Publish or Perish: An Early-Seventeenth-Century Paradox
In the second half of the already waning twentieth century, no theatrical genre in the Italian tradition has been more thoroughly studied and more frequently revived on stage than the commedia dell¡¯arte. Already in 1968, Franco Fido could write that ¡°today¡¯s actors and directors see in the old Commedia a soggetto an example of pure theatre and of anti-literature par excellence, a show where, as by a miracle, automatism and freedom combine¡± (20). Various reasons, political and intellectual in nature, lie at the root of such renewed interest on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In the US, as Marvin Carlson has remarked, the commedia dell¡¯arte constitutes a unique precursor of the critical trend bestowing a great deal of attention on the so-called popular theater.[1] In Europe, conversely, first the militant attitudes of the 1960 and ¡¯70s, then the reaction to the politically conservative ¡¯80s brought the commedia dell¡¯arte back to life on the stage and at the center of scholars¡¯ attention. In short, the commedia dell¡¯arte has found itself in the limelight for sectarian reasons. In Maria Ines Aliverti¡¯s words, it seems condemned to carrying out ¡°una doppia funzione: da un lato configurandosi come il mito per un teatro alla ricerca delle proprie origini ed assumendo i caratteri di una specie di natura e di paradiso perduto, dall¡¯altro riunendo in sé, come in un modello, le caratteristiche di una specificità teatrale che la pratica rendeva problematiche e contraddittorie¡± (45).
Theater historians and scholars of Italian culture should rejoice that the commedia dell¡¯arte is celebrated again. Numerous critical editions and monographs have accompanied this interest;[2] perhaps more importantly, the focus of scholarly attention has shifted (slowly, yet noticeably) from purely literary textual analysis to the social and cultural background and to the practical circumstances of commedia dell¡¯arte performances.
Yet the basis for the twentieth-century fame of this long-gone theatrical form is very peculiar and somewhat worrisome. At the center of this whirlwind of scholarly and performative activity and interest lies essentially a void: texts are non existent, at least in the traditional sense of full-fledged, written-out, interlocking parts to be performed on stage. Richard Andrews has summarized this predicament well:
by definition, there are no texts of arte performances from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Since the actors ¡°improvised¡±—whatever that may turn out to mean—from a summary scenario, they used no written script. Whenever we find a written script which looks as if it might be informative, then by purist standards it is no longer improvised and therefore no longer commedia dell¡¯arte. (21)
What has been passed on in written form are collections of scenari or canovacci (succinct descriptions of stage movements of various characters, with lists of props, and only the faintest semblance of a plot) and of lazzi (skits displaying the physical adroitness of some characters, the stupidity of others, and a range of other social and psychological types reflected by and displayed in their actions on stage). These texts prove impervious to our understanding and analysis, at least with the tools usually exploited vis-à-vis early modern performances. Thus the academic and performative popularity of commedia dell¡¯arte rests on a highly hypothetical ground. One could go as far as to say that this newly-found fame feeds precisely off this lack of firm corroborating evidence.[3] The commedia comes in handy for a number of ideological and performative practices, because its mostly oral nature allows it to fit all kinds of agendas and to serve all sorts of purposes.
Still, we possess a few precious written texts on the basis of which to attempt a reconstruction and analysis of commedia dell¡¯arte. Some of such texts are in manuscript form, while others were printed. In this paper, I will try to understand and explain the reasons why early-seventeenth-century practitioners decided, in the relatively short span of twenty years, to entrust their materials to printers. This, in turn, will elucidate the consequences for the knowledge of and appreciation for arte performing in later times. Though the earliest extant document regarding a troupe of traveling performers dates from 1545 (Pieri 202), printed texts started appearing at the end of the sixteenth century: Isabella Andreini¡¯s pastoral La Mirtilla (1588); her Lettere (1607); her husband Francesco¡¯s Le bravure del Capitano Spavento (1607); their son Giovan Battista¡¯s tragedy La Florinda (1606); the Andreinis¡¯ competitor and sometime collaborator Flaminio Scala¡¯s Il teatro delle favole rappresentative (1611); and the Fragmenti di alcune scritture della Signora Isabella Andreini comica gelosa et accademica intenta, raccolti da Francesco Andreini, detto il Capitano Spavento e dati in luce da Flaminio Scala comico (1616). Far from being a mere quirk of history, this (collective, or personal) decision lies at the heart of our ability to study and perform, indeed to know, the commedia dell¡¯arte theater at all. As Eisenstein has written in her seminal work on printing as a revolution in Western history and mentality, ¡°constant access to printed material is a prerequisite for the practice of the historian¡¯s own craft¡± (8). The focus of this study will not be the reaction of contemporary audiences and readers to these printed texts or to commedia dell¡¯arte performances. Instead, I will concentrate on the goals and objectives of those performers who decided to print for reasons that at first sight seem utterly mysterious.
