Chapter IV: Part 4

A very common absent-mindedness with him is to array himself in his master’s dressing-gown and slippers, and to lie down in his master’s bed. The numerous cuffs he has received have never cured him of this abstractedness. You should see him waiting at table, putting sugar into the soup as though it were salt, pouring wine on to the heads of the guests, and then taking off their wigs to dry them by the fire; he mistakes the candle for the vinegar bottle, and scatters tallow into the salad. He is often to be seen throwing the garments of his master through the window, which he has mistaken for the wardrobe, and doing a thousand other things of a like nature.

Pantaloon, seeing him with a button in his ear, comments upon it. “I wear it,” he replies, “because without it I should be sure to hear something dirty.” That is the wittiest thing he ever uttered.

iii

GIANDUJA and GIROLAMO are one and the same character. At the Fiano theatre in Milan, he was existing still in the nineteenth century under the name of Girolamo, and was performing, in the dialect of Lombardy, the same rôles of talkative, poltroon and greedy peasant as the Gianduja of Turin and Genoa. The Piedmontese, fearing in 1802 that in the name of Girolamo (Jérôme), borne by the king, some political allusion might be suspected, he was rebaptized, and renamed Gianduja.

He is a native of Caglianetto, near Asti, as his dialect shows. He is an astute peasant, who simulates stupidity, either a pretended dolt or else a cunning dolt. His is the style of wit which the English attribute to the Irish. He is very much less fantastic than Stenterello, and when he became Gianduja he ceased to show any of the absent-mindedness of Meneghino and Girolamo. Of this last the following is related:—

“A farmer from the neighbourhood of Bergamo had taken his
servant, Girolamo, to market to bring home the cattle which
he intended to purchase. This cattle turned out to consist of
seven donkeys. Having made his purchase, the farmer called
Girolamo, and after counting the animals in his presence he
bids him drive them home. Girolamo offers no comment: ‘Seven,’
he says; ‘very well.’ He bestrides one and drives the others
before him. Three hours later he arrives at his master’s gate,
and counts the donkeys without dismounting. After having
counted them thrice he still can find only six. ‘What a
misfortune! What a misfortune!’ he exclaims in his despair.
‘If only it were my own property! But since it is the property
of another, however honest I may be, I shall be charged with
negligence! It is absolutely necessary that I should find
the seventh.’ He spurs his mount and goes back, searching
everywhere and making inquiries from everyone he meets. It is
all in vain. Indefatigable, he continues this course for three
days and nights, without even pausing to give himself time to
eat. In the end the poor beast he is riding falls from fatigue
and exhaustion. Girolamo rolls into the dust, picks himself up,
and suddenly finds what he was seeking. ‘The seventh! I have
found it,’ he cries. ‘Where the devil was it lost?’ And he goes
back to his master, leaving the poor donkey dead of exhaustion.”

In the history of the marionettes, M. Ch. Magnin says:

“In Milan Girolamo fills the principal part in all the farces,
in all the parodies, in all the little pieces made up of
satirical allusions, the triple source whence flows the fortune
of the _Fantoccini_. We have seen Girolamo play Pirithoüs,
in a parody of Alceste, powdered white, wearing the wings of
a pigeon and a purse. In this farce he accompanies Hercules
into hell, and his terrors on the way are somewhat reminiscent
of the poltrooneries which, under similar circumstances,
Aristophanes attributes to Xanthias in _The Frogs_. In 1841,
M. Bourquelot found Girolamo very amusing in a five-act
piece: _Il Terribile Maino, Capo di Briganti_, a melodrama to
the accompaniment of daggers, swoons and pistol shots. Let
us add that the common butt of Girolamo’s pleasantries is a
Piedmontese, represented as perfectly stupid, a graciousness
and neighbourliness which the Fantoccini of Turin did not fail
to reciprocate to their little colleagues of Milan.”

Gianduja wears a maroon coat and a yellow waistcoat, both trimmed with red, a pair of green or maroon breeches, red stockings and a black wig with a trumpet-shaped queue in red. His physiognomy is a mixture of coarseness and cunning. His large eyes, his arched and heavy eyebrows, his flat nose, his thick lips, his fat chin and his fleshy cheeks remind us of the countenance of the ancient Silenus.

He was to be seen in Genoa at the Delle-Vigne theatre, playing in his own costume the part of a servant of Ugolino and coming with his quips, to throw a little gaiety into the midst of a black melodrama, in which Ugolino, in his tower, before perishing of hunger, watched his children expiring about him. During these critical moments, Gianduja would enter the sombre dungeon from time to time; it is not clear why he should have had the liberty to do this, for, far from bringing the least nourishment to the dying man, he came to jest in his patois upon this horrible situation.

He was to be seen again at Cuneo at the foot of the Alps. The theatre was more or less open to the sky and admission was not expensive: a penny for the front seats and a halfpenny for the others, and an audience that ate apples and nuts throughout the performance. The piece was _La Principessa Mirabella_, and to one who inquired whether it was written and learned by heart or improvised, the impresario replied: “_Improvisato tutto, e sempre_; Gianduja talks like a peasant.” It was an affair of primitive marionettes like those of the Guignol of the Champs-Elysées.

