Chapter IV: Part III

_GOZZI'S DRAMATIC FABLES, OR FIABE TEATRALI; TOGETHER WITH A BRIEF
HISTORY OF HIS QUARREL WITH GOLDONI AND CHIARI._

1. Venice in the last century--The Liberals and
Conservatives--Invasion of French theories in politics, philosophy,
and social manners--Prevalence of French taste in
literature--Conservative resistance to this revolutionary state of
things.--2. Carlo Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi--Popularity of French
sentimental dramas--The Academy of the Granelleschi founded in 1747
by literary Conservatives, to restore a taste for pure Italian
style, and to promote the study of the Tuscan classics--Carlo Gozzi
belongs to this Academy, and becomes one of its chief
supporters--Goldoni, and the qualities of his genius--His
perception that nature has to be closely followed in the drama.--3.
A sketch of Goldoni's career, and of the steps whereby he became a
professional playwright--Settles at Venice in 1747 as poet to
Medebac's company--Goldoni's Venetian comedies, comedies in the
French manner, melodramas--Goldoni's rivalry with the Abbé
Chiari--Chiari's bombastic pseudo-Pindaric style--Martellian
verses.--4. Indignation of the Granelleschi with both Goldoni and
Chiari--Carlo Gozzi confounds them in one common hatred as
corruptors of the language--His particular dislike for Goldoni, who
had declared war against the _Commedia dell' Arte_, of which Gozzi
professed himself the champion--Publication of Gozzi's satirical
poem _La Tartana degli Influssi_ in 1756--Return of Sacchi's
company of impromptu comedians to Venice in that year--Vigorous
warfare carried on by the Granelleschi against both Goldoni and
Chiari during the next four years--Gozzi first shows his dramatic
faculty in a severe Aristophanic satire upon Goldoni, entitled _Il
Teatro Comico_--Chiari makes up his differences with Goldoni, and
both playwrights now join forces against their conservative
antagonists--Chiari defies the Granelleschi to produce a
comedy--Goldoni appeals from their criticisms to the public, who
idolise him--Gozzi determines to write a satirical play upon a
nursery-tale, which shall prove no less popular than Goldoni's
comedies--The _Amore delle Tre Melarancie_ appears in January
1761--The true character of Carlo Gozzi's dramatic fables--It is a
mistake to suppose that he was actuated by spontaneous Romantic
genius--His affinity with the elder Tuscan burlesque poets--His
wish to rehabilitate the Comedy of Masks--His conservative and
didactic spirit.--5. A translation of Gozzi's own account of _The
Love of the Three Oranges_, important in the history of the
_Commedia dell' Arte_, and illustrative of the way in which Gozzi
handled his fabulous material.--6. Success of _L'Amore delle Tre
Melarancie_--Production and dates of the remaining nine dramatic
_Fiabe_.--7. Gozzi's method of writing, and employment of the Four
Masks and the Servetta--Interweaving of the comic element with the
fairy-tale--Gozzi does not rise to the height of imaginative
poetry.--8. His satire, humour, feeling for poetic situations--His
conservative philosophy of life.--9. Sources of the _Fiabe_--The
artistic superiority of _L'Amore delle Tre Melarancie_.--10.
Analysis of _L'Augellino Belverde_.--11. Gozzi's temporary
success--Goldoni retires to Paris, and Chiari to Brescia--Posterity
has reversed the verdict of contemporary Venice--Fate of the
_Fiabe_--Vicissitudes of Gozzi's fame in Italy, Germany,
France--Paul de Musset's condensed abstract of the Memoirs, and
their distorted picture of Carlo Gozzi.

I.

About the middle of the eighteenth century, Venetian society was divided into two main parties, representing what we should now call Liberal and Conservative principles in politics and thought. The Liberals were imbued with French philosophical ideas, French fashions, and French phrases. The boldest of them, men like Angelo Querini, Carlo Contarini, Giorgio Pisani, openly aimed at remodelling the constitution. They aired new-fangled theories of government, based upon the Social Contract and the Rights of Man, within ear-shot of the terrible Inquisition of State. Some of them went in consequence to end their days in the dungeons of Cattaro or Verona. These patricians created a body of restless opposition in the Grand Council, agitated the bourgeoisie and proletariate with the expectation of impending changes, and succeeded in effecting some salutary but superficial reforms. Outside the sphere of politics, that spirit of innovation which in France was silently but surely working toward the Revolution, made itself felt among the educated classes. The University of Padua, while preserving external forms of mediævalism in its discipline and teaching, fermented with the physical hypotheses of modern science. The deism of the Encyclopædists and Voltaire came into vogue. Sentimentalism, thinly cloaking a desire for liberty and license, ruled in morals. Rousseau's speculations and the humanitarian utopias of the _philosophes_ disturbed the old foundations on which social institutions rested. The word _prejudice_ was upon the lips of everybody, to indicate the restraining influences of public order in the state and of ethics in the family. These new ideas permeated society and saturated literature. In the drawing-rooms of great ladies, the clubs and coffee-houses of the gentry, the theatres, concert-rooms, and little houses, where men and women congregated, French books were discussed, French fashions were affected, the French language was engrafted on the old Venetian dialect. Frivolous butterflies of pleasure in that great mart of the world's amusement assumed fine airs of philosophy and science. Wide-sweeping and far-reaching theories, which called in question the whole groundwork of man's previous beliefs, were freely ventilated by chatterers, who caught their jargon from flippant manuals of science and popular essays, poured forth by thousands from the press of Paris. Unhealthy novels spread subversive moral doctrines flavoured with a spice of philanthropic sentiment. It was considered _rococo_ to admire the old Italian classics. Staunch Liberals paraded their independence of precedent and prejudice by adopting a masquerade style which set the traditions of the language at defiance.