To give an answer to this question, Ferdinando Taviani has proposed that performers and leaders of commedia dell¡¯arte troupes were trying to maximize their economic return not directly (since no rights were paid to a book author other than printer¡¯s advances) but indirectly:
ciò che spinge Francesco Andreini e Flaminio Scala, Adriano Valerini e Giovan Battista Andreini, a fissare nei caratteri quasi imperituri della stampa la fama loro e dei loro compagni, non è solo un vago bisogno d¡¯immortalità, è anche e soprattutto il desiderio di assicurare alla fama che viene dai successi una durata che la renda tesaurizzabile, che ne faccia un capitale da investire e far fruttare nel commercio del teatro. (¡°Bella d¡¯Asia¡± 22)
In keeping with his seminal definition of commedia dell¡¯arte as ¡°teatro venduto¡± (Taviani and Schino 360), Taviani emphasizes the practical, monetary reasons behind the arte practitioners¡¯ modus operandi. However, if Taviani¡¯s insistence on the economic factor is important and cannot (and should not) be neglected, I propose that two more elements should compound this hypothesis. First, these commedia dell¡¯arte professionals were attempting to acquire fame and immortality, as Taviani acknowledges only in passing as a ¡°vague necessity.¡± Second, they tried to become socially respectable, and to escape the bad reputation that had tenaciously followed them since their earliest ventures. Contemporary sources show that printing satisfied all these requirements, better than courtly performances, prestigious and well-paid, yet fleeting and impermanent.
During the second half of the sixteenth century, players belonging to commedia dell¡¯arte troupes acquired more and more fame; with it they gained the patronage and protection of many rulers of Northern and Central Italy. Though they performed in theaters for hire as well as on public squares, in Italy and abroad, they also commanded high sums of money from courts who wanted their performances to enliven carnival festivities or other public occasions (including those endowed with dynastic relevance such as weddings).[4] Marzia Pieri has sketched the situation in the following terms:
Per circa un cinquantennio, fra il 1580 e il 1620, la grandi compagnie godono . . . di un discreto successo, legato soprattutto alla protezione principesca; a Torino, a Mantova, a Modena o a Firenze, i sovrani trovano ancora nel teatro uno strumento di prestigio personale ed un veicolo di vantaggiosi scambi diplomatici con le più potenti corti straniere e perciò tentano costantemente, con vari espedienti, di legare a sé i comici. Da parte loro, questi cercano invece di liberarsi dalle incertezze della subalternità cortigiana e di uscire dalla logica del mecenatismo; non possono tuttavia permettersi i rischi del libero mercato e si muovono dunque con cautela in un regime misto. (205)
Pieri underscores the need for economic and artistic ¡°freedom¡± on the part of the performers, assuming that the uncertainty of the market was preferable to princely protection as far as their creativity was concerned.[5] Further, she seems to discount the fact that theater remained popular as a ruler¡¯s tool for decades, if not centuries, after 1620—even though, as Ferrone points out (45), after 1630 a drop occurred in princely patronage. Pieri¡¯s un-stated premise appears to be that commedia dell¡¯arte troupes performed the same material everywhere, or at least that all their material was acceptable (and accepted) at court. Conversely, the troupes¡¯ textual and performative repertory was extensive and varied, allowing them to perform to different audiences. Pieri herself recognizes this situation when she states that ¡°il salto di qualità compiuto dalla Commedia dell¡¯Arte rispetto a forme precedenti di professionismo consiste . . . nella possibilità di contare su compagnie complete che coprono un repertorio non solo buffonesco in grado di essere venduto a pubblici diversi¡± (202). Indeed, Florence offered a visible spatial reminder of this state of affairs. Some time during the 1570s or ¡®80s the Medici court had a secret passageway built linking the Pitti palace (the principal official residence of the Medici family) and a for-hire theater located near the Uffizi where commedia dell¡¯arte troupes played for ticket-buying customers: ¡°gli spettatori comuni vi accedevano da un vicolo retrostante il palazzo, (la malfamata via di Baldracca), da cui il teatro, oggi scomparso, prese il nome; il Principe poteva assistere clandestinamente agli spettacoli (disdicevoli per la sua dignità e il suo ruolo) nascosto dietro la grata di uno stanzino che raggiungeva direttamente da Pitti attraverso il corridoio vasariano¡± (Pieri 95). The prince wanted access to commedia dell¡¯arte performance that took place outside the court, which must have then been somehow different (racier, as Pieri suggests) from those at court. However, he could only do that in secret, as his presence would have bestowed dignity and acceptability on something that was officially only tolerated. Still, Vasari was ordered to design his now famous corridor to link the official dwelling of the Medici family (Pitti) with the seat of power (the Uffizi) to include a passageway to the Baldracca theater: interest and the desire to keep a safe distance were evidently not mutually exclusive, but the latter was an overriding concern of a highly public court in post-Tridentine Italy.[6]