First came a prince dressed in sky-blue satin slashed with white, a cloak of yellow velvet, a cap with white feathers, laced with gold. He was accompanied by Gianduja in his classic costume, and both were lost in a blue forest, and were devising some means of finding food. Gianduja has several notions, such as to repair to the baker at the corner, or the pastrycook opposite. But his master draws his attention to the fact that they are lost in a vast solitude, that their horses are worn out, with weariness and hunger, and that for himself he desires only one thing, death, since the Princess Mirabella will never consent to see him again unless he shall have accomplished her thirty-seven wishes. Gianduja is not disposed to die; he says that he imagined himself at Cuneo, which is entirely outside of the subject, and which shakes the audience with laughter. After having sought for a little while, Gianduja discovers a spring of pure and limpid water. Thus both are saved from certain death. But Gianduja can think of nothing but dying. This marvellous water has quickened his appetite. He has not eaten since morning, he says, since when he has done nothing but walk, which is to treat his body very treacherously. “It is all very well for my master, who at the end of his travels will find Mirabella. But I would very gladly possess a loaf surrounded with sausages.” Thereupon he is taken ill, and believes himself to be dying. He implores his master to bury him after he has expired, and whether it be so as not to die under his eyes, whether from other causes, he goes off, followed by the laughter of the spectators.

The action continues thus through four or five scenes, which repeat always the same situation. In each scene the amorous cavalier recommences his trials until the moment in which the Princess Mirabella—a very beautiful marionette, in cloth-of-gold and velvet, who always makes the same gesture by means of a cord pulled by the impresario—informs her cavalier that she accepts him in marriage, “because he has performed all her wishes, and since nothing pleases women so much as the obedience of men.” After this Gianduja demands the hand of the first lady of the court.

Without Gianduja no performance would have been possible. The indulgent public yawned through the scenes of love and rivalry, for there was a traitor in the piece—a traitor dressed like Buridan, with a terrible beard and squinting eyes. Did the impresario perceive that his public was languishing, he never hesitated to cut short the scene and to introduce Gianduja, who abandoned himself to amorous incoherencies.

Gianduja enjoyed his greatest favour in Turin during the nineteenth century. In _The Taking of Delhi_, a long, terrible and spectacular melodrama, Gianduja, disguised as the aide-de-camp of an Indian chief, amused the audience by his reflections, his sallies and his witticisms, always in Piedmontese. He would come and go amidst English soldiers in red coats and white trousers, or amidst kilted Highlanders as freely as among Brahmins dressed like the Turks to be seen at fancy-dress balls. Gianduja crosses the battlefields, enters the besieged garrison or leaves it, is present at war councils, and listens to the enumeration of the dead and wounded without the least discomposure. He is afraid everywhere and of everything, although no one, with the exception of the public, takes the least notice of him.

iv

Zacometo, which is Venetian for Giacometto, who, down to the eighteenth century, was called Momolo (diminutive of Girolamo) is the Venetian _caratterista_. Usually dressed in white calico, he whitens his face like Pierrot save for a large blood-red stain, placed brutally upon one cheek only, and one red stocking as worn by the Venetians in the fifteenth century. Zacometo, whatever costume he may assume, preserves always this red stocking.

There is something of Scapin, something of Harlequin and something of Stenterello in the character, so that his doings and his ways are very varied. When he plays with Brighella, who is sharp, astute and very witty, Zacometo is a dolt, a clown. In _Le Baruffe Chiozzotte_ of Goldoni, Zacometo’s rôle is that of the fool; dressed like a fisherman of Chioggia he still preserves his distinctive cheek and stocking.

This character comes to Venice to fling athwart no matter what piece his amusing reflections and his fantastic interludes. He is akin to the absent-minded Stenterello; he says very cunning things with the air of not knowing what he is saying; he begins a sentence to finish it in another act, or not to finish it at all, and he stares at the public, and even addresses it, always with the air of not perceiving its presence.

It may be said that when the actor entrusted with this rôle is equipped with talent and wit, he gives Zacometo a countenance proper to the people of the lagoons. He is more of an epicure than a glutton, more of a talker than a gallant with women; he is superbly lazy, yet capable of great vivacity, displaying alternations between dreamy somnolence and sudden awakenings; in short, he displays the petulance and the agility of the cat. He fully portrays the nature of the _barcarolo_, who passes so promptly from slumber, his body dangling over the sleepy waters of the lagoon, to laughter, to jests and above all to the derision of strangers.

Zacometo has never quitted Venice, and if at times he is absent from the theatres of San Samuele or San Gallo, it is that he may go as a marionette to amuse the merchants and fishermen on the quay of the Schiavoni.

v

The character of JEANNOT, a rustic and stupid servant, who destroys by his transposition of words the sense of what he wishes to say to us, although believed to have been created in 1779 in the forain theatres by the actor Volange, is nevertheless a very ancient type. From _Zanni_ the Florentine authors of the sixteenth century have created Gianni, Giannino, and Giannico, comedy servants.

From these come _Jeannin_, _Janin_, _Jennicot_, _Janicot_, _Janot_, comics of the French farces, who amused the public in the sixteenth century being coeval with _Jean-de-l’Epine_.

Jeannot (Giannino) reappears in the scenarii and pieces of the Comédie-Italienne at the end of the seventeenth century, and in the plays of Gherardi in which he performs several old man parts (1694).

All the world knows his nonsense (_janotismes_): he has sold more than a hundred trusses to a man of straw; he buys a loaf from a butter merchant:

“Moi, pour leur montrer mon adresse,
Je renversai les assiettes et les plats,
Je fis une tache sur ma veste, de graisse,
Sur ma culotte et mes jambes, de drap.
Et sur les bas que mon grand-père, de laine,
M’avait donnés avant d’ mourir, violet.
Le pauv’ cher homme est mort d’une migraine,
Tenant une cuisse dans sa bouche, de poulet.”

