Commedia dell'Arte, its Structure and

Tradition: Antonio Fava in conversation

with John Rudlin John Rudlin
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Commedia dell’Arte, its Structure
and Tradition

Commedia dell’Arte, its Structure and Tradition chronicles a series of

discussions between two renowned experts in commedia dell’arte –
master practitioners Antonio Fava and John Rudlin.
These discussions were recorded during three recent visits by
Fava to Rudlin’s rural retreat in south west France. They take in
all of commedia dell’arte’s most striking and enduring elements – its
masks, its scripts and scenarios, and most outstandingly, its cast of
­characters. Fava explores the role of each stock Commedia character
and their subsequent incarnations in popular culture, as well as their
roots in prominent figures of their time. The lively and wide-ranging
conversations also take in methods of staging commedia dell’arte for
contemporary audiences, the evolution of its gestures, and the collec-
tive nature of its theatre-making.
This is an essential book for any student or practitioner of ­commedia
dell’arte – provocative, expansive wisdom from the modern world’s
foremost exponent of the craft.

John Rudlin is the author of Commedia dell’Arte: An Actor’s Handbook

and Commedia dell’Arte: A Handbook for Troupes.

Antonio Fava is a world-renowned teacher, practitioner and scholar of

commedia dell’arte, based in Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Arlecchino is on trial. Le Docteur presides. Pulcinella stands ominously
behind the accused, dangling a large bunch of keys.
Commedia dell’Arte, its
Structure and Tradition
Antonio Fava in Conversation
with John Rudlin

John Rudlin and Antonio Fava

First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2021 John Rudlin and Antonio Fava
The right of John Rudlin and Antonio Fava to be identified as
authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance
with Sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
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the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
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A catalogue record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-64856-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-12660-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

eResource: www.routledge.com/9780367648565
For Dina, Trish
and theatre-makers and theatregoers everywhere
Contents

List of figures viii

Preface xi
Prologue xiii

1 The mask 1

2 The personnages 6

3 Performance location 35

4 The scenarios 38

5 Collective creation 41

6 Gestural evolution 43

7 Closed forms 49

8 Multilingualism 52

9 Anachronism 54

Appendix A: The Pulcinella Saga61

Appendix B: Il Pozzo66
Appendix C: The mystical mask69
Index 74
List of figures

Detail of an engraving of a scene from Colombine Avocat pour et

­contre in Le Théâtre Italien by Evaristo Gherardi, Brussels, 1697. The
engravings were made by Gabriel Huquier between 1729 and 1731 and
­published as Théâtre Italien. Livre des Scènes Comiques inventés par
Gillot.

1.1 Grande Zanni mask, from left to right: natural leather recently
made; natural leather darkened after several years of use;
natural leather blackened by many years of use. Atelier Fava.
This image can be seen in colour via the book’s eResource page
www.routledge.com/9780367648565. 2
1.2 Pantalone dancing in an inn: 17th century engraving by
unknown hand. 3
1.3 Pedrolino/Pierrot with back turned: engraving by Du Bosc,
after Watteau, 18th century. 5
2.1 Brighella: 17th-century engraving. 8
2.2 Arlecchino: engraving by Mitelli, 17th century. 11
2.3 Il Magnifico: engraving by Joullain, in Riccoboni,
Histoire du Théâtre Italien, 18th century. 13
2.4 Il Dottore: engraving by Joullain, in Riccoboni,
Histoire du Théâtre Italien, 18th century. 17
2.5 Arlecchino disguised as a doctor. Engraving by
Claude Gillot, 18th century. 20
2.6 A Bolognese Doctor. Lithograph, 19th century. 21
2.7 Angelo Constantini as Mezzettino. Acquatint by
Yves Barret, 19th century. 22
2.8 Francesco Andreini: engraving by A. Fiedler after the
fresco by Bernardino Poccetti, Church of the Santissima
Annunziata, Florence, in Comici Italiani by Luigi Rasi,
19th century. 24
 List of figures ix
2.9 Antonio Fava as Il Capitano Bellerofonte
Scarabombardone da Rocca di Ferro. 25
2.10 Pulcinelli cooking maccaroni: etching by F.G. Shmidt
from G.B. Tièpolo, 18th century. Grimaldi, Rome, 1899. 26
2.11 The last rites: Tartaglia as a notary at Pulcinella’s
deathbed, after Ghezzi. in Pulcinella e il Personaggio
del Napoletano in Commedia by Benedetto Croce. 32
6.1 Domenico Biancolelli as Arlecchino: engraving,
18th century. 44
9.1 Zanni skinheads: montage, Atelier Fava. 59
A.1 Antonio Fava as Pulcinella. 63
B.1 Antonio Fava as Pulcinella in Il Pozzo. 67

Engravings, acquatint and etching all from the Archivio Fava-

Buccino. Photographer: Marcello Fava.
Preface

‘It gets dark quite early in Reggio Emilia in August. The station
taxi-driver looks at me disbelievingly when I give him the name
of the student residence on the outskirts of town where I am
supposed to be staying for the next four weeks while attending
Antonio Fava’s summer course in commedia dell’arte. ‘Vacanza –
chiuso – clo-zed’ he says, but still takes me there, hoping perhaps
for a return fare to a cheap hotel. Sure enough, there isn’t a light
on, but I pay him off courageously and am standing forlornly in
the porch when suddenly a car pulls up, and a small, dark ball of
energy (later to be identified as Dina Buccino, Antonio’s partner
in life and work) says “quick, put your bags in here and jump in –
we’re going to see Antonio perform!”
At first sight, Reggio is not a very prepossessing town, espe-
cially when compared with the splendours of neighbouring Parma,
Bologna, and Ferrara. Prosciutto crudo (the pig population is
three times that of the human one), and Parmigiano Reggiano
are what it is famous for. But behind the rather blank facades
lie exquisite renaissance courtyards, and it was in one of those
that Antonio was performing. The concert had already started
and when we arrived and Antonio was providing comic interludes
between madrigals. Dressed in a baggy white tunic, he was asleep
– Zanni’s only relief from the primordial hunger that afflicts him
– alternately snoring and farting. All at once, train-lag vanished,
and it wasn’t dark any more: the irreverent elemental light of a
Commedia lazzo, this was what I had come for…
Next day, in intense heat and humidity, the course started.
Immediately one realised why the original 16th-century masks were
made of leather – they absorb your sweat. Not very hygienic, but
very practical. And practical is what we had to be: forty of us from
fourteen different countries, speaking eight different languages.’
xii Preface
I wrote the above as the opening of my programme note for Antonio’s
production of Love is a Drug for the Oxford Stage Company, which
toured England in 1995. The note records the beginning of a dialogue
which has continued up to the present day, with the following pages
comprising a further episode.
One of our subsequent encounters was when we shared a plat-
form together at the international conference ‘Crossing Boundaries:
Commedia dell’Arte Across Gender, Genre, and Geography’ in 2013
at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. I remember then allud-
ing to the Arab saying that a teacher is a candle that burns down so
that others might see, and Antonio vehemently denying that this was
the case with him. Then he later wrote to me to say that he was, how-
ever, scandalised by the systematic way in which some former students
have ‘stolen’ his work. He said he felt ‘cloned, copied, plagiarised’, and
that his teaching was often not even credited, the worst example is
that of an American student emailing his notes on each day’s teaching
for use in a simultaneous workshop back home. ‘And what do they
go on to do?’ he continued, ‘they invent a sort of ‘commedia’ that has
no other existence, is alien, idiotic, rotten at the core. The result is
the humiliation and amateurisation of a great historical phenomenon
which led to the creation of the modern professional actor. Ignored
today by theatres everywhere in the world, Commedia thus pays a
very dear dramatic price and finishes up in the hands of ignoramuses
and incompetents. I have a whole encyclopedia in my head about what
commedia dell’arte is and what it is not. If I took time just to write it
out, it would run to several volumes. Obviously, there wouldn’t be any
readers patient enough to take it all in, but it would be ideal if we could
eventually condense it into a single ‘conversational’ book.’
These conversations document the recorded discussions we had
at my home in Charente over three sessions lasting 2/3 days each
between 2017 and June 2019. Our language was French, which I have
subsequently translated into English, the lingua franca which Antonio
believes is vital to future world-wide study and development of the
form.
The illustrations are from Antonio’s personal collection; most have
never been published in an English edition.
The endnotes have been added post hoc, as have the appendices.
Translations and explanations in square brackets […] have also been
added later by me, often in consultation with Antonio.

