Lorenzaccio is a French play of the Romantic period written by Alfred de Musset in 1834, set in

16th-century Florence, and depicting Lorenzino de' Medici, who killed Florence's
tyrant, Alessandro de' Medici, his cousin.[1] Having engaged in debaucheries to gain the Duke's
confidence, he loses the trust of Florence's citizens, thus earning the insulting surname
"Lorenzaccio". Though he kills Alessandro, he knows he will never return to his former state.
Since opponents to the tyrant's regime fail to use Alessandro's death as a way to overthrow the
dukedom and establish a republic, Lorenzo's action does not appear to aid the people's welfare.
Written soon after the July revolution of 1830, at the start of the July Monarchy, when
King Louis Philippe I overthrew King Charles X of France, the play contains many cynical
comments on the lack of true republican sentiments in the face of violent overthrow. The play
was inspired by George Sand's Une conspiration en 1537, in turn inspired by Varchi's chronicles.
As much of Romantic tragedy, including plays by Victor Hugo, it was influenced by William
Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Summary[edit]

Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence, aided by Lorenzo de' Medici, takes away a girl under
her brother's nose. He wishes to complain to the duke, but it is the duke who is taking her away.
In Lorenzaccio's palace, his uncle Bindo Altoviti and Venturi, a gentleman, wish to know from
Lorenzaccio whether he will join their conspiracy against the duke. But when the duke, as
suggested by his cousin, offers them a promotion and privileges, despite their republican talk,
they immediately accept. Alessandro serves as model for a portrait, when Lorenzaccio takes his
coat of mail and throws it in a well. One of the duke's men, Salviati, covered in blood, appears,
saying that Pietro Strozzi and his brother, Tomaso, attacked him. The duke orders their arrest, so
that the Strozzi family are up in arms to free them. Lorenzaccio plans to seduce Catherine.
Meanwhile, Pietri and Tomaso are freed and learn of their sister's death by poison at the hands of
Salviati's servant. The cardinal of Cibo scolds his sister-in-law for not being able to hold her
lover for more than three days. Unheeding his appeal to return to him, she reveals to her husband
her adultery with the duke. The night he proposes to kill his cousin, Lorenzaccio warns
noblemen to prepare for revolt, but none of them believe he'll do it. The cardinal warns the duke
of Lorenzaccio, but he dismisses his warnings and follows his cousin to his bedroom, where
Lorenzaccio kills him. Cosimo de' Medici is elected as the new duke. With the duke dead, the
Strozzi conspiracy does not achieve anything, nor are republican sentiments heard of, except for
some massacred students. Lorenzaccio is assassinated and the cardinal gives the ducal crown to
Cosimo de' Medici on behalf of Pope Paul III and Emperor Charles V.

Alfred de Musset himself divided his theater into three distinct categories: comédies, proverbes,
and historical drama. The bulk of the plays fall under the rubric of “comedies,” with The Follies
of Marianne, Fantasio, No Trifling with Love, and Il ne faut jurer de rienheading the list in terms
of critical and popular esteem. The so-called proverbe dramatique was a one-act form inherited
from the eighteenth century (originating in family and salon theatricals) in which the action was
devised to illustrate a well-known aphorism. Musset, typical of his refusal to dismiss summarily
the literary and dramatic inheritance of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (a repudiation
common among romantic writers and propagandists), adapted and enlarged the scope of the
form, perfecting it in such plays as A Caprice, A Door Must Be Either Open or Shut, and One
Can Not Think of Everything. Of the final category, historical drama, there are only two
examples, both of whose subjects are drawn from the late Italian Renaissance: André del
Sarto and Lorenzaccio. Of his dramatic oeuvre, the four plays written in the span of two years,
1833 and 1834, The Follies of Marianne, Fantasio, No Trifling with Love, and Lorenzaccio, are
now generally acknowledged as Musset’s finest and most enduring contributions to dramatic
literature.

