Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/438

418 DRAMA [ITALIAN. military braggart who owed his origin both to Plautus 1 and to the Spanish officers who abounded in the Italy of those days. The popular character-comedy, a relic of the ancient Atellanes, likewise took a new lease of life and this in a double form. The improvised comedy (commedla a soyetto) was now as a rule performed by professional actors, members of a craft, and was thence called the commedla mrnedia dell aiie, which is said to have been invented by Francesco 1 arte. (called Terenziano) Cherea, the favourite player of Leo X. Its scenes, still unwritten except in skeleton (scenario), were connected together by the ligatures or links (lazzi) of the arlecchiiio, the descendant of the ancient Roman sannio (whence our zany}. Harlequin s summit of glory was pro bably reached early in the 17th century, when he was ennobled in the person of Cecchino by the Emperor Matthias ; of Cecchino s successors Zaccagnino and Truffaldino, we read that &quot; they shut the door in Italy to sked g 0oc l harlequins.&quot; Distinct from this growth is that of y* the masked comedy, the action of which was chiefly carried on by certain typical figures in masks, speaking in local dialects, 2 but which was not improvised, and indeed from the nature of the case hardly could have been. Its inventor was A. Beolco of Padua, who called himself ItiuKaute (joker), and who published six comedies in various dialects, including the Greek of the day (1530). This was the masked comedy to which the Italians so tenaciously clung, and in which, as all their own and imitable by no other nation, they took so great a pride that even Goldoni was unable to overthrow it. ly Meanwhile the Latin imitations of Roman, varied by occasional translations of Greek, comedies early led to the iedv production of Italian translations, several of which were performed at Ferrara in the 15th century, and before its close to the composition of what is regarded as the first original Italian comedy in other words, as the first of the modern drama. But the claim to this honour of Boiardo s Timoiie (before 1494) is doubtful not in time, 3 but be cause this play is only in part original, being founded upon, and in a great measure taken from, a dialogue of Lucian s ; since moreover its personages are abstractions, it repre sents at most the transition from the moralities. The &quot; first Italian comedy in verse,&quot; Ricchi s / Tre Tiranni (before 1530), is likewise a morality, and Trissino s comedy, which followed, a mere adaptation of the MenaecJimi of Plautus. About this time, however, the commedia erudita, or scholarly comedy, began to be cultivated by a succession of eminent writers, among whom the title of the father of modern comedy, if it belongs to any man, belongs iosto. to Ariosto (1474-1533). His comedies (though the first two were originally written in prose) are in blank verse, to which he gave a singular mobility by the dactylic ending of the line (sdrucciolo). Ariosto s models were the master pieces of the palliata, and his morals those of his age, which equalled those of the worst days of ancient Rome or 1 Pyrgopolinices in the Miles Gloriosus. - The masked characters, each of which spoke the dialect of the place he represented, were (according to Baretti) Pantalone, n. Venetian merchant ; Dnttore, a Bolognese physician ; Spaviento, a Neapolitan braggadocio ; Pallicinella, a wag of Apulia ; Giangurgulo and Coviello, clowns of Calabria; Geljomino, a Roman beau; Brighella, a Ferrarese pimp; and Arlecchino, a blundering servant of Bergamo. Besides these and a few other such personages (of whom four at least appeared in each play), there were the Amorosos or Innamoratos, men or women (the latter not before 1560, up to which time actresses were unknown in Italy) with serious parts, and Smeraldina, Colombina, Spilletkt, and other servettas or waiting-maids. All these spoke Tuscan or Roman, and wore no masks. 3 Boiardo died in 1494, in or after which year Nardi s A micizia was written ; while Dovizio s (afterwards Cardinal of Bibbiena) disreputable but entertaining Calandra, a prose comedy, which protests that it is not taken from Plautus, is thought to have -been composed not long before its representation in 1508. Byzantium in looseness, and surpassed them in effrontery. He chose his subjects accordingly; but his dramatic genius displayed itself in the effective drawing of char acter, 4 and more especially in the skillful manage ment of complicated intrigues. 5 Such, with an additional Other brilliancy of wit and lasciviousness of tone, are likewise c ie( li the characteristics of Machiavelli s (1469-1527) famous ^ t, !lc prose comedy, the Mandrayola (The Magic Draught); 6 and, ceu tury in their climacteric, of the plays of P. Aretino (1492-1557), especially the prose Marescalco, whose name, it has been said, ought to be written in asterisks. Other comedians of the IGth century were B. Accolti, whose Virginia (prob. before 1513) treats the story from Boccaccio which reappears in All s Well that Ends Well ; G. B. Araldo and J. Nardi, noteworthy as decent and moral in tone and tendency ; G. Cecchi, F. d Ambra, A. F. Grazzini, ISJ. Secco or Secchi, and L. Dolce all writers of romantic comedy of intrigue in verse or prose. During the same century the pastoral drama nourished The in Italy. The origin of this peculiar species which was ia*tora the bucolic idyll in a dramatic form, and which freely lent draina - itself to the introduction of both mythological and allegorical elements was purely literary, and arose directly out of the classical studies and tastes of the Renaissance. Its first example was the renowned scholar A. Poliziano s Orfeo (1472), which begins like an idyll and ends like a tragedy. Intended to be performed with music for the pastoral drama is the parent of the opera this beautiful work tells its story simply. N. da Correggio s (1450-1508) Cefalo, or Aurora, and others followed, before in 1554 A. Beccari produced, as totally new of its kind, his Arcadian pastoral drama II Sagrijhio, in which the comic element predominates. But an epoch in the history of the species is marked by the Aminta of Tasso (1573), in whose Arcadia is allegorically mirrored the Ferrara court. Adorned by choral lyrics of great beauty, it presents an allegorical treatment of a social and moral problem ; and since the con ception of the characters, all of whom think and speak of nothing but love, is artificial, the charm of the poem lies not in the interest of its action, but in the passion and sweetness of its sentiment. This work was the model of many others, and the pastoral drama reached its height of popularity in the famous Pastor Fido (written before 1590) of B. Guarini, which, while founded on a tragic love-story, introduces into its complicated plot a comic element, partly with a satirical intention. Thus, both in Italian and in other literatures, the pastoral drama became a distinct species, characterized like the great body of modern pastoral poetry in general by a tendency either towards the artificial or towards the burlesque. Its artificiality affected the entire growth of Italian comedy, including the commedia dell arte, and impressed itself in an intensi fied form upon the opera. (See OPERA). The foremost Italian masters of the last-named species, so far as it can claim to be included in the poetic drama, were A. Zeno (1668-1750) and P. Metastasio (1698-1782). The comic dramatists of the 17th century are grouped Corned as followers of the classical and of the romantic school, the 17i G. B. Porta and G. A. Cicognini (whom Goldoni describes &quot;&quot; uU ^ as full of whining pathos and common-place drollery, but as still possessing a great power to interest) being regarded as the leading representatives of the former. But neither of these largely intermixed groups of writers could, with all its fertility, prevail against the competition on the one hand of the musical drama, and on the other of the popular farcical entertainments and of those introduced in imita- 4 La Lena; II Negromante. 5 La Cassaria; I Suppositi. 6 Of Machiavelli s other comedies one is hi verse, the other two, free i adaptations from Plautus and Terence, are in prose.