John Rudlin
Prologue

JR: Here we are, then, eventually. What is our aim in these

conversations?
AF: To reconsider a kind of theatre that was once simply the theatre,
found more entertaining than any other kind and which, in con-
sequence, is being variously re-interpreted. In order to perform
commedia dell’arte one has an obligation to study the form from
its inception right up to the present day. I consider it to be a voca-
tion. Such consideration, incidentally, does not entail being a slave
to the past, but we’ll come on to that.
Let’s begin with the name: commedia dell’arte is a term first
used by the playwright Carlo Goldoni towards the end of the 18th
century and it is open to misinterpretation. The word ‘commedia’
itself simply means ‘theatre’ – of all kinds, not just ‘comedy’, and
the word ‘arte’ has nothing to do with ‘art’. The simplest translation
would be ‘professional’. A more meaningful overall nomenclature
would be the earlier ‘commedia mercenaria’, but ‘mercenary’ has
unfortunate overtones in other languages: here it just meant that
the plays were performed for money, i.e. professional. ‘Commedia
improvvisa’ is another earlier term and one which it might be pref-
erable to use today.
JR: In English, some scholars are now content to reduce the nomencla-
ture to just ‘Commedia’.
AF: As shorthand possibly. For me the word ‘Commedia’ on its own
would preferably be with reference to a particular scenario as per-
formed. For the form as a whole I still prefer the whole phrase.
Anyway, professional theatre is what we are talking about here, in
a form that has changed and developed throughout its existence,
but always on the basis of an underlying structure. It is that struc-
ture that I now want to insist upon. It is based on solid foundations
with the following pillars: the mask; the personnages; performance
xiv Prologue
location; the scenario; collective creation; gestural evolution;
closed forms; multilingualism and, finally, anachronisms.
JR: Let’s begin at the beginning…
AF: In the beginning there were only zannis, and what they performed
were called zannesca, comedie degli zanni, or zannata: zanni plays.
JR: How did they develop into the full form?
AF: 1560 enter the woman: it is she that imposes the mask as an object
on the fledging commedia dell’arte. And, if you invent Isabella, the
role of the attractive young woman, you must also invite on stage
Flavio, the handsome young man, who must not have his face
covered either. The female servant, furthermore, was required to
expose more than just her face. Who was left to wear the leather
mask, then? The old, the stupid and the grotesque. In the baroque
period there were definitively five Masks: the two old men, the
Magnifico (Pantalone) and the Doctor; the two male servants
(zannis) and the Captain, making, with the addition of the Lovers,
a company of seven. The old, the young, the servants and the
intruder. The Lovers could be reduplicated and there could also
be a servetta – a female servant, making a troupe of nine. As time
went by different actors changed the names in order to make a
name for themselves, but the tipi fissi [fixed types] remained basi-
cally the same.
Commedia dell’arte then dominated the European stage for
more than two centuries, but the thing which nearly killed it off,
like the huge meteorite which is supposed to have destroyed the
habitat of the dinosaurs, was the French revolution. What hap-
pened in Europe at that moment was precisely the same sort of
step-change: taste in art and all other cultural forms altered rad-
ically, first in France and then in monarchies throughout Europe
whose aristocrats did not want to find themselves following their
French counterparts to the scaffold. They preferred to change
their constitutions.
JR: So commedia dell’arte became a profession that one could no
longer profess to.
AF: It was inevitably a victim. Until then patronage had been extended
by royalty, by the aristocracy and even rich merchants to troupes
to be disbursed amongst individuals by mutual agreement, after
production and other costs had been met. In Italy the amounts
offered reflected a certain rivalry between Dukes, who each
wanted to boast of having the best company under their wing. The
Duke of Mantua was particularly magnanimous. That’s how the
Renaissance had developed: there were lots of little States whose
 Prologue xv
Dukes wanted to be the biggest, the best, the most beautiful. The
intensity of competition was incredible, not only in the beaux arts,
but also in the sciences. That is why the French revolution was
such a disaster: all that smacked of the Ancien Régime was swept
away by fear. Since la commedia dell’arte had always been pro-
tected and provided for by that régime, it now became necessary
for audiences to distance themselves from it. The exception was
in the South of Italy, where Pulcinella survived as he always has
done. There were new themes for him to explore, but he retained
the same identity.
JR: And, under various guises, commedia dell’arte also survived in the
Parisian foires… but that’s another story. Let’s go on to examine
your sense of structure, then.
1 The mask

AF: As an object the commedia dell’arte mask is a false countenance

made of leather. It is commonly thought that it was black, ab
origine, but this is not the case: it was of natural tan colour when
new, only becoming blackened with use and age. In the olden
days, performing in the open air or by candle-light, it might take
two or three generations of wear for a mask to blacken totally.
Furthermore, the mask-makers of the time did not have the means
to introduce different colours. With today’s stage illumination
by electricity, the darkening process is speeded up considerably,
and one also needs to introduce some subtlety of tone. When I
dye a mask that I have made, it is in anticipation of the hue that
the leather would have adopted after 10 years or so. Incidentally,
the comici dell’arte would never have requested a new mask to be
made black: a lot of servants were slaves at the time, but black
slaves had no place in commedia dell’arte. Ariane Mnouchkine
was quite wrong to make such a supposition.1
Furthermore, there is no evidence whatsoever for the misap-
prehension going round present-day mask-makers that Brighella’s
mask should be olive-green. Where the green supposition has
come from I do not know, but it is the kind of theorisation with
no historical basis in actual Commedia performance that I find
unacceptable. (See Figure 1.1)
JR: I think there’s been a mistranslation somewhere along the line.
‘Olivatre’ in French when referring to facial complexion would
perhaps be better rendered ‘sallow’ than ‘olivaceous’ in English.
AF: Even olive-brown due to the natural tanning process, but not
green. I repeat, as the leather ages, with temperature and sweat,
the mask passes through all the colours by which a white European
face is normally known. Green is not one of them. Commedia
mask-makers never made fantastical masks.
2 The mask

Figure 1.1 Grande Zanni mask*

*This image can be viewed in colour via the eResource link found in the preliminary
pages of this edition www.routledge.com/9780367648565 and on the book’s webpage on
Routledge.com.