This type scored its triumphs in the eighteenth century. Grimm writes of him as follows:—

“(May 1779.) A new spectacle, set up last year at the fair of
Saint-Laurent, has been drawing for the past two months both
the city and the court in consequence of the prodigious success
of a sort of dramatic proverb whose subject it is not easy to
expound. But it is impossible to forgo speaking of a work which
has delighted all Paris, for which the masterpieces of Molière
and Racine have been abandoned, and which, having reached its
hundred-and-twelfth performance, is still drawing more than
ever. The object of so great an enthusiasm, the idol of so
rare and sustained an admiration, the man, in short, whom at
this moment we may call the man of the nation, is a certain
M. Jeannot who plays, it must be confessed, with the greatest
truth, the part of a dolt, who is watered from a window like
Don Japhet d’Arménie, who, upon the advice of his friends, goes
to complain to the clerk of the commissary, who dupes him and
who, after having fought with a view to avenging himself, is
caught in the street by the watch, and finds himself in the
end stripped of the little that he possessed; all of which
goes to prove very clearly without doubt that it is always
_les battus qui payent l’amende_. This proverb which serves as
a moral to the piece is also its title. The author to whom
we are indebted for so noble a production is M. Dorvigny. He
has assembled into the rôle of Jeannot many features which,
if already known, are none the less truly comical. As for the
actor (le Sieur Volange), who has performed this rôle with so
much success, he gives us more than hope. It is impossible to
have a countenance more mobile and natural, inflexions of voice
more varied and more exact, movements more simple and easy, or
a gait more frank and naïve. The gentlemen of the chamber have
already taken steps to bring about his appearance in a theatre
more worthy of his glory.”

In January of 1780, Grimm speaks again of Jeannot:

“Jeannot, or M. de Volange, that actor so famous on the
boulevards, that unique man who throughout the whole of last
summer was the admiration and delight of city and court, whose
portrait was engraved in twenty different manners, and was to
be found in Sevres china, on the overmantels of all our pretty
women, or in wax modelled in the study of the Sieur Curtius,
between M. de Voltaire and M. le Comte d’Estaing—this man in
short, so rare and so honoured, has thought fit to develop his
great talents in the theatre more worthy of his glory than
the trestles of the Variétés Amusantes. He made his début on
the 22nd February 1780, a date for ever memorable, on the
stage of the Comédie-Italienne, in the rôles of the triplets
of Colalto.” (The three hunchbacks of Tabarin.) “Although on
that day there were several other interesting spectacles, and
notably the first performance of _Atys_, we cannot remember
ever to have seen in any of our theatres on the most remarkable
occasions, even during the triumph of M. de Voltaire, such
a concourse of spectators. There were as many people in the
wings and in the corridors as in the pit and boxes, and it was
necessary to turn away at the door a number far in excess of
that which was admitted. What then was the success of a first
appearance which attracted such extraordinary attention? Upon
what depends the most brilliant of renowns? The object of so
fine an enthusiasm, the idol of the boulevards, transported
into this new temple, beholds there his honours tumbling about
him and his glory eclipsed. It was in vain that the crowd of
his adorers whom he had dragged after him never ceased to
applaud him and to shout with emotion, ‘Courage, Jeannot,
courage!’

“The illusion was dissipated. The Roscius of the fair seemed
here confounded in a crowd of the most ordinary actors. He was
found to be out of countenance, his voice was harsh, his play
not only common and trivial, but further, cold and destitute
of humour. It would seem that his countenance and voice cannot
lend themselves save to expressions of the lowest and most
stupid; such a character he was able to portray with a very
arresting naturalness, but it is the only character that fits
him; in other rôles he has not even the merit of being a good
caricature. Although this judgment was passed upon him at
that first performance yet all Paris flocked to see him, and
his mere début alone was the source of greater profit to the
Comédie-Italienne than all the other novelties of the year put
together. Oh, Athenians! This is not the first of your follies;
and if the gods are propitious to you it will not be the last.”

“I am not acquainted” (says Mademoiselle Clairon in her memoirs) “with an actor in the forain shows known as Volange; but all Paris is unanimous on the subject of the perfection of his talent at the Variétés Amusantes. He was induced to appear at the Comédie-Italienne, where the work and the talent may perhaps not be compared with those of the Comédie-Française; but in that setting, this Volange, elsewhere so famous, was unable to sustain comparison with the least of the comedians.”

vi

The modern JOCRISSE, whom the Piedmontese and the Milanese seem to have copied from their Gianduja, and who seems to be a very recent personage, dates nevertheless from the seventeenth century, for in 1625 we see him parading the trestles in all his traditional stupidity. The same is the case with Gringalet who, in 1634, at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, played the parts of servant and served as interlocutor to Guillot-Gorju when the latter desired to address the public.

Lajingeole, so well known in the marionette theatres, and in the nineteenth century restored to the proper stage in _L’Ours_ and _Le Pacha_, also dates from the commencement of the reign of Louis XIII.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Boulevard du Temple had two famous dolts, Bobèche and Galimafré. Under his red coat and his grey three-cornered hat, surmounted by a butterfly, Bobèche was the king of farce. His reputation was colossal and his successes were very often due to coarse truths and to malicious allusions which several times earned him a reprimand from the police. Bobèche would frequently perform at the houses of great lords, of ministers and of bankers. He toured the provinces and in the end undertook the management of a theatre at Rouen.