Thus, we cannot conclude that courtly patrons considered commedia dell¡¯arte troupes on par with other staged entertainment, commemorative in nature (such as tournaments), or written by classically trained courtly poets. The hybrid, uneasy social and intellectual position occupied by arte performers at the end of the sixteenth century emerges clearly in Tomaso Garzoni¡¯s 1585 encyclopedic treatise La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo. This book, exceedingly popular for the ninety years following its first printing,[7] devotes three units to contemporary entertainers. Discorso CIII concerns ¡°comici e tragedi, cosí auttori come recitatori, cioè . . . istrioni.¡± The subsequent one, discorso CIV, talks ¡°De¡¯ formatori di spettacoli in genere, e de¡¯ ceretani o ciurmatori massime.¡± Lastly, discorso CXIX pertains to ¡°buffoni o mimi o istrioni.¡± The first of these three holds the most information regarding commedia performers and their social status and reputation.[8] After succinctly reconstructing the history of classical theater (1180–81), Garzoni turns his attention to the performers of his time (1182–85). He divides them in two categories: those who excel, and those who debase the art of acting. Among those who give credit to their profession and enjoyment to their audiences Garzoni mentions many arte practitioners, such as Isabella Andreini, Vicenza Armani, Adriano Valerini and Vittoria Piissimi. Their ability is such that ¡°al dispetto dei bandi,¡± one can see them ¡°caminar le piazze universali senza ostacolo alcuno, ed esser ricevuto con sommo onore dove per sorte non si pensava¡± (1183). Social and courtly acceptance are a clear consequence of their talents.
Their competitors are nevertheless successful, but ground their audiences¡¯ amusement on objectionable material: ¡°non possono passare senza aperto vituperio, infamando se stessi e l¡¯arte insieme, con le spurcizie che a ogni parole scappano lor di bocca¡± (1183). Interestingly, Garzoni¡¯s judgment has shifted to a moral plane, conspicuously missing in his description and assessment of commedia dell¡¯arte performers. Fundamentally, for Garzoni the only way to separate the two categories of stage practitioners is a moral one: the famed arte actors and actresses are worthy of mention and have gained acceptance because their shows are not immoral, lewd, and violent like those of the nameless competitors.
These two categories of performers are not the only ones Garzoni mentions in his chapter. A third one stands higher than both the previous ones:
Ma senza dubbio alcuno e senza replica in contrario, di molta lode son stimati degni i comici e tragedi, cosí moderni come antichi, i quali, non recitando, ma scrivendo, hanno di moralissimi costumi ripieni i loro scritti, ponendosi avanti agli occhi quel fin lodevole d¡¯insegnar l¡¯arte del viver sapientemente, come al comico si conviene. (1185)
What sets these theater practitioners apart from the previous two categories is the fact that they do not act, but only write for the theater. From classical antiquity, this profession is superior to that of mere actors. The famed Roman performer Roscius is singled out (1181) for his eloquence on stage and off. Writing, as opposed to acting, places these individuals on a wholly different plane from (in fact, higher than) the previous two categories. Although identified by name, commedia dell¡¯arte performers are firmly ensconced in the middle, between the street peddlers, cerretani, and vulgar performers of this discorso and CIV and CXIX, and the ¡°pure¡± writers who influence the theater through their texts, not their physical presence.[9]
As Cherchi and Collina have amply demonstrated (XXXVII–LIV and LXXVIII), Garzoni had a propensity to appropriate or plagiarize other writers¡¯ works in the composition of La piazza universale. It is conceivable that the difference between playwrights and theater practitioners was derived from a specific source, or (more likely) that it circulated widely at the time. Thus, the fact that commedia dell¡¯arte performers wanted to see their works in print, even if these were only canovacci, appears quite sensible: in order to escape this middle category among theater practitioners and find a legitimate place in the higher kind, they had to start printing their texts.[10]
Printing at the end of the sixteenth century offered an additional advantage: that of making the name of the writers known for all times, that is, eternal. According to Anton Francesco Doni, in 1550, the printed page has superseded marble and metal monuments:
Ancora che l¡¯eternità anticamente abbia trovato piú mezzi per conservar la fama degli uomini, ora con i metalli e ora con i marmi, i quali son piú saldi che le carte, non resta per questo che gli scritti nelle mo¡©derne carte non abbino fatto alcuno piú famoso che i metalli e i marmi non hanno fatto. E questo si può vedere e comprendere nelle statue e nell¡¯opere degli antichi, perciò che quelle o pochi secoli si sono conservate, o le son giunte rotte a¡¯ nostri tempi, per la qual cosa male hanno potuto ottenere l¡¯intento loro. La eternità, accortasi di questo, trovò il mezzo de le stampe, le quali, con maraviglia di chi è venuto dopo, hanno fatto apparer vive e intere le imagini di tali che non saranno senza fama, se prima non si dissolve l¡¯universo. (Quondam 625)