JR: In the 18th century Brighella did acquire green frogging on his
costume…
AF: A green-faced Brighella is on my no-no list, and that’s that.
JR: I’m interested to discover what else you are going to put on your
no-no list…
AF: All in good time… It is not usually understood that the first
mask to be found in commedia dell’arte was make-up, that of
the infarinato, [literally ‘the enfloured one’, the white-faced fool].
His make-up was white2, heavily so, made popular again in the
19th century, particularly by the French Pierrots. In the early days
of playing in the street in the broad light of day, actors wanted to
show a face that was not their own: that of the character, not of the
actor. The white face also more readily enabled women’s parts to
be played by men, as was the tradition. (See Figure 1.2)
JR: Traces of the floured face can still be found in early cinema: the
Keystone Cops, Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd,
Stan Laurel, for example, Why?
AF: Because the principals needed to stand out from the crowd in both
cases – the sunlit streets of the Italian carnivals and the film lots
of Hollywood.
 The mask 3

Figure 1.2 Pantalone dancing in an inn

JR: And early black-and-white one and two-reelers were filmed

outdoors…
AF: Yes.
JR: …Hollywood becoming the movie-making centre it did because
of the exceptional quality of the light in the days before pollution.
But why then did those white-faced comici dell’arte end up wear-
ing the mask?
AF: The facial mask alone is not a sufficient disguise: the head needs
to be considered as a whole: the wig or hat, facial hair, the chin
below the half-mask line, the cheeks even in the case of the doc-
tor’s quarter-mask. Today there is a whole line of theatrical inves-
tigation, altogether modern, specific to our times, which is based
on the presumption that all you need is the mask and that if you
put it on, and little else in terms of dressing head or body – are
practically naked, in fact – it will dictate to you how your body
should behave. I’ve seen this several times on the internet as street
performance being practised in the name of commedia dell’arte;
it makes about as much sense as promenading naked except for a
pair of shoes.
4 The mask
JR: No-no list?
AF: No-no list. Inevitably, each time, the mask has been that of
Arlecchino; the actors, also inevitably, are young, with handsome,
good-looking bodies. But to take on a mask is a commitment for
life, a professional commitment. What are these youngsters going
to do when they grow older?
JR: They may be latter-day disciples of Etienne Decroux who worked
in just a loincloth.
AF: Ah, the tanga…. The most important disciples of Decroux are
Eugenio Barba of Odin Teatr and Jerzy Grotowski who developed
the idea of the corps plastique. But you can’t mix near nudity with
a mask on with Decroux’s gestuality and Grotowski’s plasticity
and claim the result to be commedia dell’arte. Commedia dell’arte
is much more precise, much less elastic, much less individually
expressive. It is a genre which exists within specific boundaries:
when we recognise those boundaries, we know where we are.
Form and content coincide.
JR: In commedia dell’arte you have to work with constriction, not
freedom. Pantalone’s Moroccan slippers, for example, have open
backs and pointed toes, obliging him to shuffle and even dance in
a particular way. (See Figure 1.2)
AF: And there’s also the fact that, in the expressive system of comme-
dia dell’arte, a mask never takes its clothes off. The costume is
part of the mask – in fact, the only non-masked part of the actor
is his hands. These should never be brought into proximity with
the mask for fear of betraying its lack of plasticity. Also, and it
doesn’t matter whether the actor is masked or not, I find that
one must never turn one’s back on the spectator or, if absolutely
necessary, only rapidly: anything more than a fleeting glance at
the back of the neck and the mask’s identity is lost. I notice in my
collection of engravings, especially those of the 17th century, of
Watteau and his school in particular, that occasionally Pierrot,
for example, does turn his back. (See Figure 1.3) But on stage,
rather than on canvas, one learns what I call the ‘principle’ of the
masks. I prefer this word to ‘laws’ or ‘rules’ because it is some-
thing you learn through personal experience, not as behaviour
imposed from without by society’s enforcers: police, priests,
teachers and so on.
 The mask 5

Figure 1.3 Pedrolino/Pierrot with back turned

Notes
1. The Théâtre du Soleil’s L’age d’Or (1975) featured a North African
immigrant worker in Marseilles named Abdullah. He was based on
Arlecchino.
2. Probably made by using rice flour which is finer and whiter than wheat-
meal and is still used by Japanese Kabuki actors today. The English
Pierrot troupes used zinc oxide – highly carcinogenic...
2 The personnages

JR: What do you mean by a ‘personnage’?

AF: Occasionally (for present purposes, and even though our inten-
tion is ultimately anglophone), there is a word which is better left,
for clarity’s sake, in a romance tongue. The masks of the comme-
dia dell’arte are known as tipi fissi (‘fixed types’), or personaggi
in Italian, but the French personnage is to my mind more readily
adoptable into English.
JR: Whereas the word ‘personage’ in English signifies someone of ele-
vated status, and ‘personality’ defines individual character, for
example, one of the dramatis personae of a particular play.1
AF: Let’s stay with the French, then. Each personnage hailed from a
different part of Italy and spoke in a different tongue. They can
however, be grouped into families: Bergamese, Tuscan, Venetian,
Bolognese, and then Neapolitan, the language of the south.
I’ll begin with the northern families and the innamorati, the
Lovers, since the inception of what is now called commedia
dell’arte dates from their arrival.

Gli innamorati
It’s important to recognise that the young lovers were not lovers, in
fact, but adventurers – adventurers in love. How they were portrayed
varied from company to company, although they moved from troupe
to troupe as a pairing much more than other comici. They invariably
spoke Tuscan since it was linguistically the most elegant, the language
of the academies, and the literati. Since they acted without the mask,
the question was always, how long they could go on convincing audi-
ences that they were young lovers?
 The personnages 7
JR: Perhaps their make-up helped there?
AF: Yes, to that extent, it replaced the mask: it was always thickly
applied and was based on the white face of the infarinato.
Why white-face? Because it is an object half-way between mask
and face, you could call it a mask that moves, capable of multiple
variations.
JR: Stan Laurel rather than Buster Keaton, then…
You used the phrase ‘young lovers’. When a larger troupe had
two pairs, were the second pair usually older?
AF: First of all, one must avoid considering the pairings as being
first and second, as if one were more important than the other.
Over the centuries, that did become the case, but in the origins of
Commedia, its foundations, which are our most important refer-
ence point in trying understand how this kind of theatre works,
they had equal status on stage. It might be better to call them the
blue pair and the red pair. They are distinguished by the fact that
one couple are ingénues and brimming over with love, an idealised
love, which has marriage as its objective, whereas the other couple
seeks amorous adventure, preferably clandestine and erotic. The
first two are very young and dependent on their fathers, they are
adolescents; the second is adult, independent, rather irresponsi-
ble. Some are already married, such as the woman who is the wife
of an old man who is always, in all the plays, widowed from his
first wife, who was the mother of his son or daughter. The second
male might be a gambler whose addiction causes enormous prob-
lems. The male of the first pair is mentally fragile and given to
foolishness, which has to be resolved in the happy ending.
The intrigues of both pairs can be fuelled by madness, most
often in the female, or by the quest of a rich and beautiful widow
for stimulating company, sometimes even by the seeking of an
assassination rather than an assignation. These give rise to come-
dic situations, and that is what the Commedia ‘system’ is based on
putting the Lovers into various extreme situations, each of which
offers both actors and spectators something to get their teeth into.