Galimafré never enjoyed the fame of Bobèche; he was rather a sort of Pagliaccio, and his talent was more appreciated by the lower orders, who preferred his heavy stupidities to the subtler malice of Bobèche. Galimafré left the theatre without, however, leaving the stage. He became a stage-hand at the Opéra-Comique. In that office he was frequently treated with disdain by those who did not know that this man who turned a frame or set up a wing had held a crowd in ecstasy before him.

XII

ISABELLE

We have seen that in the company of the very famous Ruzzante there existed an actress of the name of Fiorina, which may have been her own or assumed for the purposes of the theatre. This name was often bestowed by Ruzzante and many subsequent authors—such as Tarabosco in 1560 and Calmo in 1553—upon the leading lady. Now it is Fiora, the sweet village girl, so beautiful that Ruzzante is dying of love for her in his piece _La Fiorina_; now it is Fiorinetta, the courtesan apprentice whom love preserves from vice, and renders worthy of pardon.

This FIORINETTA is the Philenium of Demophilus and of Plautus, brought to light for the second time in the sixteenth century and transformed to suit the tastes of the Renaissance. It is very interesting to follow the transformation of this type. In the ancient theatre Philenium is no more than a courtesan in love. Argyrippus is certainly not her first lover, and probably will not be her last. She resigns herself to a division of her favours between father and son, after having lowered herself to flatter and to caress two slaves. She submits to all this vileness out of love for the young man.

Fiorinetta is interesting in a very different fashion, and Ruzzante’s piece is better than that of Plautus. All the world knows the _Asinaria_, whilst Ruzzante’s _Vaccaria_ is almost unknown. We will give an outline of it. Like Demænetus, Placido is a gentleman married to a rich wife who has kept the administration of her fortune, and who causes her revenues to be governed by a steward, modelled upon the dotal slave of the _Asinaria_. Placido complains to his servant Truffo (the Libanus of Plautus) that he has spent his life in tutelage, and that he is still a _uomo fresco_—that is to say, a dashing fellow, addicted to pleasure, who in the midst of opulence has never been able to enjoy anything. Madonna Rospina deprived him of everything, and, through the authority of her virtue, becomes the torment of the house and the family.

“I am not ignorant,” he says, “of the fact that my son Flavio
is in love with Fiorinetta, and that he has been living with
her for a year. I am not at all perturbed; it is the best
possible liaison. He is too young to marry. I want him to
settle down as late as possible. May God preserve him from such
an existence as mine. Let him profit by his youth. Fiorinetta
is not, thank God, a woman of religious inclinations, the most
dangerous form of mistress that exists; nor is she a married
woman, which again is a source of danger when the husband is
jealous; she is a child who loves him tenderly and who will
admit no other lovers. But her mother is a procuress who
wants to sell her daughter to the rich Polidoro because my
son has no more money to give her. Myself, I have no money.
My wife keeps everything under lock and key, and her steward
is incorruptible. It is necessary, my dear Truffo, that you
should exercise your arts to rob me—that is to say, to purloin
from my wife the sum necessary to my son so that for a year to
come he may not be troubled in the exclusive possession of his
mistress.

“Go, then, my dear Truffo. You have my authority for any
knavery. I am not one of those grumbling and turbulent old
men who proceed in such a way as to cause their death to be
desired. I wish to be my son’s best friend and to do for him
what in other days my father did for me.”

Fiorinetta loves Flavio. She loves him ingenuously and with all her soul. She does not say, like Philenium to Cleæretu: “Permit me to prefer him to all my lovers.” She says: “I want no lover other than himself.”

FIORINETTA. What do you want of me, mother?

CELEGA. You have again, to my misfortune, allowed Flavio to
enter the house by the garden gate. I did not wish to say
anything to you in his presence. But answer me now: Is it
possible that you do not wish to believe what I have told you?
You know nevertheless that what I tell you is always true.
When for the first time you received the caresses of Flavio of
which you were afraid, having never received those of any man,
I told you not to fear. Did I deceive you, seeing that you find
yourself so much in love with him?

FIORINETTA. It is more than true, my mother.

CELEGA. Very well, then, why do you not heed me now when I tell
you not to allow him to come again? Since he has nothing more
to give us he will ruin you.

FIORINETTA. Because I am unable to send him away in this
fashion. Because loving him I do not wish to hurt him by
leaving him. It is as if someone were to bid me to cease loving
you as my mother. That were impossible.

CELEGA. It is a fine thing if you contrast the affection you
bear your mother to that of a lover. I shall be compelled,
until you become a great lady, to go and beg, for the simple
reason that your lover will not turn his steps elsewhere. You
think he loves you? It is the pleasure that you give him that
he loves and not yourself! With me it is different.

FIORINETTA. He would weep too much, he would sigh too much. He
has so often sworn to love me. He has spoken so many promises.

CELEGA. Tears and sighs are very light proofs of love, and
oaths are always on the lips of lovers. I have never known
tears and sighs and oaths to proceed from any but those who
have nothing to give. Those who spend do not weep. You wish to
please Flavio and to belong to him alone. It is all very well,
my daughter, for a rich woman to have one only lover; but you
are not in such case.

FIORINETTA. Since he has been good to me in the past must I be
ungrateful to him?

CELEGA. The past is as nothing. But let us suppose then that
Flavio loves you. Do you think, perchance, that things will
always remain as they are? You are deceived. As soon as your
countenance begins to change so will his ideas change.

FIORINETTA. Oh! I have no fear of that.

CELEGA. That which we do not fear comes more quickly than that
which we do fear. Consider now: what do you find lacking in
Messer Polidoro that a rich man should have?

FIORINETTA. He is ugly and unpleasant. I have never seen a more
hideous face.