All this indicated a deep and irresistible fermentation in society. The great catastrophe of the eighteenth century was preparing. The stage of Europe was being made ready for that transformation-scene which opened a new era. But few could foresee the inevitable future; few could distinguish what was wholesome progress from the delirious or somnambulistic ravings of the moment. Therefore the Conservatives clung fast to their prejudices and precedents; to established forms of government, the national religion, the traditional customs of civil and domestic life. To superficial observers it appeared that these men held the strongest cards. Yet even rigid Conservatives were bound to admit that there was something ominously rotten in the state of Venice. Her commerce dwindled year by year. Her provinces were ill-administered, and yielded less and less to the exchequer. Social demarcations disappeared in the luxury and corruption which invaded all classes. Pauperism assumed appalling dimensions. In the decay of industries and manufactures thousands of workpeople were thrown famished upon public charity. The ranks of the Barnabotti, or impoverished nobles, who claimed state support, swelled, grew clamorous in the Grand Council, gave signs of insubordination, and contaminated the fountain-head of government by their venality. Meanwhile, the old machinery of the constitution had fallen into the hands of a close oligarchy or commission of a few powerful patricians. These corruptors of the State pulled wires, bought votes, and manipulated the College and the Senate to secure their own ends in the Consiglio Grande. The more far-sighted among the Conservatives felt the necessity of temporising. Influenced by the all-pervasive spirit of the age, but not prepared to join the Liberal forces, they compromised, tampered with institutions, and tried by stopping leaks to keep the deep sea out. This was the attitude of men like Marco Foscarini, Alvise Emo, and Paolo Renier.

Apart from politics, the Conservatives stood on firmer ground. There is no doubt that the so-called philosophy of the eighteenth century, both in its principles and in its consequences, offered points of patent weakness to hostile criticism. It was subversive without being reconstructive. Its foundations were sentimental and fanciful rather than logical and reasoned. Hazy in the minds of its projectors, it was almost universally misunderstood by the multitude which it illuded. Immorality was encouraged; not that any speculative system is inherently immoral, but that the confused postulates regarding personal liberty, the right of private judgment in matters of conduct, the light of Nature, and the tyranny of custom and prejudice, from which this philosophy started, enabled foolish or ill-minded people to hide their vices and caprices beneath the specious mask of systematic thinking. Again, the literature which sprang into existence under the predominance of such theories, was in some respects pernicious, and in many points of view ridiculous. The Conservatives had a definite course before them when they determined to vindicate the purity of Italian diction, to maintain the traditions of a glorious past in art, and to expose the foibles of the Liberal school of thinkers and of writers.

II.

This brings me to the proper subject of the present chapter, which is the conflict of Liberalism with Conservatism in the theatre at Venice. The two protagonists are Carlo Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi, both Venetians, and both of nearly the same age. Goldoni was born in 1707, Gozzi in 1720. Gozzi entered the lists against Goldoni in 1756, when the latter had been working for the Venetian stage since 1748, and when he had already turned the heads of the public by his brilliant dramatic novelties.