Zanni
AF: If we go back beyond the arrival of the Lovers to the origins of
commedia dell’arte, we find Zanni. He was not a mythical or fan-
tastical personnage, but a reality: an immigrant. His name is a
diminutive of ‘Giovanni’, the most common first name in the Po
valley.
8 The personnages

Figure 2.1 Brighella

JR: Why are there always two zannis in the developed form? What is
the distinction between first and second Zanni?
AF: First Zanni is always there, a continual presence, whereas second
Zanni comes and goes – something which is completely ignored
by everyone who performs commedia dell’arte today. No-no list.
First Zanni schemes and intrigues, second Zanni botches things
up. Both are essential to the development of the plot.
JR: The most common first Zanni being Brighella? (See Figure 2.1)
AF: The frogging on his costume, which you mentioned earlier, is a
sort of livery worn in Italy by those who worked in kitchens, espe-
cially the head chef. The costumes of the masks often made refer-
ence to clothing worn in real life; in the case of Brighella, as first
Zanni, it shows that he has a metier, a real job, not a servile one
– he may even own the business – and he never goes hungry, unlike
second Zanni who is always half-starved.
 The personnages 9
JR: Is he always independent, then?
AF: He can be a servant when his services are needed, usually by the
Lovers, but he does not change costume for that. For the 150 years
that commedia dell’arte dominated the world stage, actors did not
want changes or development in their costume: what was desired
was instant recognition of their personal personnage, the sort of
recognition that we give today to serial cartoon characters such as
Tom and Jerry or Wilee Coyote and the Roadrunner. When you
see such characters on screen, you know what to expect, includ-
ing surprises. What actors did change other than minor details,
was the name of their personnage, making it specific to their own
interpretation. Brighella is simply the best known among hun-
dreds of variations – Beltrame, Mezzetino, Flautino, Gradellino,
Traccagnino, Finocchio, Bagolino, Scapino, etc.
JR: Why is Brighella so malevolent?
AF: He isn’t, he isn’t evil. Amoral, perhaps, but he only does what is
necessary. You won’t find a scenario where he takes pleasure in
harming someone.
JR: Even Scapino?
AF: Ah, you’re thinking of Molière, that’s something different. Molière
was formed by commedia dell’arte, but he did not practise it. His
Scapin is not the Scapino invented by Francesco Gabrielli. There is
a comic poem, written by an actor, Bartolomeo Bocchini,2 who sep-
cialised in a personnage he called Zan Muzzina, who hailed from
Lombardy and lived in an imaginary country he called La Zagnara,
using the definite article as in ‘La France’ or ‘L’Italie’. In the poem Il
Trionfo di Scappino, written in a mixture of Northern dialects, it is
inhabited solely by zannis and zannettas. Grub and sex are all they
want and all they have. Scapino is made king because he is right-
eous. He tries to resolve all disputes. He is a good man. Bocchini
based his Scapino character on the experience of working for many
years with the Gabriellis – I’ll come on to them in a moment.
The first known edition of the poem is from Modena in 1648,
well before Molière’s Les Fourberies de Scapin. Molière has per-
haps done commedia dell’arte a disservice by portraying Scapin as
someone with a mean streak, out for revenge.
JR: Why then does Brighella/Scapino sometimes do awful things?
AF: Because, like Pulcinella, he is a survivor, and in order to survive,
he has to protect himself. But he is not wicked, no: moral concerns
have no place in commedia dell’arte, which is essentially secular.
His name comes from the Lombard word ‘scapa’, to escape in
English. He escapes from the consequences of his actions, but he
is not a coward.
10 The personnages
JR: So, at a certain moment, Zanni divided himself into two: how,
where, and when?
AF: At the end of the 17th going into the beginning of the 18th cen-
tury, the Gabrielli family, father Giovanni and son Francesco,
were very active, the father in particular being very inventive.
They created a personnage they called Scapi in 1702/3 in Paris.
The suffix ‘ino’ was added, not as a diminutive but, as is often the
case in Italian, meaning ‘inhabitant of’. Although he was crafty
in the extreme, Scapino needed a sidekick to do some of his dirty
work for him. However, the Gabriellis didn’t use the terminology
‘first and second Zanni’, they called them ‘l’astuto’ or ‘il furbo’, the
clever servant, and the stupid one, ‘sciocco’ [pronounced ‘shoko’]
which is difficult to translate – more naive than stupid, ‘silly’ per-
haps in English.
JR: Foolish?
AF: Ah, yes. But naive, not stupid, I don’t like to call a zanni stu-
pid, because stupidity is limiting, whereas naivete has a certain
dynamism. Anyway, he later becomes known as ‘second Zanni’.
Second, Zanni has considerable experience of life, rural life, that
is. He knows about plants and animals and is a hunter of great
ability. For example, he can ensnare songbirds and make bam-
boo cages for them to sell at the market. In the days before the
gramophone, people would pay good money to have music in their
homes. In the commedia dell’arte Zanni finds himself as a migrant
in an urban environment where his lack of urban savoir faire and
illiteracy is a handicap, and he becomes a facchino, a porter of
heavy loads. Nevertheless, he does not allow himself to become
burdened by them: he remains resilient. He is an adult, a man
of culture, just not the culture in which he finds himself. In my
research, I have found more than three hundred names for him,
but whether he is called Arlecchino or Truffaldino or Tabacchino
or Traccagnino or by any derivative name, he is still second Zanni
and his function remains the same, as do the patches on the cos-
tume. As I said about the first Zanni, the name changes reflect
the change of actor, each one wanting to give a signature to their
personal take on the role. In the hundreds of years of commedia
dell’arte, he has been played by hundreds of actors, and that is why
there are hundreds of names. We must, therefore, correct today’s
prevailing idea that there is only one single second Zanni, the
famous Arlecchino/Arlequin/Harlequin. (See Figure 2.2)
JR: No-no list?
AF: No-no list.
 The personnages 11

Figure 2.2 Arlecchino

What I detest above all is ‘Harlequinism’, the idea that he is the

ace which trumps all the other cards in the pack. To many people,
Mozart is baroque music. In fact, his music is rococo, but that’s
not the point. Likewise, to many people, Harlequin is commedia
dell’arte. I am against the synthesising of culture around illustri-
ous exponents.
JR: A definite no-no?
AF: He has become a brand-name for everything you can think of
from delivery vans to shopping centres like the one near you
[Exeter] when we stayed with you in England.
JR: Even a rugby team.
AF: It cheapens not only him, but also the form to which he belongs,
where he has his place but should not predominate.
To an extent the same is true of Pulcinella, but he has to be
forgiven because he spent so many years in isolation. Who today
has heard of his variant Shcatozza (or Shcatotza, in Campanian
pronounciation)? Most people don’t even realise that he and
Arlecchino are second zannis and, when you have a second Zanni,
that presupposes that there is a first. Together they become a
12 The personnages
comedic machine, a dynamic duo. The first Zanni is the leader,
the one who says ‘Let’s go’ and second Zanni is happy to follow.
One understands the problem better than the other, but it is often
number two who comes up with an idea of how to solve it. But
once the idea is adopted, it creates another, larger difficulty, and
so on. We call this the panettone effect.
JR: When you cook panettone [an Italian sweet bread, originally
from Milan, now a Christmas treat] in the oven it gets bigger and
bigger…
AF: But finally there has to be a simple solution – you eat it!
JR: Laurel and Hardy again: in The Music Box, having delivered the
piano (finally) up seemingly never-ending steps, they discover
there is a road which goes round leading to the front door.
AF: So, with the introduction of the two zanni system, the comme-
dia dell’arte structure was complete, and there was no reason to
change it for a 100 years until in Un Servitor di due Padroni [A
Servant of Two Masters], Carlo Goldoni called the second Zanni
‘Truffaldino’ because that was the name that Antonio Sacchi used
for his Zanni. Because it was Sacchi, who asked him to write a play
rather than a scenario3, Goldoni the playwright gave Truffaldino
a little more licence and continuity of presence than would nor-
mally be allowed the second Zanni, a little more freedom to do as
he pleased, effectively rolling the two zannis back into one.4
JR: However, the general belief amongst people who have not actu-
ally read the play is that the role is Arlecchino’s: this is because
Marcello Moretti played him as such in the omnipotent 1947
Piccolo Teatro di Milano revival.