CELEGA. He is so rich that his wealth conceals all his faults.
I can think of nothing uglier and more unpleasant than a man
without money.

FIORINETTA. He is diseased.

CELEGA. Now there’s a misfortune! When a young man is seen
to be a little pale, with a scratch in his leg or a lump on
his arm one cries at once: He is ill! But I shall not say
another word. Do as you please and you shall always be a poor
unfortunate; do as I tell you and you shall soon be rich and
a great lady. Look at Nina, who a little time ago was going
barefoot and in rags through taverns and other disreputable
places, and who to-day is the owner of so many silken gowns and
so many collars of pearls, and has so many servants to do her
will.

FIORINETTA. Have patience. The next time that Flavio comes I
will talk of it with him.

CELEGA. Fool! Know that if you persist in loving him who has
nothing to give you, all the others will be equally close. Our
future lies in competition. I have already told you a hundred
times what you should do. Should anyone present you with a
necklace, a ring or anything else, show it immediately to all,
so that another, not desiring to seem less rich, shall make
you a present of greater value. It is necessary to know how to
receive each and how to talk with everyone so as to lead all to
suppose that you are in love with them.

FIORINETTA. You want me to love all the world as I love Flavio?

CELEGA. I did not say love all, but pretend to do so.

FIORINETTA. My mother, that were too painful a life. I could
never pretend the contrary of what I feel and of what is in my
heart. I think that it is better to marry, and I wish to lead a
purer existence than that which you suggest.

In a later scene between Fiorinetta and her lover, she shows herself as passionate as she was meek and gentle with her mother.

FLAVIO. Why do you not let me go, dear heart? Why do you retain
me? Is it so as to increase the pain which I must experience
when I leave you?

FIORINETTA. Can you believe that I am anxious to let my soul
depart from me?

FLAVIO. Mine will remain with you, for you are the asylum of
all its joys and all its happiness.

FIORINETTA. How can it remain with me since I no longer exist
without Flavio?

FLAVIO. Nevertheless your mother wishes to separate us.

FIORINETTA. I may occasion grief to my mother, but nothing
shall separate me from you.

FLAVIO. When this new lover stands before you with all his
money your sentiments will change, perhaps.

FIORINETTA. Flavio, you must not say such things to me. Not all
the gold in the world could suffice to change my sentiments
towards you. My heart is not for sale like merchandise in
the open market, and if the love which I bear you were not
sufficient to cause me to persevere in my purpose, my mother’s
project would be. She wishes to separate me from you—from you,
the only thing in all the world that I love! She shall not long
rejoice in the possession of me, I shall stab myself to the
heart or otherwise rid myself of life.

FLAVIO. No, you must live. Let me die, for if I were deprived
of you I should be deprived of life’s greatest happiness. Joys
and pleasures shall never be wanting in your life.

FIORINETTA. You want me to live, but existence without you
would be worse than death. Tell me what pleasure could be a
pleasure for me without Flavio? What joy could be a joy, what
delight could be a delight for me without you?

FLAVIO. If in my death there were not the death of every hope
of seeing you again, which is the greatest good of all, know,
my heart, that no one would die more gladly than I, able to
glorify himself in dying of love for the most beautiful woman
nature ever created.

FIORINETTA. If I should ever happen to survive you, Flavio,
know that my life would be so bitter and full of torments that
death must seem a sweet thing by comparison. But, so that it
shall not be said that I should ever experience any other
pleasure after your death, I should make an effort to live
and to prolong this miserable existence so that my sufferings
should compensate me a little for the loss of a lover as dear
as you. Listen, Flavio, render me the most pious service in
your power, take your sword and pass it through my heart. Life
is dear to me only on your account, it belongs to you, it is
your thing: if you want to die, bear it with you.

FLAVIO. Oh! beloved lady, if rather I could but join my soul
to yours so as to make but one! Gladly would I strip myself of
life to give it to you. Would not that be the best use to which
it could be put?

FIORINETTA. You increase my happiness and my life by attaching
your lips to mine.

FLAVIO. Delicious lips! Am I unfortunate enough?

FIORINETTA. Hold your Fiorinetta in your arms, my Flavio!...
Flavio, I am dying.... Help!

Vezzo and Truffo run on to assist in restoring her to consciousness; but Vezzo says that he has no rose-water, and Truffo, who has sold his shoes to keep Celega quiet with the money, is unable to buy any.

FLAVIO. Listen, Fiorinetta, my beloved: is this a proof of the
love you say you bear me, this desire to be the first to die?
Why do you not open your loving eyes? Do not conceal from me
the light of my life. Is it not enough already that I should
have to weep for my own misfortunes without your increasing
them? Fiorinetta! You do not answer your Flavio! Answer me!

Truffo and Vezzo run from side to side seeking something by means of which to restore her to consciousness. Truffo suddenly shouts: “Return to life, we have the money!” Flavio, happy to know that they have been able to purloin from the steward the money which is to appease Celega and render them both happy, says: “We have no further reason to be sorrowful—do you hear? They have brought the money.”

FIORINETTA. Beautiful heaven! Where am I?

FLAVIO. In the arms of your Flavio.

FIORINETTA. Flavio, why do you not let me die? I should die so
happily in your arms!

Truffo and Vezzo reflect upon the fact that money is more potent than rose-water to conquer swoons.

FLAVIO (_to FIORINETTA_). Take courage, my life, my love. In
spite of adverse fortune we shall be happier than ever. (_To
the servants._) But which of you two has the money?