The old _Commedia dell' Arte_, as we have seen, had sunk into decrepitude. It was not merely that the type itself was exhausted, though subsequent circumstances proved this to be the case. What was more important is, that the popular taste veered round against it. Under the prevailing dominance of French fashions, a style of drama, hitherto unknown to the Italians, came into vogue. The so-called _Comédie Larmoyante_, or pathetic comedy (of which Nivelle de la Chaussée, a now-forgotten archimage of middle-class sentimentalities and sensibilities, is the reputed inventor), caught the ear of Europe. The Père la Chaussée, to adopt an epigram of Piron's, preached every evening from his pulpit in a score of theatres through Europe. The titles of his most famous plays, _Mélanide_, _La Gouvernante_, _Préjugé à la Mode_, _L'École des Mères_, remind us of the revolution in the drama which converted the public stage from a place of amusement into a platform for the dissemination of political or social sentiments. Saurin's _Beverley_, Mercier's _Déserteur_ and _L'Indigent_, De Falbaire's _Honnête Criminel_, Voltaire's _Écossaise_, Diderot's _Père de Famille_, carried on La Chaussée's tradition. Regarding their popularity at Venice, enough is related in the verbose and bilious diatribes prefixed by Gozzi to his dramatic works. Among plays of this description, an adaptation of our _George Barnwell_--much in the style of Thackeray's parody upon Lord Lytton's novels--attracted great attention by the pathos with which a nephew murdering his uncle from the highest motives was exalted to the rank of hero. The Conservatives not unjustly protested against the contamination of public morals by the false sentiment of these tearful dramas. The perversion of taste by low domestic arguments and clumsy realism, which had nothing real but its vulgarity, seemed to them no less a sin.

They were particularly sensitive, moreover, upon the point of language, diction, style. Translations and adaptations of French plays confirmed the growing carelessness of authors. Gallicisms were so fashionable that a stage-hack allowed himself all license in that direction. The jargon of science introduced unheard-of phrases, which would have made the fathers of the Della-Cruscan Academy shudder in their tombs. Moreover, the prevalent affectation of independence and the fashionable revolt against prejudice led ignorant scribblers to plume themselves upon their solecisms and plebeian lapses into dialect.

With the main object, therefore, of maintaining a standard of propriety in style, and with the secondary object of opposing theatrical innovations, the Venetian Conservatives (in literature) founded their Academy de'Granelleschi. It came into existence about 1747; and I need not enlarge upon its constitution, except to say that it was an academy of the good old Tory type, like the _Gelati_, _Sonnacchiosi_, _Storditi_, and so many scores of literary clubs with absurd names and trivial customs, whose members wasted their time over pedantic studies, and occasionally issued a piece of solid work among their otherwise ephemeral transactions. A sufficient account of this Academy is given in Gozzi's Memoirs. Its importance at the present moment is that out of this little camp Carlo Gozzi marched like David to attack the Goliath of Philistinism, Carlo Goldoni.

It is difficult to speak adequately and fairly of Goldoni. In making this man, Nature cast her glove down in the face of criticism, and defied analysis. He possessed indubitable genius; what is more, his genius obeyed generous enthusiasms, unselfish aims, pure-hearted sentiments. He perceived instinctively and correctly that a new age was dawning for the literature of Europe. He devoted his life to creating a comic drama adequate to the intellectual dignity of his nation. Goldoni was a good man, a modest man, a man complete in all the social virtues. But he was not a great man. And his genius, that innovatory force of his, that infinite adaptability, that inexhaustible scenic faculty which he possessed, that intuition into the necessity of change, was, after all, a genius of thin and threadbare quality. Can we point to a single masterpiece produced by Goldoni? After allowing the sediment to settle down of his prolific works and various experiments, can we select any one play which bears the stamp of the supreme master? I think not. I shrink from placing Goldoni, as a peer, in the company of Shakespeare, Molière, Calderon, and Schiller. But, while saying this, it is impossible to deny his actual achievement. It is impossible not to recognise the honest motives which prompted him to copy Nature's book. That was his great discovery; and that keeps the memory of Goldoni ever green among us. He saw that Nature had to be loved and studied and followed by the artist. He discerned this luminous point in a period befogged by prejudice, tradition, pedantry, conventionality, subservience to antiquated humours and insurgent eccentricities. It was not Goldoni's fault that birth and fortune denied him those higher capacities and favourable openings which might have made his art-work monumental. His genial, shifty, pliable, and yet persistent personality was forced to humour obstacles and to fawn on circumstance. As an inevitable consequence, his productions are mediocre and unsatisfactory. Mediocrity of talent and of character is stamped upon his plays, and self-revealed in his good-humoured Memoirs. But what confounds criticism is that this mediocrity in the man and his equipment was combined with undeniable originality. His genius, though not of the purest water, was genuine. He had a correct perception of the requirements of his age, a clear intuition into the practical possibilities of the dramatic art he handled, and a vivid consciousness of the ground-principle that no artist can afford to lose sight of reality in practice. What would Goldoni not have been, we say, after summing up the survey of his qualities, had he been gifted with a finer fibre, a wider range of knowledge, a deeper philosophy, a more robust temper, a poetic talent equal to the task of externalising his just perceptions in forms of meditated art? As it is, he presents the curious spectacle of a man born to inaugurate a new epoch, but without the faculty to impose his own ideal successfully upon his contemporaries. The general public acclaimed him, and understood his aims. But the aristocrats of literature were able to inflict telling blows in their fight against him. We, who stand aloof, when all the dust of that conflict has subsided, see that Goldoni really won the day. It is only to be regretted that a champion of such small dimensions, soft heart, and feeble sinews, was commissioned to effect the revolution.