La servetta
AF: ‘Zagna’ was the original female counterpart of Zanni in the zan-
nesca plays. ‘She’ was played by men, infarinato, with grotesque
padding in gender specific places, and often wearing a headscarf
(See Figure 1.2). When the zannis became masked ‘she’ did like-
wise, wearing one that was similar or even identical. Then, with
the arrival of actresses on stage, came la Fantesca – a rather sim-
ple peasant girl whose charms were, however, real. The name is
simply an older word for ‘female servant’. Next, around 1580–90,
the servetta drove them both, masked and unmasked, off stage. In
the La Scala scenarios la servetta is Colombina, the girlfriend of
Pedrolino who is first Zanni, and she is still a little naive. In the
Casa Marciano scenarios, however, which are a little later in date
 The personnages 13
(or at least date of reference since La Scala was writing retrospec-
tively) she becomes Rosetta. Sometimes Rosetta is attached by the
scenario to second Zanni Pulcinella, sometimes to first Zanni,
Coviello. No matter: she is smarter than both of them and has
become in fact the most intelligent personnage in the commedia
dell’arte. So much so that when a plotline couples her with second
Zanni, she assumes the function of first Zanni.

Il Magnifico
AF: The Magnifico (See Figure 2.3) most often goes under the name
of Pantalone, but again there were others, Stefanello, for example.
Venetians pronounced his name ‘Pantalon’, as in ‘San Pantalon’,
but since commedia dell’arte is a secular form it doesn’t do to
insist. As with Brighella’s supposed malevolence, too much can be
made of his meanness and his prurience. Commedia dell’arte is not
about sending him to hell for being a self-made man who wants to
hang on to his money and/or for being an old man who has trouble

Figure 2.3 Il Magnifico

14 The personnages
with his libido. He’s willing to spend his money, but only on the
latter, and Brighella, for example, is happy to take it from him in
exchange for some dodgy potion… At that moment, Pantalone is
not a miser: he will pay as much as necessary to be successful in
bed with a beautiful woman. So he is duped, but he is not stupid.
JR: He just wants to relive his youth? To go back to the dawn when the
night is closing in?
AF: Yes, and if he is willing to pay for that, commedia dell’arte will not
condemn him.
JR: A thing that has always puzzled me is when and how did the
Magnifico with such thunderous thighs become the enfeebled old
Venetian merchant Pantalone?
AF: Well, for a start, Pantalone is not a Venetian creation, he was
invented at the very beginning for the zannesca, when all the inter-
actions that zannis could provide had been used up and more
personnages were needed. And since the zannis were servants, the
first new personnages to make their appearance were their mas-
ters: the Magnifico and the Doctor.
‘Magnifico’ simply signifies a rich man, and is a generic term, a
personnage, a capitalist who is then defined by specific names such
as Pantalone, Pancrazio, Zanobio or Stefanello . The great popu-
larity of the name ‘Pantalone’ does not make this Venetian variant
different or special. Just as Arlecchino is one of the very numerous
names for second Zanni, Pantalone is one of the numerous names
for the Magnifico. All those names tell us where they come from:
Pantalone comes from Venice and he speaks Venetian. His name has
two etymological possibilities: ‘Pianta-il-Leone’ – to plant the lion
stamp on goods passing through la Serenissima, the Republic of
Venice, especially from the Orient, or a contraction of ‘Pantaleone’,
a very common name in Venice in the mid 16th century.
He is old, is Pantalone, but he is not feeble. He has the incon-
veniences of old age, obviously, but he does not have the physical
weakness that would make him a ‘poor old man’. On the contrary,
he represents the kind of man who does not accept the ageing pro-
cess and does things which at his age he should not do. In particu-
lar, he absolutely wants to re-marry with a very young woman.
And that’s typical of the Magnifico, wherever he hails from.
But it is true that the iconographic evidence shows very often
a personnage who is well-muscled, then sometimes an old bour-
geois and, more rarely, a little old man. All these representations
are tied in with the epoch when they were made. Let me explain:
what is consistent throughout, with only minor changes, such as
 The personnages 15
Moroccan slippers for clogs, is the image of the same old boy in
the same costume, one that perhaps changed the least in the whole
history of Commedia. A big black jacket is practically enveloping
him but for the front which remains open to reveal a red shirt,
long red breeches which are sometimes red, sometimes not, on
his head a sort of fez which, with the Moorish slippers on his feet,
mean that both ends tell us of his commercial relations with the
Orient. On his belt, there is often a money bag and a dagger.
JR: And a very pointed goatee beard.
AF: The real changes are in his physique. In the first epoch, we see
a very sprightly old man, strong, muscly, with thighs to make a
young man envious. This epoch did not last long, but it coincided
with the painting and drawing of the human body under the influ-
ence of Michaelangelo. The Trauznitz5 Pantalone, for example,
is reminiscent, physically, of the Sistine Chapel; it has the same
style, could almost be by the same hand – offering the same idea of
the human form triumphant in its flesh, bones and musculature,
whatever the age of the subject.
In the Baroque period big changes happened: pitiless reality,
old age is old age, very different from youthfulness, and that dif-
ference had to be depicted. But this old man, Pantalone, is still
a master, he is rich, he gives orders and has plenty of energy, so
though we see an old man, he is a very active one. And that is the
definitive historical image of him. Much later, in the epoch which
we might call ‘Goldonian’, he becomes very old, but still lucid and
master of any given situation. When he loses control of a situation
it is not because of his age, but because of the decisions, he makes,
involving others who are not normally content to be pushed
around by an old man and who, since they are in the majority, are
able to organise a response which wins out in the end.
JR: So it’s a no-no to play Pantalone as a ‘poor old man’.
AF: That’s something he can do for himself when necessary, however.
He can play the poor old man, the ‘old dodder’ with ‘one foot in
the grave’, when it might help him to get his way, without actually
being any of that. Old does not mean ill. It’s just a stage of life, and
he is very, very well.
JR: It seems to me that. As time has gone by, you have insisted more
and more on the humanity of the masks and less and less on their
grotesque qualities.
AF: Yes, and there was a very good example of that in my production
Love is a Drug for the Oxford Stage Company.6 Pantalone was
played by Andrew Frame, a very good actor – but then they were
16 The personnages
all very good actors. One particular scene brought out exactly that
human quality in his performance of the mask: Flaminia, the Lover
in the play, takes a drug, rather like Juliet, it makes her seem as if
she is dead. Immediately afterwards, the scene is a cemetery and
Flaminia’s tomb is open. Pantalone arrives in tears, in despair
because his daughter is dead. The scenario indicates that he then
severely reproaches her, then gives her a piece of his mind, then
works himself into a rage over her behaviour. The progression as
performed was really fantastic: the father grieving for the death of
his daughter, then remembering what she was like when she was
little, then what a wonderful girl she was, before finally becoming
the father who bawls his daughter out in front of her sepulchre for
something she should not have done. The scene provoked an intense
emotion, both in the actor and in the audience, but Pantalone’s com-
portment, his manner of speaking, his gesticulation, everything
which makes the personnage what it is, remained appropriate to the
mask. Funny yet profoundly moving at the same time – a perfect
example of the paradox of the human condition.