In Plautus’s play, Libanus and Leonida, the two cunning slaves, compelled the young couple to desire the money for some time. The result is a burlesque scene of an incredible coarseness, in which the master is compelled to embrace the knees of one of his slaves and to bear the other on his shoulders. Philenium is condemned to caress them, which does not seem to cost her any very great effort, for she herself offers them her kisses, and is spontaneously prodigal of the most tender epithets.

Fiorinetta is too chaste, and Flavio too seriously enamoured to admit of this. The scene is no less comical in consequence of a long and very humorous story related in dialect and as a duet by Vezzo and Truffo, whose only purpose is to render the two lovers impatient. In the end, after having appeared to doubt the word of his young master, Vezzo exacts that he shall tenderly embrace his mistress by way of an inviolable oath. Thereafter he considers himself assured of his master’s protection in the dangers he has incurred to serve him.

In the _Asinaria_, Demænetus, the father of the lover, demands and obtains the favours of Philenium as the price of his complacence. The young man consents to it to ensure the continuance of his pleasures. The old man’s cross-grained wife surprises this orgy, trounces the son and threatens the father, whilst driving him off with blows. It is a scene of gross realism.

Ruzzante is also a realist. He calls things by their names and does not cloak the brutal and licentious morals of his day. But he belongs to the Renaissance; his spirit tends to the ideal, and he completes the destiny of the courtesan by a fifth act of his own creation, which is certainly the best of the piece.

After having ably softened the monstrosities of the ancient text so as to preserve that which is comical—as for instance turning the old man’s desire for the courtesan into a simple pleasantry, so that it may serve as a lesson to his son, and making the son’s submission no more than a feint, with the mental reservation to withdraw Fiorinetta in time from this opprobrium—Ruzzante enters into romantic developments.

The mother of Flavio, Madonna Rospina, pauses on the threshold of the house of Celega at the moment of blazing out. She recovers her self-possession, and with great prudence and dignity accuses herself of being the cause of all the evil. She has been wanting in indulgence and liberality; she has driven her son to despair, her husband to vice and her servants to theft. She goes to Celega, and shows her so much gentleness and pity that this miserable woman repents her, and withdraws to a convent, after having confessed that Fiorinetta is not her daughter, but a child fallen into her hands during the fortunes and turmoil of war. The wars to which she alludes are those of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. Thus we behold Fiorina purged of this sordid relationship with Celega, and the effect of her constancy is to bear good fruit in the forgiveness of the mother of her lover and the repentance of her own supposed mother. The manner in which Celega excuses herself for her evil designs is arresting:

CELEGA. Know, lady, that under pressure of the miseries of
life good thoughts frequently disappear. That is the fault
of fortune which with reason is said to be blind. I say this
for myself, who, not that I might become rich, but so that I
might avoid the horrors of want, have done what has been seen.
Nevertheless when this child fell into my hands, I had nothing
but good will for her. But the little care shown by the great
and powerful for the poor in the world wrought a change in me.
And then the might of the great misleads us; we don’t know how
to refuse them what they exact. What could I do to preserve
this child from a cavalier as great and as noble as your son?

Celega disappears and Madonna Rospina calls her son: “It would be impossible,” she says, “for me not to be anxious whilst knowing you to be wandering about in this carnival time. Go seek your mistress, and conduct her to our house. Later on you shall learn the good intentions that I have in mind.”

FLAVIO. I know now that there is no love like that of a mother.
Oh, mother! mother! in what language, in what words should I be
able to please you as you deserve!

Here follows an excellent scene, in the highest degree amusing, between Placido and Rospina, the father and mother of Flavio. The husband rejoices in the happy change which has taken place in his wife. He says that the most favourable things are those which are least expected.

ROSPINA. You are right, Placido; for who could have foreseen a
thousand years ago that Flavio would have married a wife to-day?

PLACIDO. What are you saying?

ROSPINA. Very soon you shall see Fiorinetta here to celebrate
the wedding.

PLACIDO. And you would consent to such a thing?

ROSPINA. Why not?

PLACIDO. Do you consider her a suitable wife for our son?

ROSPINA. I have heard you say that given that a woman were
suited to rejoice the soul of her husband, she should be chosen
without regard to her birth.

PLACIDO. But this girl has no dowry.

ROSPINA. How often have I not heard you curse those who seek
a great dowry, and who thereby bind themselves in cords that
deprive them of their liberty?

PLACIDO. That was said only in jest.

ROSPINA. But Flavio has taken it seriously.

PLACIDO. And will you suffer this?

ROSPINA. I shall do by him as I have seen you do.

PLACIDO. Do so then; but as for me, I shall never give my
consent to it.

ROSPINA. You will, and you will even go so far as to open the
nuptial ball if necessary.

PLACIDO. Not so. I shall withdraw to the country during the
event.

ROSPINA. Come, put a good face on the matter, and rejoice in
the thought of the happy days that are to come.

PLACIDO. You will have it so? Very well then, so be it!

A great ball is given, and the piece concludes with songs and dances.

This _Vaccaria_ of Ruzzante is extremely remarkable, especially since discarding all the ancient grossness of the _Asinaria_ he has been able to extract from it a romantic and amusing piece invested with a humour more naïve and more natural than that of the original. In the story of Fiorinetta brought up in evil by Celega and becoming, by virtue of her sentiments, her constancy and sincerity, the legitimate wife of the handsome Flavio, one might perceive the rehabilitation of the courtesan. But one would be at fault. Fiorinetta is not, and never has been, a courtesan, especially a courtesan of that epoch. She has neither the ways nor the sentiments of one. A trafficker contrives that in spite of herself she shall make the acquaintance of a man. He was young, handsome, lovable and sincerely enamoured. She becomes attached to him; she would have died rather than belong to another. Madonna Rospina, in marrying her to her son, did no more than restore the honour which her son had taken from the girl. The mother of Flavio would never have received the ancient courtesan Philenium into her house.