In Doni¡¯s description, it is eternity itself to have chosen print to carry out its objective, after witnessing the failure of other means of passing down fame. Doni¡¯s position can be found even earlier, in 1490, that is, only a handful of decades after Gutenberg¡¯s invention. Cristoforo Landino:
riconosce come primo obiettivo [of the epic poem he had translated, the Sforziade] esattamente questo: ¡°E perché sanza e¡¯ monumenti degli scrittori ogni cosa, quantunche gloriosa sia, rimane sommersa dalla oblivione, curasti che perpetua e bene ordinata istoria di tanto principe fussi con verità e non sanza eloquenzia scritta.¡± Alleata preziosa, la stampa, per battere ogni rischio di naufragio nell¡¯oblio, per edificare monumenti che conservino la memoria viva e diretta, la trascrizione fedele, ne varietur, di tante opere in forma di libro. Monumento da subito, insomma. (Quondam 653)
Books, in essence, carry out two contrasting if not altogether opposite functions: they spread fame and knowledge, but also preserve them for the future.[11] Both serve the arte practitioners well: then, they gained respectability as writers; centuries later, we have inherited a few precious testimonies of their production.
This determination to print is endowed with a deeply paradoxical quality, which goes well beyond the etymological one:[12] by entrusting their works to the presses, arte performers gained acceptance on library shelves and promoted themselves socially and intellectually. At the same time, though, their works became vulnerable to censorship, a pervasive force in a post-Tridentine catholic country like Italy. Carlo Dionisotti has shown that the period of the Council of Trent (1545–63) did not provoke a significant change in printing habits and patterns, but the period after it saw a renewed interest in curbing heterodox ideas and their expressions (324). Perhaps this censure was condidered less oppressive or prevasive than that exerted at court, as Ferrone (in Burckhartian fasion) suggests (49). In essence, commedia dell¡¯arte troupes were caught between two obstacles: the lack of written script was at times the catalyst of tensions with established powers who wanted to read texts before authorizing their staging;[13] yet the printing of these same scripts meant that censors had to approve them beforehand.
From the standpoint of fame and its economic exploitation, printing canovacci was also a paradoxical endeavor. It is true that the names of the plot ¡°creators¡± became inscribed, physically and metaphorically, in the culture of the times; further, the act of printing would preserve their identities for posterity. Yet these texts, until then circulating only in manuscript form and presumably within individual troupes, were all of a sudden available to a much larger reading public. Francesco Andreini, in the introduction to Le bravure, privileged a specific type of fruition for his collection of scenari: ¡°serviranno nell¡¯ore oziose del giorno e della notte per passar via la noia e per dare onesto e piacevol trattenimento a dame e cavalieri¡± (Tessari 114). Not only did the performer stress the moral and ethical aspect of his work; Andreini also singled out a literate reader, who, on the basis of the sole scenario, was able to imagine or reconstruct the plot and the events on stage. Evidently, in his opinion the audience shared with the players enough knowledge of the commedia dell¡¯arte to be able to recreate it, mentally, on their own. But another category of readers was conveniently neglected: competing performers, whose knowledge of the tricks of the trade would have enabled them to appropriate the then freely circulating canovacci and incorporate them in their repertory. Clearly, for these arte practitioners, making their work known to the reading public was the most effective way to protect their creation by asserting their authorship. The monetary aspect of this radical change singled out by Taviani, albeit important, was not the sole concern of the Andreinis and of Scala. General ¡°consumption¡± of their canovacci was not too great a price to pay to gain social acceptance and intellectual status.[14]
That arte texts were printed testifies not only to the needs and desires of professional performers, but also to the perceived existence of a market on the part of printers. As Eisenstein has pointed out, early printers were both capitalists looking for high returns of their money and learned men desiring to spread knowledge (22–23). Similarly, printing shops constituted loci for the exchange of ideas, so that ¡°they served as gathering places for scholars, artists, and literati; as sanctuaries for foreign translators, emigrés and refugees; as institutions of advanced learning, and as focal points for every kind of cultural and intellectual interchange¡± (23). The association of arte practitioners with these spaces of production and diffusion of culture might have constituted for them another cogent reason behind the desire to print their texts, together with those already mentioned.[15]