Il Dottore
AF: Il Dottore Gratiano delle Cotiche, plural of cotica…
JR: … meaning ‘pork rind’.
AF: Gratiano was the name of the founder of the University of
Bologna, the oldest in the world. When the comici dell’arte wanted
to create Il Dottore, they made him a native of that city as being
the most cultured in Italy. But it was also the number one for gas-
tronomy: a reputation which it still holds today.
The point, which is worth insisting upon, is that it was not the
individual city states which contributed a local type to the comme-
dia dell’arte, but the actors who made the attribution for each per-
sonnage. Since there was no national language, they made sure
that each mask spoke in a tongue that was appropriate to its char-
acteristics. But having said that, Bolognese speech was perhaps
the most understood, the closest to universal comprehension.
Look out, however: Gratiano’s name in Bolognese sounds very
similar to a slang word meaning ‘cod’.
JR: So, as well as being Doctor Pork-rind, he is also a cod Doctor.
AF: Yes, and let’s not forget the gourmet connection as well. He is old, he
is rich. He is a widower. He is father to one of the Lovers. He can fall
in love with a young woman, just like the other old man, Il Magnifico,
who is also rich and also a widower. The actor playing the Doctor
 The personnages 17
wore and wears (the costume has changed little through the ages)
a large black cape and a big hat of the same colour – originally the
attire of an intellectual. He can wear a large belt round his midriff,
or rather pot belly, often with a white handkerchief attached. Often
he carries a big book which contains the truth about everything, but
which can also be used as a weapon. (See Figure 2.4)
The important thing to remember is that he thinks he is impor-
tant: an absolute authority both on legal matters and the con-
sumption of food. That authority extends to his relationship with
his son – he never has any doubt advising him over his troubles.
JR: One thinks of Polonius…
AF: There are other names: ‘Balanzone’, for example, the scales that
are the symbol of justice, but also signify scientific precision. He
affects, therefore, to be scrupulous in his judgements and opinions,
which is evidently far from the case. Another name: Furbizòun in
Bolgnaise dialect. Forbicione when pronounced in Italian. ‘Big
Scissors’ in English, meaning that he separates everything out
so that each part is made clear. Another: ‘Plusquamperfetcus’
– Latin for ‘more than perfect’. As usual, there are many others

Figure 2.4 Il Dottore Gratiano

18 The personnages
but, with one exception, they are all from Bologna. The exception
is Neapolitan because Naples needed to enjoy its own language
in order to confirm its status as the capital of the South. So it
invented its own variant Doctor: ‘Formizoun Spacca Strummolo:
Formizoun [big forbici – scissors] plus Spacca [from the verb spac-
care meaning ‘to cut’] in the sense of splitting a hair in four, thus
indicating someone who demands absolute precision in word and
deed, like a lawyer, for example. What he splits in Neapolitan isn’t
a hair, however, but a spinning top, similarly cut into four.
JR: A spinning top? Why?
AF: Because it represents the whirlwind of life where everything
changes. He wants to stop the top and dissect it. Anyway, he’s the
only Doctor who speaks anything but Bolognese – unless there
are Sicilian or Piedmontese ones that I haven’t heard about!
JR: But the fun in parodying a Bolognese doctor would have been lost
in translation when the comici dell’arte became, for example, les
comediens du Roi in France?
AF: The personnage made its appearance relatively early in the
Commedia system, necessitated by certain dramatic conflicts –
amorous ones, for example, as in master and servant both being after
the same sexy servant girl. The authority of the Doctor is not only
expressed in his age and status – which characterise him as a master
– but through his preferred method of pretentious knowledge.
He knows everything, he is a ‘tuttologo’, an ‘everythingolo-
gist’ (my attempt at an English translation!). So he uses a wide
assortment of languages and an exaggerated, ostentatious vocab-
ulary. The basis is both juristic and notarial, since together they
make up his profession, being at once both a Doctor of Law and
a Notary. Then he adds some Latin, some Ancient Greek, then
other languages au choix. He generates long lists, usually in order
to treat a subject from A to Z; he delivers his sproloquio [bullshit
tirade] with enthusiasm and scientific passion, but above all with
authority. Everything is spoken with a great sonority that comes
from the language of origin, the Bolognaise, which is predomi-
nant as an accent and has a musicality which is immediately rec-
ognisable throughout Italy, and also from his ‘Bolognisation’ of
other languages. The effect is always extremely comical, even in
very serious situations: for example, when he uses his overbearing
authoritativeness to oblige his daughter to marry an old man.
In exporting the Doctor to Europe through their tours, the Italian
actors adapted all that sonority into the appropriate native tongue.
Not a particularly difficult thing to do since there were already
 The personnages 19
several languages present in his sproloquio. The native tongue,
which the actor would have to learn if he was not already familiar
with it, took the place of Bolognaise, seeking wherever possible to
use an uneducated terminology which would betray to an audience
that the Doctor was not the great savant that he pretended to be.
When I play the Doctor in France I make use of a lot of
Italianised gallicisms or Frenchified Italianisms, And the same in
Spanish and in English. It still works!
JR: But, as I understand it, he became Le Pédant in France – younger,
less ridiculous?
AF: There is a difference between the traditional Dottore and the ver-
sions of him offered up by the Italians in Paris. Il Dottore is a man
of Law, definitively. But the ‘Parisians’ manipulated him according
to the piece to be performed – and often their plays ‘à l’italienne’
were written by French authors and adjusted for French audiences.
‘Italianess’ became more and more clichéd, and gradually moved
away from the traditional. Gherardi, for example, played him some-
times as a medical Docteur, sometimes as an avocat [solicitor], very
different from the second vecchio [old man] traditionally paired with
Pantalone. For these reasons, in my opinion, this phase of comme-
dia dell’arte should be considered localised and timebound.
JR: And often when he became a medical doctor it was not really
him, but another mask dressed up for the purposes of the plot –
as in Molière’s Le Médecin Volant, for example. Moliere played
Sganarelle, an Arlequin type, as a cod doctor. (See Figure 2.5)
AF: The Italians in Paris were in fact, a two-fer: they played Commedia
pure, and when they did that they mixed languages, as they did
elsewhere, even in Italy. More of that when we get to multilin-
gualism. The local tongue, in this case, French, predominated,
but their system was plurilinguistic. Il Dottore was no exception,
though he exaggerated at times. And then there was the other
manner of playing, the literary one, that of comedy conceived
and written before being performed, in verse, in that alexandrine
verse7 which once possessed poetry in the French language, espe-
cially during the baroque period.
One finds an interesting example of this duality in the theatre
of Domenico Biancolelli: his Scenario is a collection of canovacci
that he played in Paris with his company, and in them, we find
perfect examples of Commedia in its original form. But one can
also study in his Nouveau Théâtre Italien some pieces from his
repertoire which are written in alexandrine verse, in an elevated
language where everyone speaks in the same style. Even Arlequin
20 The personnages

Figure 2.5 Arlecchino disguised as a doctor

speaks in such a manner. The Doctor of the Scenario, however, is

definitely ours: he participates in the lazzi and gets fully involved
in the disasters which the Commedia plots throw up. The Doctor
of the ‘regular’ plays is a pedant, ponderous as you have to be
when you inhabit the alexandrine world. In fact, the French
Doctor called Le Pédant is much closer to the commedia erudita
than to Il Dottore of the commedia dell’arte.
JR: He appears towards the end of Le Médecin Volant and, as a real
lawyer, using real Latin, and censures the medical methods of the
cod Sganarelle.
JR: What about his mask? You’ve already mentioned it is a quarter not
a half mask like all the others.
AF: Yes, the mask used by the actor who plays the Doctor is smaller
than the other Commedia masks: just a nose and a forehead,
which is often a simple band that holds the nose on.
The reduced form can be explained by the double necessity of
(1) being comical, droll, to be laughed at, and (2) a lightness in
wearing which permits the actor to use part of the face, particu-
larly around the eyes, thus helping him to establish his authority
over the other masks.
 The personnages 21
JR: I’m going to persist about the French connection: if the identity
of the Doctor slipped through culture contact, other masks were
either created or gained in stature in France: Scaramouche and
Mezzetin for example?
AF: Yes, both actors became particularly celebrated in France – or rather
in Paris. The French capital offered great opportunities to the Italian
actors who were given theatres, money and protection – all of which
they well merited. There were, however, two periods: first, the begin-
nings when Commedia was introduced and became known imme-
diately as ‘Comédie Italienne’, but without gaining a firm footing.
That was still in the 16th century, the century of creation, of come-
dic invention, the age dominated by the great actor, or, even more,
the great actress. The Andreini dominated in an age that really was
golden. Another name which was paramount in this period was that
of Tristano Martinelli, who named his zanni ‘Arlequin’ to please a
foreign public (and for that reason alone). Then came the second
period when the ‘emigres’ arrived in Paris and founded their compa-
nies: Tibierio Fiorilli, a Neapolitan who had invented Scaramuccia