Theoretical pronouncements regarding the nature of drama abounded in early nineteenth century
France, but the age, active as it was in actual composition of new plays, left relatively little in the
way of a viable repertory. Musset, however, was no theorist. He did not leave behind any
manifestos à la Hugo, nor did he intend to bequeath a body of dramatic literature conceived for
stage production. The disastrous premiere of The Venetian Night had turned his attention to the
composition of plays meant to be enjoyed exclusively as literature. In part because he created
those plays in a condition of freedom from the demands and limitations of produced drama, as
his age conceived it, Musset generally avoided the pitfalls and shortcomings which, in retrospect
at least, damaged the viability of the theater of his contemporaries. Moreover, it was Musset’s
closet drama that most successfully realized romantic conceptions of and aspirations for drama,
particularly the desire to revive a Shakespearean theater that comingled tragic, comic, and
fantastic elements. Without necessarily intending it, Musset was in the avant-garde in the most
significant sense: He was a visionary capable of realizing theory in actual artistic practices.

Whatever freedom Musset displayed in matters of theory and dramatic construction, in terms of
thematic concern his theater remained loyal to the great concerns of the romantic stage.
Particularly characteristic is Musset’s examination of the place and the role of the man of
imagination (the artist) in society and of the disparity between the ideal and the real, between
what is aspired to and what is achieved. Even more idiosyncratic is the “youth-oriented”
perspective of much of Musset’s theater. It has often been remarked apropos of Musset’s verse
that his great overriding theme is the perpetually reiterated drama of youth: the fears of
approaching adulthood and responsibility and a sense of the impending betrayal of youth’s
idealism and energy. Where in the poetry, however, there is a tendency toward the puerile and
the mawkishly sentimental, in the plays, Musset seems to have discovered the most effective
medium for the exploration of his views on this theme. The very dialectical impulse inherent in
the nature of dramatic dialogue (one character speaks, another reacts) perhaps accounts for
Musset’s ability to avoid overly simplistic thematic statements while providing a sense
of irony that, at least to modern readers, seems a breath of fresh air for the romantic theater.

Critical investigation has been slow to appreciate and evaluate Musset’s achievement. Scholars
and theater literary managers alike hardly knew what to make of this “stage of dreams.” What
they sensed as inattention to the demands of actual production could be excused only because of
the literary aspirations of the plays; stageworthy they could not be. In modern times, however,
critical estimation and an ever-increasing number of appearances on the boards (in France) made
amends for tentative beginnings, and Musset has come to be generally considered the most
significant and innovative playwright of French Romanticism. In the best of his theater, Musset
realized many of the theoretical aspirations of dramaturgy in his day. Perhaps the most
significant of his achievements, however, was his sensitivity in depicting the darker recesses of
the human heart and mind, and his comprehension of and sympathy for the human condition.

Fantasio
Fantasio, first published in Revue des Deux Mondes in January of 1834, is the least performed of
the major comedies, and its production history is typical of the early fate of most of Musset’s
plays. The play first appeared at the Comédie-Française nine years after Musset’s death, revised
by the playwright’s brother, Paul, who tampered with the order of several scenes, expanded the
original two acts into three, and altered the nature of the relationship between Fantasio and
Elsbeth into something approaching a more conventional love interest. Both theatrical producers
and literary critics throughout the rest of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries mistook this
inept, structurally and spiritually unfaithful version for the original, and the play received little
serious consideration. It was not until later productions that the piece was performed using the
original text. Critics have additionally, and perhaps misguidedly, expended immense energy in
the examination of the play as a depiction of the author’s emotional and psychological state, a
habit characteristic of Musset criticism (admittedly amply generated by the author’s frequent
informal pronouncements on the relationship of his life and work).