The consequence of this choice to print, no matter what its motivations, was that commedia dell¡¯arte became subsumed into ¡°mainstream¡± culture. This is all the more astonishing since this event took place at a time when, as Dionisotti has pointed out, lines were being drawn between disciplines and, within each of them, between acceptable and errant materials.[16] Indeed, Garzoni himself recognized that printing not only made ephemeral contributions eternal,[17] but also that it selected between worthy and unworthy contributions:
Ora conosciamo i dotti e anco gli ignoranti, e tutto mondo ne può aver cognizione. Ora son fugate le tenebre dell¡¯ignoranza affatto affatto. Ora non si può vender bugie, e dare a vedere il nero per il bianco. Ora ciascuno dà giudicio d¡¯infinite cose che, se non fosse la stampa, non potrebbe aprir la bocca per parlarne, non che giudicarle. Questa è quell¡¯arte che fa conoscere i pazzi, che manifesta gli arroganti, che palesa i letterati, che dà morte all¡¯ignoranza, che dà vita alla virtú e alla scienza. Questa è quella che dà fama alle persone onorate; che scorna e vitupera i viziosi; che sepelisce nel profondo della terra gli ingegni morti; che inalza fin alle stelle i spiriti vivi e sublimi. Questa è quella che è madre degli onori a persone degne; casa d¡¯obbrobrio alle persone immeri¡©tevoli; ospizio de¡¯ piú mirabili ingegni delle cittadi; ricetto di intelletti sommamente svegghiati; albergo perpetuo di senatori, di teologi, di filosofi, d¡¯istorici, d¡¯academici, di dottori, di scolari, e di tutto il buono e di tutto il bello ch¡¯è nella città. (1338)
Arte practitioners aspired to be counted among these categories of people whose works were printed and elicited admiration on the part of Garzoni and his contemporaries. A qualitative jump was necessary: canovacci and lazzi were printed as though they were similar to other books. Thus, when printed they became subsumed in the same category. To follow Marotti, ¡°Dare alle stampe un materiale di questo genere [that is, simple canovacci] è . . . toglierlo dal suo isolamento istituzionale per conferirgli il rango di ¡®materiale critico¡¯ nella sede istituzionale del libro¡± (30; emphases original). The Andreinis and the other arte practitioners who had their materials printed were trying to become a part of what Quondam has called ¡°sapere bibliografico¡± (573), that is, knowledge worth incorporating in libraries.[18]
Qualitatively, these printed collections were still very different from other books. Taviani has remarked that this strategy must be interpreted alongside the commedianti¡¯s need to belong to a bourgeois milieu, which supported itself through the ¡°selling¡± of goods or knowledge (in this case, the ability to perform on stage) and revolved around a strong, ¡°onorevole¡± (45) family structure: ¡°così come Flaminio Scala e Francesco Andreini scrissero libri simili ai libri dei letterati, tali da confondersi superficialmente con essi, ma segnati da una profonda natura differente, da una diversa origine; . . . gli Andreini e poi molti altri costruirono una famiglia che apparve simile ad una famiglia borghese¡± (¡°Bella d¡¯Asia¡± 42). On the surface, all books were the same; the arte performers gained acceptance in libraries and learned circles (as the episode of Isabella¡¯s crowning reconstructed by Taviani amply demonstrates), and their ability on stage and as creators of texts is known to us.[19]
There was a price to pay for publication: books cannot make the body present. Thus, they are fundamentally different from staged performances. Arte performers were aware of this disadvantage. Taviani has pointed out that Isabella Andreini¡¯s Lettere open with a dedication dated March 14, 1607; at that time, she had been dead almost three years. Hence, he postulates that her widower Francesco must have written it: ¡°il libro si apre con la presenza di Isabella, viva—dopo la morte—nella stampa, una presenza realizzata senza spreco di finzioni, senza apparizioni o dialoghi d¡¯oltretomba, ma con una efficace e commovente semplicità, intervenendo sulla data della dedica¡± (¡°Bella d¡¯Asia¡± 13). It is the ultimate paradox: printing makes commedia dell¡¯arte texts available for posterity, obtains fame to the names and performing abilities of actors and actresses for posterity, but it deprives them (and us) even of that minimal physical connection embodied in manuscripts:
writing finally loses any analogy to face-to-face interaction, such as had always characterized the medieval manuscript culture, even where it was not oriented toward oral forms of communication. Books can come to everyone, but they are no longer individuals in which the absent speaker is embodied. Their longevity is no longer dependent on their material characteristics but on the mechanisms of selection on society¡¯s new institutions that keep public and present what is fixed in writing. (Müller 43–44)
We know commedia dell¡¯arte through the only medium available at the time; it just so happens to be the most appropriate both for the commedianti¡¯s goal of becoming eternal and gaining social acceptance, but the least appropriate to display the physical events taking place on stage.[20]
Works Cited
Aliverti, Maria Ines. ¡°La Commedia dell¡¯Arte e i limiti di una modernità.¡± Alle origini del teatro moderno. La commedia dell¡¯arte. Ed. Luciano Mariti. Roma: Bulzoni, 1980. 44–61.