III.

Goldoni's instinct led him by an irresistible bias to the stage. He vainly attempted to form himself for the more lucrative profession of the law. During his youth he studied at a college in Pavia, but was expelled for giving free vent to his literary propensities in satire. He practised as an advocate at the Venetian bar, practised at Pisa in the same capacity, acted as Genoese Consul at Venice. Still though he courted Themis, his real predilections drew him toward Thalia. The first piece which revealed his leading talent was a comedy in outline; _Il Gondoliere Veneziano_, represented at Milan in 1733. In the next year he produced a painfully bad tragedy at Verona entitled _Belisario_. Several pieces of a mixed character, between comedy and tragedy, followed. Yet he had not taken to the theatre as a profession; and it was not until the year 1746, when he joined the comic company of Medebac, at Leghorn, in the capacity of their paid playwright, that he entered definitely upon the career of author for the stage.

During the years when Goldoni was thus wavering between law and literature, he attempted many kinds of dramatic composition--operettas for music, tragedies, tragi-comedies, farces, _scenari_ for improvised comedies, and comedies of which the dialogue was partly written. His facile talent adapted itself to every style in turn. All this while he recognised that his strength lay neither in the direction of poetry nor in that of serious drama. Nature had bestowed on him a genius for comedy; and he felt born to educate Italian taste in that species. We have already seen how deeply he deplored the degeneration of the _Commedia dell' Arte_; and yet some of his pieces had been performed by the best improvisatory actors then alive, Sacchi the famous Truffaldino, and Darbes the no less celebrated Pantalone.

While scribbling Harlequinades, Goldoni never lost sight of the reform he had long meditated; and this was to substitute written comedies of character, in the style of Molière and the ancients, for the old comedies _all' improvviso_. But he saw the necessity of proceeding cautiously. On the one hand, he had to consider the adherents of the elder style. On the other hand, he was forced to humour the comedians, who were jealous of changes which increased their dependence upon professional playwrights.[61] Accordingly, he advanced with circumspection. In the _Momolo Cortesan_, which he composed for the Pantalone of Sacchi's company (a certain Golinetti), only the leading part was written. The rest was left to improvisation. Nevertheless, this piece was constructed on different principles from those which governed the _Commedia dell' Arte_. It aimed at being a comedy of character; and thus Goldoni hoped by gradual steps to wean his actors from their bad old ways. Copying his mistress Nature, he saw that nothing could be done _per saltum_. It was necessary to prepare transitions, and to pass through the development of imperfect species to the exhibition of the type he had in view. This seems to have been the principle on which he acted. But Goldoni was so pliable and easy-going, so apt to take the cue from casual suggestions offered to his versatile ability, that he frequently lost sight of this leading principle. His Muse wore Harlequin's robe of many colours, and assumed the mask while waiting to effect the meditated revolution. This indecision at the commencement of his career exposed him to Gozzi's piratical attacks, and exercised, I think, a prejudicial influence over his subsequent career as playwright. But it was not in the character of the man to act otherwise. He could not divest himself of ready sympathy, fluency, and genial adaptability to the circumstances in which he was placed from time to time. Some natures are destined to achieve their ends by condescension. Goldoni's was essentially a nature of this kind. And the fact remains that, amid all his excursions into regions alien from his purpose, he kept one aim in view and finally achieved it. What survives of solid in his work, is the select series of plays produced upon the lines of the reform he calculated.

It was at Pisa in 1746 that the _Capocomico_ Medebac induced Goldoni to join his troupe. The proposal was that a theatre at Venice should be hired for five or six years, and that Goldoni should dedicate his whole talents to the composition of plays. Sufficiently good pecuniary offers were made; for it seems that each comedy was paid at the rate of thirty sequins, or about £12 sterling. Goldoni accepted. Then travelling with his new partners by the road through Modena, he reached Venice in July 1747. His first venture, with a play called _Tognetto_ or _Tonino bela grazia_, was a failure. A couple of pathetic pieces which followed, won more favour with the public. Darbes, whom Goldoni learned to appreciate and use with excellent effect, seconded his efforts admirably; and in 1748 circumstances seemed propitious for attempting the long-cherished scheme of a revolution in the theatre. Accordingly he wrote the _Vedova Scaltra_, which is distinctly a comedy of character. It was performed during the carnival season of 1749, and was received with intelligent sympathy by the Venetians. This induced Goldoni to pursue the course he had begun. _La Putta Onorata_ obtained a similar success, and met with emphatic approval from the gondolier class, whose sentiments and manners had been studied in its composition. Goldoni's novelties had by this time roused the jealousy of rivals and the opposition of Conservatives. A parody of the _Vedova Scaltra_ appeared at the theatre of S. Samuele. This was clever enough, and scurrilous enough, to attract attention. Goldoni received a check in mid-career, which became serious when the Carnival of 1749 closed with the total failure of a new piece from his pen, _L'Erede Fortunata_. Upon this occasion, stung to the quick, and piqued in his self-esteem, with the sense of his own inexhaustible and facile forces rendering the hazard light, Goldoni publicly declared his intention of producing sixteen new comedies within the next twelve calendar months.