The costume of Fiorinetta must have been very beautiful and in the best of taste. It was an age in which refinements of toilet filled the most important place in the life of a woman. “I know perfectly,” says Isotta in _L’Anconitana_ of Ruzzante, “how to embroider collars in gold and silk. I know how to dress a lady, and what colours are more advantageous to dark women and to blondes; also what garments are best attuned to go with liveries and devices. I know what colours signify love, hope, jealousy and other things of the same kind. I know how the _faldigie_ are to be worn, how the fringed head-dress suits best, whether it conceals all the hair, whether it leaves an inch or two displayed; I know what women are enhanced by earrings, and whether it is better to wear pearls or plain gold in girdles and rings, as well as the different kinds of corset to render the appearance of the throat more delicate, or more or less to display the breast. I know what collars, carcanets, gold chains and strands of pearls render a woman more imposing. I also know the kinds of rings to adorn the fingers; how a woman should walk, how she should laugh, turn her eyes, drop a curtsy, and what movements denote grace and modesty; how to adorn the dress of the woman of fashion, how to combine fabrics of different colours so as to obtain the richest effect. Some women wear their hair hidden, or combed in so level a manner that each hair lies beside its fellow; others wear it in a sort of disorder which renders them more graceful and more beautiful, etc.”

The taste of the Renaissance was, more than that of any other age, based upon an imitation of the Greeks and the Romans. The actresses did not wear the dresses of their own time save under pressure in contemporary pieces. All comedies which were a few years old became _ancient_, and were represented in the ancient manner—that is to say, in fancy costumes such as are to be seen in the pictures by painters of this epoch.

Rabelais relates, in his _Sciomachie_, that in Rome, in 1569, amid the noblemen, the men-at-arms and the footmen and horsemen who took part in a tournament, Diana and her nymphs suddenly make their appearance to play a little scene which concludes in the pretended abduction of a nymph by some soldiers. Diana claims her from the soldiers; enclosed in a cardboard citadel, these refuse; thereupon Diana and her nymphs go to demand the assistance and vengeance of the knights. The assault is given, and the spectacle commences.

“Diana bore upon her head a silver crescent; her golden hair
hung about her shoulders and some of it dressed round her
head with a laurel garland ‘introphiated’ with roses, violets
and other flowers. She was dressed in crimson damask, richly
embroidered, with a fine Cyprian fabric of beaten gold,
curiously pleated like the rochet of a cardinal, descending
to the middle of her leg, and over this a rare and precious
leopard skin attached by golden buttons to her left shoulder.
Her golden boots were cut _à la nymphale_ and tied with silver
cord. Her ivory horn hung upon her left arm. Her quiver,
preciously adorned with pearls, was suspended from her right
shoulder by a thick cord in strands of white and scarlet silk.
In her right hand she carried a silver javelin. The other
nymphs differed but little from her in accoutrements save that
they had no silver crescent on their brows. Each one carried
a very beautiful Turkish bow in her hands, and a quiver like
Diana’s. Some wore upon their shoulders African skins of lynx
and marten, others led greyhounds in leash or blew their horns.
It was a lovely sight.”

In the troupe of the _Intronati_ (1530 to 1560), the leading ladies, whose real names we ignore, appeared under the names of Lelia, Beatrice and Isabella. In 1570, the beautiful Armiani, born at Vicenza, a poetess, a musician and a comedienne of talent, was becoming celebrated throughout Italy. The _Confidenti_ troupe, which went to France in 1572, had for leading lady an actress of beauty and endowed with great literary talents. This was Celia, whose real name was Maria Malloni. The Cavaliere Marino surnames her in _L’Adone_ “a fourth Grace,” and Pietro Pinelli composed in remembrance of her an entire volume of poems: _Corona di lodi alla Signora Maria Malloni, detta Celia, comica_. She played equally well in the Commedia dell’ Arte and in _commedia sostenuta_, in tragedy and in pastoral. She was chiefly remarkable, according to Count Ridolfo, in the rôle of Silvia in _L’Aminta_.

At about the same time, the _Gelosi_ troupe possessed for leading lady “the beautiful and too tender Lidia di Bagnacavallo,” says M. Charles Magnin. “Her jealous and but little disguised passion for her fellow-actor Adriano Valerini caused some little scandal, a rare thing at this time when actresses prided themselves upon nothing so much as their virtue.”

ii

In 1578, Flaminio Scala engaged in the troupe of the _Gelosi_, then in Florence, a young girl born in Padua in 1562, named ISABELLA, then barely sixteen years of age, beautiful, full of talent and very virtuous. Francesco Andreini, who was playing Captains in the same company, fell in love with her and married her. In the following year (1579), Isabella gave birth to a son, Giovanni-Battista Andreini (_Lelio_).

It was first under the name of Accesa that Isabella was admired and applauded when she made her début and was elected a member of the academy of the _Intenti_ of Pavia. She was the most celebrated actress of her time, and honoured by the most illustrious approbation, such as that of Tasso, Ciabrera, and Marino, not to mention cardinals, princes and sovereigns. A crowned portrait of Isabella was placed between those of Petrarch and Tasso in a fête given in her honour in Rome by one of her greatest admirers, the Cardinal Aldobrandini.