Figure 2.6 A Bolognese Dottore

22 The personnages
in Naples, Frenchified him with great success as Scaramouche in
Paris, where he made a permanent home, making only occasional
returns to his beloved Naples. Angelo Constatini wrote a biogra-
phy of Fiorilli entitled ‘La Vie de Scaramouche’. Nothing, absolutely
nothing in it is true, except the spirit in which it is written, which
gives the reader a good idea of the personnage of Scaramouche.
JR: Which is?
AF: A mixture of First Zanni and a low-life Captain. Very flexible in
his contribution to the scenario. A terrible liar with whirlwind
energy. Dressed entirely in black, white face infarinato, with a
painted-on moustache, a bit like Groucho Marx. The personnage
never gained the universality of Pulcinella as it was so very much
linked to the personality of its inventor, and it is, for this reason,
I don’t much like to include him in my work, although I did once
experiment with a group of older actors, all playing him in a sort
of ‘Scaramuchiata’.
Constantini created for himself the personnage of Mezzetino:
white-faced, a singer and musician, refined, rather soppy, perfect

Figure 2.7 Angelo Constantini as Mezzettino

 The personnages 23
for the paintings of Watteau. The name, Mezetino, or Mezeti, is
Bergamasque and comes from an original which was played in the
mask. Constantini transformed it into an infarinato. Who became
definitively Mezzetin in France.
JR: By the time the Italians were relegated to the Parisian fairs he had
become outrageously camp and given to cross-dressing,
The personnage most transformed in Paris, though, by a succes-
sion of actors, was:
Pedrolino who became Pierrot…
AF: In the fifty scenarios of Flaminio Scala’s ‘Teatro delle favole
rappresentative’ the dominant servant-intriguer is Pedrolino.
Arlecchino appears in the collection in print for the first time,
but only as a minor figure, as Il Capitano’s spalla [go-fer]. Scala
was an old man when he wrote and published the Teatro in 1611,
after the end of his career on stage, though he remained active as
director and manager of the Confidenti. What he transcribed was
the repertoire of the glory years of Commedia, already grown-up
but still very young, the period of the triumph of the Gelosi in
Europe. And, as I said, Pedrolino figures as the principal hatcher
of intrigues, very cunning, very dynamic. Was he played in a
mask? Or was he already white-faced? We still don’t know. There
are no images of the Scala personnages, though we can possibly
deduce some of them from the rare images which ‘perhaps’ show
the Gelosi in action. It is still a mystery as to whether Scala was a
member of the Gelosi or not, but it is certain that he knew them
and that Isabella and Francesco Andreini are recognisable in sev-
eral of the scenarios.
By the time he arrived in Paris with the other personnages,
Pedrolino was certainly white-faced, defined, classic, ready to be
part of the great success of the Comédie Italienne. Again, it’s the
story of a name that was insignificant, to begin with becoming
important by chance, almost by accident due to the success of
a few greatly talented actors. Like Scaramuccia and Mezzetino,
Pedrolino’s name became Frenchified as Pierrot [Little Peter].
However, it was not only the name that evolved in France: impor-
tant changes were made to the original. He became naive, solitary,
silent, long before Debureau made him into the mime artist we
know today.8 Pierrot found himself cast as the dupe, rather than
being Pedrolino the duper.
Let’s go back then to Scala’s Pedrolino: whether played in the
mask or not, he is part of the classical commedia dell’arte. Why did
he become white-faced? I think one reason was that actors knew
24 The personnages
very well that in antiquity the white mask was for women and very
young people. Pedrolino took up the idea, and everything became
white – even his mind (his soul if you like). He developed a sort of
child-like presence, rather feminine, which afforded him an ele-
gance that the other masks could not begin to aspire to, rustic,
ugly and scruffy as they were. Pedrolino has class, but that class
does not stop him being an enfant terrible as the first Zanni.

Il Bravo
AF: Typically the Captain is a foreigner, most often a Spaniard. There
are various theories about how he came into the commedia dell’arte
– borrowed from Plautus’ Miles Gloriosus, for example. However,
that’s not the case: he was everywhere for real in post-Renaissance
Italy, in the street, in administrative positions, etc. The correct
name for this personnage is ‘The Bravo’, an imposter as convinced
of his prowess as a lover as of his invincibility as a warrior.
When Francesco Andreini played the Captain, he did so with-
out the mask, as an amorous adventurer.

Figure 2.8 Francesco Andreini as Il Capitano Spavento da Vall’ Inferna

 The personnages 25
JR: There’s a great variety, however in the masks that you have created
for the Captain – I particularly like ‘Saltafossa’, the jumped-up lit-
tle pipsqueak. I’m having difficulty, though, with the new one that
you gave me recently because it reminds me of Donald Trump and
I can’t get his posturings out of my mind.
AF: It’s a great error to make reference in commedia dell’arte to a liv-
ing person, or even a dead one. For instance, sometimes I find
it necessary to let one of my assistants take over rehearsal while
I attend to another scene. One time I had finished what I was
doing and was just leaving the building when I heard my assistant
instructing an actor to play the Captain as if he was Mussolini.
Well, I didn’t interrupt because that’s not something that you do.
But later I reproached him with being completely con, as we say in
French. ‘Oh, but it’s difficult to avoid that’ was his response. ‘No,
it isn’t difficult’ I replied, ‘just ignore it. The commedia dell’arte
never makes allusion to a historical or living person, and certainly
not to the inventor of fascism’. He continued to protest, and then
I became a dictator and told him to stop it at once… no-no list.

Figure 2.9 A
 ntonio Fava as Il Capitano Bellerofonte Scarabombardone da
Rocca di Ferro
26 The personnages
JR: Tell me about your Capitano – I know the answer, but for the
record?
AF: Capitano Bellerofonte Scarabombardone da Rocca di Ferro? He’s
the Capitano invented by Giulio Cesare Croce,9 a Bolognaise poet
of great vivacity, whose comic novel featuring Bertoldo is still a
point of reference in Italian popular culture. He wrote many plays
in Commedia style including the short, but exquisite verse play Le
Tremende Bravure del Capitano Bellerofonte Scarabombardone da
Rocca di Ferro and his servant Frisetto. This play is a forerunner of
Don Quixote and, in my opinion, Cervantes who had been living
in Italy, saw it performed and afterwards took it as a model.
JR: And you first discovered the play with the help of the Italian
department at Exeter University where you were giving a work-
shop to second-year Drama students.
AF: Si.
JR: Once back in Italy you performed it with Pietro Mossa as Zanni.
AF: Si, si.