He kept his promise, but at a considerable cost both to his position as playwright and his health. With the general public, the man's indomitable pluck, his good-humour, and the variety of subjects treated in his famous sixteen plays, created an indescribable enthusiasm. The end of the Carnival, 1750, brought well-earned laurels to Goldoni, together with the good-will of the fickle multitude. But unforgiving enemies, the supporters of the old drama, the literary purists, and the Conservatives who could not stomach sentimental comedies, were watching him with Argus eyes. In the heat of volcanic combustion, he had thrown up cinders and rubbish along with several felicitous and brilliant works of art. The worst of his performances were remembered and scored up against him by critics like Carlo Gozzi. The best were confounded in one plausible condemnation.

_Illustrating the Italian Commedia dell' Arte, or Impromptu Comedy_]

From this point forward for the next six years Goldoni met with no formidable opposition, except from a rival playwright. The man in question was the Abbé Chiari, a relic of the seventeenth century, pompous and bombastic in style, a blatant member of the Arcadian Academy, a bastard brother of Pindar in the matter of mixed metaphors and wild Icarian flights, a prolific scribbler of melodramatic pieces in rhymed Martellian verses,[62] and, after all his qualifications are summed up, a mere pretentious windbag. Chiari caught the public ear. Venice divided itself into factions for Chiari and Goldoni. On a smaller scale, the Bononcini and Handel conflicts of London, the Gluck and Piccini riots of Paris, were repeated. The most damaging feature of this contest for Goldoni, was that Chiari, less gifted with originality, aped each of his new inventions. Against Goldoni's _Pamela Nubile_ Chiari brought out a _Pamela Maritata_, against his _Avventuriere Onorato_ an _Avventuriere alla Moda_, against his _Padre per Amore_ an _Inganno Amoroso_, against his _Molière_ a _Molière marito geloso_, against his _Terenzio_ a _Plauto_, against his _Sposa Persiana_ a _Schiava Chinese_, against his _Filosofo Inglese_ a _Filosofo Veneziano_, against his _Scozzese_ a _Bella Pellegrina_. In spite of their mutual hostility, this game of battledore and shuttlecock between Chiari and Goldoni enabled the literary Conservatives to regard both playwrights as flying under one flag. But before the Granelleschi opened fire in earnest, Venetian society continued for five years to be pretty equally divided in its sympathies. The best judges sided with Goldoni, while Chiari's glaring faults, which passed for brilliant qualities with the vulgar, won him numerous admirers. Carlo Gozzi has described this state of contention:[63]

"I partigiani ogni giorno crescevano,
Chi vuole _Originale_ et chi _Saccheggio_;
Tutto il paese a romore mettevano,
Sicchè la cosa non è da motteggio.
Nelle case i fratelli contendevano,
Le mogli co' mariti facean peggio,
In ogni loco acerba è la tenzone,
Tutto è scompiglio, tutto è dissensione."

IV.

The Granelleschi, in their zeal for sound literature, were justly enraged against the ranting, arrogant, bombastic Chiari. Although the more discreet Academicians, men like Gasparo Gozzi, recognised Goldoni's merits, they resented his slovenly and slipshod style. Carlo Gozzi, less tolerant and far more satirical than his elder brother, confounded both poets in a common loathing. This was obviously unfair to Goldoni, who, whatever his faults of diction may have been, ranked immeasurably higher than the Abbé. But Goldoni was guilty of an unpardonable sin in Gozzi's eyes. He had declared war against the _Commedia dell' Arte_, for which Gozzi entertained the partiality of one who was himself an excellent impromptu actor. The other reasons of this bitter hatred are sufficiently explained in those chapters of the Memoirs which describe the beginning of his career as playwright.