Andrews, Richard. ¡°Scripted Theatre and the Commedia Dell¡¯Arte.¡± Theatre of the English and Italian Renaissance. Ed. J. R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring. London: Macmillan, 1991. 21–54.
Baratto, Mario. ¡°Introduzione.¡± Alle origini del teatro moderno. La commedia dell¡¯arte. Ed. Luciano Mariti. Roma: Bulzoni, 1980. 15–20.
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. 1860. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.
Carandini, Silvia. Teatro e spettacolo nel Seicento. Bari: Laterza, 1990.
Carlson, Marvin. ¡°Theatre History, Methodology and Distinctive Features.¡± Theatre Research International 20 (1995): 90–96.
Castagno, Paul C. The Early Commedia Dell¡¯Arte 1550–1621. The Mannerist Context. New York: Peter Lang, 1994.
Deierkauf-Holsboer, S. Wilma. Le Théâtre du Marais. Paris: Nizet, 1954.
Dionisotti, Carlo. ¡°La letteratura italiana nell¡¯età del Concilio.¡± Il concilio di Trento e la riforma tridentina. 2 vols. Roma: Herder, 1965. 317–43.
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979.
Ferrone, Siro. ¡°Dalle parti ¡®scannate¡¯ al testo scritto. La commedia dell¡¯arte all¡¯inizio del secolo XVII.¡± Paragone 34 (1983): 38:68.
Claudia Burattelli, Domenica Landolfi, and Anna Zinanni, eds. Comici dell¡¯arte: corrispondenza. 2 vols. Firenze: Le lettere, 1993.
Domenico Lanza. ¡°Il teatro ferrarese nella seconda metà del secolo XVI.¡± Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 18 (1891): 148–85.
Fido, Franco. ¡°Myth and Reality in the commedia dell¡¯arte.¡± Italian Quarterly 12 (1968): 3–30.
Garzoni, Tomaso. La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo. 1585. Ed. Paolo Cherchi and Beatrice Collina. 2 vols. Torino: Einaudi, 1996.
George, David J. and Christopher J. Gossip, eds. Studies in the Commedia dell¡¯Arte. Cardiff: U of Wales P, 1993.
Gordon, Mel. Lazzi. The Comic Routines of the commedia dell¡¯arte. New York: PAJ Publications, 1983.
Katritzky, M. A. ¡°Lodewyk Toeput: Some Pictures Related to the commedia dell¡¯arte.¡± Renaissance Studies 1.1 (March 1987): 71-125.
Mariti, Luciano, ed. Alle origini del teatro moderno. La commedia dell¡¯arte. Roma: Bulzoni, 1980.
Marotti, Ferruccio. ¡°La figura di Flaminio Scala.¡± Alle origini del teatro moderno. La commedia dell¡¯arte. Ed. Luciano Mariti. Roma: Bulzoni, 1980. 21–43.
McGill, Kathleen. ¡°Women and Performance: The Development of Improvisation by the Sixteenth-Century Commedia dell¡¯Arte.¡± Theatre Journal 43 (1991): 59–69.
Meldolesi, Claudio. ¡°Poesia drammatica e recitazione. La drammagurgia, Signora ¡®Dappertutto.¡¯¡± Seminario sulla drammaturgia. Ed. Luigi Rustichelli. West Lafayette: Bordighera, 1998. 19-32.
¡°Monito.¡± Dizionario italiano ragionato. Firenze: D¡¯Anna-Sintesi, 1988. 1159.
Müller, Jan-Dirk. ¡°The Body of the Book: The Media Transition from Manuscript to Print.¡± Materialities of Communication. Ed. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1994. 32–44.
Pandolfi, Vito. La commedia dell¡¯arte: storia e testo. 6 vols. Firenze: Sansoni, 1957–61.
Pieri, Marzia. La nascita del teatro moderno in Italia tra il XV e XVI secolo. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1989.
Pietropaolo, Domenico, ed. The Science of Buffoonery: Theory and History of the commedia dell¡¯arte. Ottawa: Dovehouse, 1988.
Quondam, Amedeo. ¡°La letteratura in tipografia.¡± Letteratura italiana. Produzione e consumo. Torino: Einaudi, 1983. 555–686.
Rudlin, John. Commedia dell¡¯Arte. An Actor¡¯s Handbook. London: Routledge, 1994.