Isabella was the soul, the honour, the pillar of the _Gelosi_ company. She went to France with the troupe in 1584, and there, as in Italy, Isabella, then in her twenty-second year, achieved the same degree of distinction by her modest and reserved conduct as by the versatility of her talents, and the same was again the case when she revisited France, summoned thither by Henri IV. in 1600.

Thomas Garzon says in his _Place Universelle_:

“The graceful Isabella Andreini, the most brilliant ornament
of the stage and the theatre, as praiseworthy for her virtue
as for her beauty, has rendered so illustrious her profession
that as long as the world shall last, and down to the end of
time, the name of the famous Isabella Andreini will be held in
veneration.”

Notwithstanding the most flattering attempts to detain her, Isabella left Paris. Compelled by an accident to interrupt her journey at Lyons, she died there in childbirth on the 10th July 1604. The greatest honours were paid her. Pierre Mathieu relates the event in his _Histoire de France sous le Regne de Henri III._ (Paris, 1609); and Niccolo Barbieri (Beltrame), who was a member of the company, tells us that the municipality of the city of Lyons honoured the funeral of the comedienne with marks of distinction. “The aldermen,” says M. Charles Magnin, “sent the banners of the city and the mace-bearers to the obsequies of this great actress, and the guild of merchants followed the procession with torches. Francesco Andreini, the husband of this famous woman, caused an epitaph to be engraved upon her tomb which is to be read in Mazuchelli, and which may yet exist in Lyons, where it was still to be seen at the end of the eighteenth century. This epitaph concludes in the following terms:—‘_Religiosa, pia, musis amica et artis scenicæ caput, hic resurrectionem exspectat...._’”

A beautiful medal was struck, bearing the effigy of Isabella Andreini, her name being followed by the letters C.G., which stand for _Comica Gelosa_ (comedienne of the _Gelosi_ troupe), and bearing on the obverse the figure of Fame with the words “_Æterna Fama_.” She had deserved all these distinctions not only by the wealth of imagination which she displayed in the Commedia dell’ Arte, but by various publications from her pen, some in verse and some in prose. During her various sojourns in Paris, the last of which was in 1603, she conquered the admiration of both court and city, and enjoyed a very particular favour with Marie de’ Médicis and Henri IV.

She has left us some sonnets, madrigals and songs, _La Pastorale de Myrtille_, printed at Verona in 1588, and a _Canzonniere_ printed in Milan in 1601. With her died the _Gelosi_ troupe.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the leading ladies of the various Italian troupes were Renemia, Lucia, Pandolfina, Lucrezia and Virginia.

Lavinia, whose real name was Diana Ponti, _comica desiosa_, an actress and poetess (1580), discovered, according to Riccoboni, among the effects inherited from her father—a comedian like herself—a large number of scenarii bearing the precious autograph signature of Saint Charles Borromeo. The explanation of this curious fact is as follows:—Adriano Valerini had been called to Milan. Notwithstanding the tolerance shown to comedians by the Italian clergy, the governor of the city, having fallen a prey to some scruple of conscience, ordered the suspension of the performances by the troupe under Valerini’s management. Valerini protested. The governor submitted the matter to the decision of the archbishop, who was Charles Borromeo. The good prelate summoned the comedian into his presence, questioned him, heard him and permitted him to reopen his theatre on condition that he would submit to him his scenarii. Those which he approved he signed with his own hand. One of the greatest saints of the church reading and approving the scenarii of the Commedia dell’Arte is a fact as significant as it is striking. Niccolo Barbieri (Beltrame) says in his _Discorso_ that Braga, the Pantaloon of the company of Valerini, as well as the Pedrolino, still possessed in his day (1634) manuscripts approved and signed by Saint Charles Borromeo.

In 1601, Virginia Ramponi filled the rôles of leading lady in the _Gelosi_ troupe. G. B. Andreini fell in love with her and married her in 1601. He wrote for her his first piece under the title of _Florinda_ in consequence of the name which she bore in the theatre. She died somewhere about 1634.

In the French company at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, an Italian actress was playing in 1617, under the Gallicised name of Florentine, the rôles of leading lady, and the daughters of Gros-Guillaume.

In the _Fedeli_ troupe, in 1624, Margarita Luciani, the wife of Girolamo Gavarini (Captain Rhinoceros), died a few days after her husband, and as devoutly as he.

In 1635, Lidia, an actress of great merit, was the second wife of G. B. Andreini, the director of the company.

In 1652, Eularia Coris, a young and charming comedienne, was one of the last actresses to sustain by her talent the weakening vogue of the _Fedeli_ troupe. She contributed, with Lidia, to the success of a devout dramatic piece entitled _La Maddalena Lasciva e Penitente_, performed for the first time in 1607.

“The list of characters is curious,” says M. Charles Magnin;
“beside Magdalen, Martha and Lazarus, the principal parts
are those of the Archangel Michael, several angels, Divine
Grace, three lovers of Magdalen, her page, her waiting-woman,
her seneschal, her cook, two dwarfs and three old women of
ill repute. In the first three acts there is no question of
anything but gallantry and merry-making. Magdalen, abandoned
absolutely to her senses, closes her ears to the wise counsels
of Martha her sister. In the third act, penitent and contrite,
she renounces pleasure, assumes a hair-shirt, is favoured by
ecstatic visions, and finally ascends to heaven, borne in
the arms of five cherubims, whilst the Archangel Michael and
Divine Grace exhort the audience to follow the example of this
reconciled sinner.”