At last Gozzi thought the time had come for striking a decisive blow.[64] The Granelleschi professed sincere admiration for an obscure burlesque Florentine poet of the fifteenth century called Burchiello. Taking some of this man's enigmatical sentences for prophecies, Gozzi compiled a sort of comic almanac, in which the various woes impending over Venice in the year 1756 were described. It was entitled _La Tartana degl' Influssi per l'anno bisestile_ 1756,[65] and was modelled upon an almanac for country-folk, published at Treviso under the name of a certain Schieson.[66] For each quarter of the year a _capitolo_ in _terza rima_ was written, and a prophecy in octave stanzas was dedicated to each month. Although the _Tartana_ contained satires upon society in general, a considerable part was directed specially against Chiari and Goldoni. The introductory address to the readers strikes the keynote. The month of February deals with comedies, the month of November with Martellian verses, and the month of December invokes the speedy return of Sacchi and his company of masks from Portugal. Finally, in the sonnet addressed to the bookseller at the end of the book, the two poets are mentioned by name. Gozzi declared himself an implacable enemy of the plays in vogue, an opponent of rhymed verses imitating the French Alexandrine measure, and a zealous adherent of the old _Commedia dell' Arte_. The prophecy with regard to Sacchi's company was speedily fulfilled; for the earthquake of Lisbon happening in 1755, they were obliged to quit the scene of that lugubrious disaster. Soon after their return to Venice, Gozzi appears to have courted their friendship. This we gather from the _Canto Ditirambico de'Partigiani del Sacchi Truffaldino_ which he published in 1761.[67]

Irritated by the _Tartana degli Influssi_, Goldoni, who usually kept silence under literary attacks, took up the pen and wrote as follows:[68]--

"Ho veduta stampata una Tartana
Piena di versi rancidi sciapiti,
Versi da spaventare una befana,
Versi dal saggio imitator conditi
Con sale acuto della maladicenza,
Piena di falsi sentimenti arditi;
Ma conceder si può questa licenza
A chi in collera va colla fortuna,
Che per lui non ha molta compiacenza.
Chi dice mal senza ragione alcuna,
Chi non prova gli assunti e gli argomenti,
Fa come il can che abbaia alla luna."

I have transcribed these verses for several reasons; first, that my readers may judge for themselves of Goldoni's poetical style; secondly, because the last six lines profoundly irritated Gozzi; and thirdly, because they engaged him in the production of his first semi-dramatic pasquinade upon their author.

We need not describe the battle of sonnets, squibs, and pamphlets which raged after the appearance of Gozzi's _Tartana_. The Granelleschi were now committed to crush their antagonists; and they spared no pains to do so. Men of birth and parts condescended to the filthiest ribaldry and the most savage personalities. On the whole, it must be allowed that the Granelleschi displayed superior wit and style. Gozzi, in particular, showed real powers for burlesque satire in his _Marfisa Bizzarra_; and some of his occasional pieces are composed with a terseness and directness worthy of the classical age of Florentine literature. Goldoni replied from time to time, but feebly. In a poem entitled _La Tavola Rotonda_, he described his formidable antagonist as:[69]

"Un Lombardo che affetta esser cruscante
Col riso in bocca e col veleno in petto."

This seems to me a fair, if somewhat pungent, description of Carlo Gozzi, who, in spite of his theoretical purism, rarely succeeded in writing with correctness or distinction, and who veiled a really caustic temper under the mask of Democritean philosophy. Touching upon the charges brought against himself of being neither a scholar nor a poet, Goldoni admits their truth with frankness:[70]

"Pur troppo io so che buon scrittor non sono
E che ai fonti miglior non ho bevuto;
Qual mi detta il mio stil scrivo e ragiono,
E talor per fortuna ho anch' io piaciuto;
Ma guai a me se il fiorentin frullone
A sceverare i scritti miei si pone."

Strong in the unwavering appreciation of the public, and confident in his own powers, Goldoni could afford to make this concession to his antagonist. But it argued a generous and modest mind, different in quality from Gozzi's.

Meanwhile Gozzi took up the glove of defiance thrown down by Goldoni in his _Tavola Rotonda_. A sonnet referring to that poem contains these lines:[71]

"Ma acciò s'abbia a decidere
S'io dissi il ver, sto facendo un comento,
Che proverà l'assunto e l'argomento."

This _Comento_ led Gozzi eventually to the production of his _Fiabe_. But a step or two remained to be taken before Gozzi resolved to meet Goldoni on his own ground, the theatre.