Solerti, Angelo. Gli albori del melodramma. 3 vols. Torino: Forni, 1903
Stallybrass, Peter, and Allon White. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1986
Sternfeld, F. W. The Birth of Opera. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
Taviani, Ferdinando. ¡°Bella d¡¯Asia. Torquato Tasso, gli attori e l¡¯immortalità.¡± Paragone 408–10 (1984): 3–76.
___. ¡°La Fleur et le guerrier: les actrices de la commedia dell¡¯arte.¡± Bouffonneries 15/16 (1986): 61–93.
___, and Mirella Schino. Il segreto della commedia dell¡¯arte. Firenze: La casa Usher, 1982.
Tessari, Roberto. La commedia dell¡¯arte nel Seicento: ¡°industria¡± e ¡°arte giocosa¡± della civiltà barocca. Firenze: Olschki, 1969.
Trexler, Richard C. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980.
[1]¡°We are all aware of how recently popular entertainment has become acceptable ¡®subject matter¡¯ for theatre history (even though a few popular manifestations, most notably the commedia dell¡¯arte, have been traditionally acceptable)¡± (91).
[2]The amount of material is indeed staggering: from Vito Pandolfi¡¯s 6-volume collection of documents to Roberto Tessari¡¯s, Ferdinando Taviani¡¯s, and Paul Castagno¡¯s monographs; from the essay collections edited respectively by Luciano Mariti, David George and Christopher Gossip, and Domenico Pietropaolo, to the edition of a letter collection written by commedia dell¡¯arte practitioners. Finally, the interest that commedia dell¡¯arte has awakened in twentieth-century performers and directors is particularly evident in Mel Gordon¡¯s collection of lazzi and in John Rudlin¡¯s Commedia dell¡¯Arte. An Actor¡¯s Handbook.
[3]Our age is not the first one to exploit the commedia dell¡¯arte¡¯s lack of fully developed scripts to express its own goals and ideals. The French romantic circle of Georges Sand saw in it a unique kind of theatrical event ¡°in which—to put it in M. A. Katritzky¡¯s words—the actor, not the playwright, rules supreme¡± (72). Further, a few decades later, modernist artists viewed it as a sort of avant garde before its time, and therefore a source of inspiration for Russian, French, German and Italian painters, writers and performers of the 1910s and ¡®20s. They perceived in it a ¡°scoperta e sistemazione di un linguaggio specifico che per la prima volta prescinde nettamente dal testo, si affranca dalla servitù della parola, del discorso, e affida alla gestualità l¡¯essenza dell¡¯espressione teatrale¡± (Baratto 16).
[4]An overview of the presence of commedia dell¡¯arte troupes in various Italian towns, along with numerous citations from pertinent documents, is in Carandini, particularly 121–36.
[5]The critical cliché that Renaissance artists achieved their creativity under republics rather than despots goes back to Jacob Burckhardt¡¯s The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, in particular part II.
[6]This also harks back to traditional regulations according to which, in Richard Trexler¡¯s words, ¡°worshipful places— churches, governmental buildings, and nunneries— . . . were all covered by Florentine laws prohibiting ¡®profane¡¯ behavior in their vicinity. Gambling, whoring, and drinking were outlawed thereabouts, the laws to protect their inhabitants forbade blasphemy, . . . and industrial activities that by their smell and noise profaned the area were prohibited¡± (51–52). While theatrical performances are not singled out, it is worthwhile pointing out that the name of the alley and of the for-hire theater refers to one of these forbidden activities: prostitution.
[7]As Paolo Cherchi has explained in the ¡°Invito alla lettura¡± preceding Garzoni¡¯s text, particularly XXI–XXII.
[8]It is worth underscoring that Garzoni had been born in the territory of Ferrara, one of the courts where commedia dell¡¯arte performances were frequent and appreciated. Additionally, though living in Ravenna most of his adult life, his contacts with Ferrara and the Este court were regular (as pointed out by Beatrice Collina in her essay preceding the 1996 edition of La piazza universale, XCVII–VIII). Another possible, though indirect, link between Garzoni and commedia dell¡¯arte practitioners could be the Flemish painter Ludovico Pozzoserrato (Lodewyk Toeput), who lived in Conegliano at a time when Garzoni was wont to take periodic trips there (XCV–VI) and whose depictions of arte performances have been studied by M. A. Katritzky.
[9]Another relevant difference between writers of comedies or tragedies and the cerretani and performance practitioners criticized in CIII and CIV is their relationship to classical antiquity. While the latter provides antecedents for writers, it does not for the other, despised category. In this dichotomy, too, commedia dell¡¯arte performers do not fall neatly on either side of the divide.
[10]According to Claudio Meldolesi, this need is still present among performers: ¡°La scrittura per l¡¯attore è come un secondo requisito a perservarsi, a non annullarsi nell¡¯atto interpretativo, a stabilire una dialettica che porti dal teatro al non teatro, per tornare al teatro con ¡®grandezza¡¯¡± (28).
