourgogne.”

The _Gelosi_ troupe returned therefore to Florence in 1578; and it was there that Flaminio Scala brought together the most famous Italian company of the sixteenth century. This company visited France on several occasions. It had for its device a two-faced Janus with this legend, punning upon the word _gelosi_:

“Virtù, fama ed onor ne’ ser gelosi.”

The principal actors engaged by Flaminio Scala, who himself played lovers under the name of Flavio, were: a young actress named Prudenza, born at Verona, who played second lady, and who had already formed part of the company in 1577 at Blois and in Paris; Giulio Pasquati, of Padua, who played Pantaloon and il Magnifico; Gabriello, of Bologna, creator of the character of Franca-Trippa; Simone, of Bologna, the first to bear the name of Harlequino; Girolamo Salimbeni, of Florence, under the name of Zanobio (an elderly citizen of Piombino); Signora Silvia Roncagli, of Bergamo, who filled soubrette parts under the name of Franceschina; Lodovico, of Bologna, who played Doctor Graziano; Francesco Andreini, of Pistoia, who performed upon “all musical instruments and spoke six or seven languages”; Francesco Bartoli, an able comedian; and Isabella, who married Francesco Andreini (Captain Spavento).