He began by circulating a satirical piece entitled _Il Teatro Comico all' Osteria del Pellegrino tra le mani degli Accademici Granelleschi_, or "The Comic Theatre at the Inn of the Pilgrim, rough-handled by the Granelleschi." Gozzi's Memoirs contain a sufficient description of this satire, which still exists in MS. at the Marcian Library. They also explain why he withdrew it from publication at the request of his friend Farsetti and Goldoni's patron Count Widman. Therefore it is not necessary to discuss it here in detail: yet the meaning of the title may be pointed out. Goldoni had already produced a comedy, called _Il Teatro Comico_, setting forth his views regarding the reform of the drama.[72] Gozzi, alluding to this play, undertakes to expose the faults of Goldoni's own theatrical writings. The satire is conceived in the broad spirit of Aristophanic or Rabelaisian humour, and is really a masterpiece in its kind. We feel for the first time that Gozzi has found his proper sphere by the breadth of handling, the free play of humour, and the precision of touch, which reveal an inborn dramatic faculty. The unmasking of the vociferous four-faced monster which caricatured Goldoni, is eminently fit for scenical effect. While reading, we seem to be present at a new act in Jonson's _Poetaster_. The four mouths of the four-faced mask represent the four kinds of dramas written by Goldoni--his early harlequinades and _scenari_, his domestic comedy of the pathetic species, his heroic and Oriental melodramas, and his transcripts from Venetian life. A fifth mouth, the mouth in the belly, _la veridica bocca dell' epa_, as Gozzi terms it, utters Goldoni's personal aims and views, as Gozzi chose brutally to interpret them. This truthful witness confesses that all the four mouths of the masked head were subservient to its carnal needs. _Quis expedivit psittaco suum_ [Greek: chaire]?... _Magister artis ingenîque largitor, Venter negatas artifex sequi voces._ "Who taught the parrot his word of welcome? That master of art and liberal dispenser of genius, the belly." That motto from the prologue to Persius' book of satires might be inscribed on the title-page of Gozzi's pasquinade. The blow inflicted, in a literal and metaphorical sense, below the belt, was unworthy of a gentleman. It betrayed Gozzi's critical insensibility to Goldoni's actual merits. It exhibited his aristocratic contempt for professional literature, combined with his comedian's readiness to take advantage of a powerful opponent. But it also revealed a literary athlete capable of striking home, and whose method of attack was certain to be formidable.

Goldoni bowed beneath the storm, and used his influence to withhold the sanguinary satire from further publicity. At this point Gozzi showed the courtesy which might have been expected from a man of his quality. He dropped the point of his weapon at his antagonist's request, and prepared himself to meet the playwright on his own ground. In fairness to Gozzi, it is necessary to observe that this resolution indicated no small amount of chivalry and courage. Goldoni was the idol of the public. He kept continually pointing to the concourse which crowded the Venetian theatres when a new piece from his pen was advertised. Gozzi was unpractised in play-writing, a man in his fortieth year, and the dramatic card on which he staked his luck might well be considered hazardous. What that card was we shall presently discover.

Chiari, involved in the same warfare with the Granelleschi, had hitherto preserved a discreet silence. Now he defied them to produce a play. Gasparo Gozzi answered with a sonnet, which betrays his personal leaning toward Goldoni. Then Chiari resolved to make common cause with his old rival on the stage. This shows how the dropping fire of the Academicians had told upon their opponents. The Abbé addressed Goldoni as _degnissimo comico vate, poeta amico_, most worthy master of comedy, my good poet friend. Goldoni reciprocated the compliment with _vate sublime, vate immortale_, sublime, immortal bard. Not without a touch of concealed irony, he compared himself to Chiari in this lyric flight:[73]

"Si, tu sei l'aquila,
Io la formica;
Tu voli all' apice
Senza fatica,
Mia Musa ai cardini
Salir non sa."

We trace in these verses Goldoni's perfect clarity of vision regarding his own powers, and his good-humoured indulgence of other people's foibles. He recognised the practical advantage of an alliance with Chiari. At the same time he disclaimed all honours for himself, and gently ridiculed his new ally's pretensions.

Chiari had defied the Granelleschi to produce a comedy. Goldoni had taken up his stand upon the popularity of his own plays. Carlo Gozzi conceived the bold idea of writing a fantastic drama upon the old lines of the _Commedia dell' Arte_, which should fill the theatre of his adoption and restore Sacchi's company to favour. If he succeeded, both Chiari and Goldoni would be hit with the same stone. This was the real origin of the celebrated _Fiabe Teatrali_. But before engaging in the attempt, Gozzi looked about for a suitable subject. Nothing, he calculated, would floor his antagonists more thoroughly than the exhibition of a dramatised nursery tale by impromptu actors. Therefore, in the spirit of a burlesque duellist, in the true spirit of Don Quixote, he composed his _Amore delle Tre Melarancie_.