[11]On this topic, Jan-Dirk Müller¡¯s insights are well documented and provocative. Additionally it is worth mentioning that F. W. Sternfeld has recently suggested that a practitioner of another non-written, though more respectable, craft resorted to publication to establish for posterity his primacy in his field: Claudio Monteverdi. ¡°Just why he agreed to the publication of a score that was never, as far as we know, performed between 1609 and his death in 1643 we can only surmise . . . Perhaps one reason for the publication was a kind of competition that went on between 1600 and 1609, in which various composers had their scores printed to establish their contribution to the genre of opera, the stile rappresentativo¡± (26)—including Peri and Caccini, as Solerti indicates (1:66). The reader will recall that this is the very period of the publication of many of the earliest arte testimonies.
[12]The term ¡°monumento¡± and its French-derived cognate in English come from the Latin root found in the verb monere, to admonish. Thus, the primary meaning of the term refers to the function of a monument as warning on the part of those in power to their subjects. An in-depth analysis of this term can be found in the entry ¡°monito¡± of DIR (1159).
[13]An excellent example of this state of affairs is to be found in Taviani and Schino (379–86), who explain in detail the confrontation occurred in Milan in 1581 between Adriano Valerini, then the corago of the Gelosi troupe, and Carlo Borromeo, bishop of the city. Though the latter abhorred the satanic influences allegedly exerted by the performers on stage, he recognized the city-dwellers¡¯ passion for this sort of entertainment, aware as he was of the practical impossibility to ban their plays from the municipality. Adriano Valerini, in turn, challenged the bishop¡¯s right to impose his censure, since by that time this power belonged to the political jurisdiction. By opposing the secular and religious authorities, Valerini was able to obtain permission to perform in Milan, which would have been otherwise quite doubtful. Additionally, Kathleen McGill cites a passage from a letter by Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti of Bologna complaining ¡°about the difficulty of censoring improvised comedy¡± precisely because written text and performed text did not coincide (63n15).
[14]It is worth underscoring that the relationship between authors and the printing press was rapidly changing in those decades. For example, a mere thirty years later, Corneille vehemently tried to protect his plays from universal exploitation without some monetary compensation, as is evident in his Projet de Lettres patentes; on this topic and on his innovations vis-à-vis the French habits of the 1630s and ¡®40s (where the presence of a centralized power made such changes possible, or at least conceivable) see Deierkauf-Holsboer 87–89.
[15]Interestingly, Amedeo Quondam¡¯s important study of printed books in Italy neglects entirely the genre of theater (comedies, tragedies, pastorals) in section 8 (676–85), in spite of Taviani¡¯s assertion that ¡°à la fin du XVIe siècle les comédies constituaient le [textual genre] genre le plus vendu¡± (¡°La Fleur¡± 66).
[16]Dionisotti in fact exploits the commedia dell¡¯arte as an example to illustrate this situation in the last three decades of the sixteenth century (337).
[17]In his Discorso CXXIX regarding ¡°De¡¯ stampatori¡± Garzoni asserted that ¡°L¡¯arte de¡¯ stampatori riesce al mondo chiara e illustre, perché ella sola ci rende vivi quegli uomini che gia¡©cerebbono senz¡¯essa in perpetue tenebre sopiti e immersi¡± (1137).
[18]Quondam emphasizes the alterity of non-mainstream texts such as commedia dell¡¯arte and the haphazard fashion of their transmission, since his study concentrates on a quantitative analysis of printed works until 1600.
[19]There is a minor, though telling, discrepancy between printed commedia dell¡¯arte texts and more ¡°legitimate¡± performed pieces. A rapid survey of frontispieces of ¡°regular¡± comedies, pastorals, and early operas reveals that emphasis was invariably placed on their actual staging in front of an audience, before their printing (see for example Solerti and Lanza 149n6, 152, 153, 156 and 166; and Sternfeld 39). This element is always missing from the early arte published texts. While literati and composers wanted to impress their readers with the fact that their work had been enjoyed on stage, and by audiences usually comprising noblemen and women; such impulse was not only conspicuously absent from the arte practitioners who printed their works, but it was avoided. In this respect, they mirrored Ben Johnson¡¯s behavior, in Stallybrass and White¡¯s analysis: ¡°The ¡®authorship¡¯ of his plays, indeed, was an act performed on and against the theatrical script, so as to efface it¡¯s real conditions of production¡± (75).
[20]Therefore, as Ferrone has stated, ¡°dopo il 1630 il problema devenne forse opposto: salvare dalla distruzione quanto restava delle ¡®parti scannate,¡¯ del repertorio buffonesco più antico¡± (61).