The action is divided into two acts and occurs in Munich; the time is unspecified. In the first act,
the King of Bavaria has arranged a marriage of political convenience between his daughter,
Elsbeth, and the Prince of Mantua, a man personally unknown either to the king or to the
princess. An abrupt change of scene finds three young men carousing in the street, drinking and
discussing the forthcoming royal wedding. The youths are joined by a handsome young
companion, Fantasio, who immediately confesses to a state of spiritual and intellectual ennui. He
is not only pursued by his creditors but is also prey to a decidedly cynical perspective of the
world, in which both God and love are dead, and a life of true adventure is no longer possible.
Presently, a funeral procession passes by: It is for the king’s jester, Saint-Jean. A taunting remark
by one of the pallbearers provokes Fantasio to masquerade as a new jester for the court. In the
meantime, on his arrival at an inn outside the city, the Prince of Mantua confides to Marinoni, his
aide-de-camp, a scheme to switch roles and costumes in order to observe incognito his future
wife and father-in-law.

The second act opens with Elsbeth’s avowal of dismay at the arranged marriage and her sorrow
at the death of the beloved Saint-Jean. Fantasio appears in the palace gardens in the disguise of
the hunchbacked jester himself and engages the princess in a witty conversation, using the
traditional liberties of the jester’s role to comment disparagingly on arranged marriages. Later,
when Fantasio catches sight of her weeping, he decides to help Elsbeth out of her unfortunate
personal situation. Several scenes follow in which the prince and Marinoni so fumble their
assumed roles that they deeply offend the king and the princess. Fantasio stations himself in a
window, seizing the opportunity to snatch off the prince’s wig as he passes on the street below.
The enraged prince demands the jester’s imprisonment and declares war on Bavaria. When
Elsbeth visits Fantasio in prison, she discovers his true identity. In return for releasing her from
an unbearable personal situation, she frees the young man, promising to allow him to return as
jester whenever he tires of the everyday world of creditors and responsibility.

Fantasio has all the appearance of a whimsical potpourri of political satire, social commentary,
philosophy, sentiment, fantasy, and farce. There is an almost improvisational air created by the
rapid shifts of scene and the general absence of dramatic action. The very “weight” of the two
acts seems capricious: The first act is divided into three scenes, the second act into seven.
Moreover, the first act is almost entirely expository (the lengthy second scene functions
somewhat in the manner of a philosophical dialogue), and there is no real action until the second
act. In spite of its chameleonlike surface, the play is bound together by several features, notably
its delight in linguistic play and its obvious thematic emphasis on the concept of the self
(signaled by the costume switches and role reversals among the characters).

In the long scene of act 1, even before Fantasio has the inspiration for his change of roles, his
mind is clearly occupied by the philosophical implications of human role-playing and the
conflict between external appearances and internal reality:That gentleman passing by is
charming. Look at him: What lovely silk breeches! What delightful red flowers on his waistcoat.
. . . I am positive that that very man has a million ideas in his head which are absolutely foreign
to me: his essence is peculiar to him alone. Alas! everything men say to one another amounts to
the same thing; the ideas they propose are almost invariably identical from conversation to
conversation; but somewhere deep inside these individual machines, what creases, what hidden
crannies! Each man carries an entire world inside him. An unremarked...

Alfred de Musset established his reputation as a poet and was, in fact, best known as a poet
throughout the greater part of an artistic career of almost thirty years. It was not until 1847, with
the successful productions of A Caprice (a comedy published ten years earlier) in St. Petersburg
and at the Comédie-Française, that Musset began to enjoy comparable distinction as a dramatist.
Additionally, Musset published an extensive amount of fiction, most of it in the form of contes,
or tales, which are often full of wit and spirit but have fallen, perhaps undeservedly, into almost
total neglect. In 1836, Musset’s one major novel was published, the semiautobiographical La
Confession d’un enfant du siècle (The Confession of a Child of the Century, 1892). This work is
most notable for its vivid evocation of an era and its philosophical climate; the novel is a
striking, extended depiction of nineteenth century mal de siècle. Musset’s nondramatic canon is
rounded out by a number of often perceptive and forward-thinking critical reviews in the fields
of literature, music, and the visual arts.