These facts about the genesis of Gozzi's _Fiabe_ need to be insisted on, since French and German critics have distorted the truth. They regard Gozzi as a romantic playwright, gifted with innate genius for a peculiar species of dramatic art. According to this theory, the _Fiabe_ were produced in order to manifest an ideal existing in their author's brain. Minute attention to Gozzi's Memoirs, his explanatory Essays (Opere, vols. i. and iv.), and the preface appended to each _Fiaba_, shows, on the contrary, that he began to write the _Fiabe_ with the simple object of answering a certain challenge in the most humorous way he could devise. He continued them with a didactic purpose. His keen sagacity and profound knowledge of the Venetian public led him possibly to anticipate success. Yet he knew that the attempt was perilous; and he made it, without obeying preconceived principles, without yielding to any imperative instinct, but solely with the view of giving Chiari and Goldoni a sound thrashing.

If it is worth while studying Gozzi and the _Fiabe_ at all, this point has so much importance that I may be permitted to resume the history of his literary conflict with the two poets. Gozzi opened fire with the _Tartana_ in 1756. Goldoni retorted that he had only made himself ridiculous; unless he proved both his assumption and his argument, he was nothing better than a dog barking at the moon. Gozzi then declared that he was already engaged in the production of a commentary. This circulated in MS. under the form of a satire called the _Teatro Comico_. Meanwhile Goldoni parried all attacks by pointing to his popularity, and Chiari openly defied the Granelleschi to write a comedy, instead of condemning the plays in vogue. Finally Gozzi, who had become intimately acquainted with the actors in Sacchi's company, resolved to write a _scenario_, which should rehabilitate the _Commedia dell' Arte_, parody both Chiari and Goldoni, attract the public in crowds, and prove that a mere fairy tale, treated with romantic gusto, was capable of arousing no less interest than the works of professional playwrights following new-fangled models. The _Amore delle Tre Melarancie_, produced at the end of January in 1761, rather more than four years after the appearance of the _Tartana_, was the result.

It is mistaken to suppose that Gozzi was animated by the enthusiasm of a literary innovator. The _Fiabe_, in spite of their fantastic form, were the work of an aristocratical Conservative, bent on striking a shrewd blow for the _Commedia dell' Arte_, which he considered to be the special glory of the Italian race. In this respect, we might call Gozzi the Venetian Aristophanes.[74] The _Fiabe_ were his "Clouds," and "Birds," and "Wasps." Goldoni and Chiari were his Euripides and Agathon; perverters of the good old comedy by vulgar realism, false pathos, and meretricious rhetoric. Rousseau, Voltaire, Helvetius, the French _philosophes_, were his Socrates and Sophists. His art was the expression, not of creative instinct evoking a new type of drama merely for its beauty and romance, but of a militant, sarcastic mind, imbued with the ironical literature of the sixteenth century. Gozzi had little in common with Shakespeare. Truffaldino is no twin-brother of King Lear's fool, nor is Brighella cousin to the grave-digger in _Hamlet_. These personages belong to the family of masks, whose pedigree dates from immemorial antiquity in Italy. The element of fable, as Gozzi repeatedly informs us, was first adopted by him out of sheer bravado to maintain a certain thesis, viz., that whole nations could be made to laugh and cry over puerilities, when handled with the judgment of a master. Gozzi's true ancestors in art were the Florentine burlesque poets, notably Luigi Pulci. The blending of magic, phantasy, broad comedy and serious tragic interest in the _Fiabe_ allies them to the _Morgante Maggiore_ far more closely than to Marlowe's _Doctor Faustus_. In them, therefore, we observe the curious literary phenomenon of what at first sight appears to be spontaneous romantic art, but what is really the result of satirical and didactic intention. The preface to _L'Augellino Belverde_, in which Gozzi takes leave of the _Fiabe_, clearly explains the case.[75] "I addressed myself to the task of arousing great popular enthusiasm by a _tour de force_ of fancy; and at the same time I wished to cut short the series of my dramatic pieces, from which I derived no profit, and the burden of producing which was beginning to weigh heavily upon me. Besides, it seemed to me that I had fully achieved the end I had proposed to myself from the outset, in the indulgence of the purest capricious and poetical punctilio." _Punctilio_ was the parent of the _Fiabe_.

At this point I shall introduce a translation of _L'Amore delle Tre Melarancie_. There are several reasons for doing so. First, although it only exists For us in the _compte rendu_ of the author, and is therefore a description rather than a literal _scenario_, a very good idea can be gained from it of the directions given by a poet to extempore actors. Secondly, it shows the four Venetian masks, Pantalone, Tartaglia, Truffaldino, and Brighella, in action, together with the _servetta_ Smeraldina. Thirdly, it is interesting for the light thrown upon Gozzi's controversy with the two poets in the critical observations he has interspersed. These I shall enclose in brackets, so that the _scenario_ of the play may be distinguished from extraneous matter.

V.

A REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS

OF THE FABLE ENTITLED

THE LOVE OF THE THREE ORANGES.

_A Dramatic Representation divided into Three Acts._[76]