Figure 2.10 Pulcinelli cooking macaroni

 The personnages 27
Pulcinella
AF: He was invented, or rather developed, by the actor Silvio Fiorillo
around the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Northern sec-
ond Zanni personnages did not go down well in Naples because
no-one understood Bergamese. Fiorillo wrote the first scripted
Commedia play, La Lucilla Costante,10 in which the name
Pulcinella appeared for the first time – in print at least. He speaks
a very ancient Neapolitan which is very beautiful, but very hard
even for native Neapolitans to understand today. However, the
evolution of the name did not change the basic existence of the
character. In the 16th century, he was known as Pascariello, then
after Fiorillo’s great success using the name Pulcinella, Pascariello
was downgraded into being an old man, finally, in the 18th cen-
tury, becoming white-faced, in a black costume and functioning
as a sort of public notary.
JR: Though it’s sometimes said that Pulcinella was based on a real,
local character.11
AF: The opposite is the case: he was conceived in the theatre and then
spread out into the countryside by many interpreters as a folk fig-
ure, not the other way round. He was popular because he was very
human, very droll, very sympathetic. He remains so today: for
example, a well-known pizzeria chain has him eating his favourite
macaroni as its logo.
JR: And this is the personnage which you have inherited?
AF: Yes, my father, Tomaso was a Pulcinella, although he never per-
formed in a theatre. He played in villages in the countryside around
Crotone in Calabria in the mask and costume of Pulcinella, but
which he called ‘Puricinedda’, strumming a guitar that he beat for
rhythm, enlivening local festivals with lazzi, songs, serenades, and
comical sketches.
Contrast this living heritage with a paper delivered at a confer-
ence I went to recently where an anthropologist presented some
documents and film clips which purported to show the folklore
origins of Pulcinella. Academic theorising which had nothing to
do with commedia dell’arte. No-no list.
JR: Where does the name ‘Pulcinella’ come from then?
AF: ‘Pulcino pollo’. As with all names in commedia dell’arte it has a
precise origin and signification: he is a plucked chicken. In Italian,
we call someone who is put upon all the time a pollo. Omen nomen:
his destiny is in his name because in scenario after scenario he is
ultimately the victim and well and truly plucked.
28 The personnages
JR: Did you say all names?
AF: Yes, take the servette, for example – Corallina, Colombina, etc.
Their names are always indicative of two qualities: prettiness and
preciousness.
JR: Tell us about your plucked chicken shows.
AF: I call my shows pulcinellate [plural of pulcinellata], and I call the
whole development of them my Pulcinella Saga. It’s a long story –
maybe we should put that in an appendix?
JR: We’ll do that. Something of a one-man show whenever I’ve seen
one. What would a full company Pulcinella Commedia be like?
AF: Le Disgazie di Pulcinella12 [The Misfortunes of Pulcinella] is an
example of his personnage in full action. In it, Pulcinella is someone
who pretends to be rich. At the beginning his arrival is awaited at
the Doctor’s house where a marriage has been arranged with the
daughter – let’s call her Isabella, but it’s the personnage which mat-
ters, not the name. Her real love is not present. So far Pulcinella’s
courtship has taken place solely by correspondence and, very unu-
sually in commedia dell’arte, his letters are now read out on stage,
proving that, although he is not illiterate, he is an ignoramus. The
scenario writer has him write in a mixture of Neapolitan dialect
and Italian, which is quite risible. He insists that he is rich, that he
is a merchant in pumice – a sort of very light stone that one finds on
the beach which can be used for cleaning the skin. Today you have
to buy it, but at that time it was lying around everywhere at the sea-
side. So that’s the kind of merchant we are waiting for. The Lover
arrives before Pulcinella and, since he is a student from a nearby
town and not known to the Doctor, is mistaken for Pulcinella. He is
feted, and a banquet begins in his honour. Pulcinella arrives outside
and hears what is going on inside and can’t believe his ears when he
hears his name being bandied about. Eventually, he meets Rosetta,
the servetta, and marries her instead – a case of the most stupid per-
son in commedia dell’arte getting together with the most intelligent,
but that is permissible since they are of the same class. So, he is not
rich – in fact, he is poverty-stricken.
Likewise he is often thought to be a glutton, but this is not the
case either: when he falls on food and devours it, it is because he
has not eaten for days and is famished.
JR: What do you make of Domenico Tiepolo’s drawings of Pulcinella?
AF: The Divertimenti per li ragazzi? The title gives it away – amuse-
ments for children. Tiepolo was drawing from Carnival and creat-
ing a whole imaginary world for children, not recording something
that he had seen on stage. A lot of individual people disguised
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 of children—Increase of crime—Arrival of money from
England—Orphanage—Labour question—Kūmishah—
Village ruffian—His punishment—Prince’s accident—The
kalāat—Mode of bringing it—Invitation to the ceremony
—Procession—Gala dress of the prince—The arrival of
the firman—Assemblage of grandees—The kalāat—The
Kawam’s kalāat—Return to town—Sacrifice of an ox
CHAPTER XXIV.
I FALL INTO THE HANDS OF BRIGANDS.
A call to a patient—Start on post-horses—No horses—I carry
a lantern—The Bakhtiaris—Fall among thieves—They
strip me—And march me off—Mode of disguise of
thieves—Attacked by footmen—Division of spoils—Fate
of a priest—Valuing my kit—Ignorance of my captors—A
welcome sight—My escape—I get a horse—Reach
Yezdikhast—Old women get thorns out of my feet—Want
of hospitality of head-man of Yezdikhast—Arrive at
Kūmishah—Kindness of a postmaster—More robbers—
Avoid them—Am repaid for my lost kit—Fate of my
robbers 259
CHAPTER XXV.
SHIRAZ.
The Muschir—His policy and wealth—His struggle with the
king’s uncle—He is bastinadoed—His banishment to
Kerbela—The Kawam—Mirza Naim—Siege of Zinjan—
Cruelties to Mirza Naim—Reply to an author’s statement
—Cashmere shawls—Anecdote—Garden of Dilgoosha
—Warm spring—“Sau-Sau-Rac”—The Well of Death—
Execution—Wife-killing—Tomb of Rich—Tomb of Hafiz—
Tomb of Saadi—A moral tale—Omens—Incident at tomb
of Hafiz 270
CHAPTER XXVI.
SHIRAZ—PERSIAN CUSTOMS.
The Tazzia—Persian pulpit—Prince’s flirtations—Month of 279
 mourning—Details of performance—Breast-beaters—
Hymn in honour of the king—The performers—
Processions—Detail of the tragedy—Interludes—
Rosehkhaneh—The Ramazan—The fast—Hospitalities
—Zalābi—Religious affectation—Reading poetry—A
paraphrase—A quotation—Books and their covers—
Calamdans—Writing a letter—Sealing—Specimen of an
ordinary letter—Apparent piety—The evil eye—
Talismans—I procure one
CHAPTER XXVII.
SHIRAZ.
Bagh-i-Takht—Jews’ burial-ground—Christians’ cemetery—
Its desecration—Sergeant Collins’s murder—Capture
and execution of the robbers—How it was brought home
to them—Memorial to Collins—Health of the staff—
Persians as servants—Persian cuisine—Kabobs,
varieties of—English dinners—Confectionery—Fruits—
Vegetables—Pickles, etc.—Cook-shops—Trotters—
Mode of selling meat—Game—Eggs—Wild vegetables—
Potatoes—Disinclination to use new seeds, and its
cause—Narcissus—General use of flower decoration—
Tame birds—Wild birds—White ants—Damaging the line
—Hamilton poles 292
CHAPTER XXVIII.
BEASTS, BIRDS, FRUITS, AND FLOWERS.
Tamed pigs—“Marjahn”—Mongoose—Persian cats—Their
value—Van cats—A fierce cat—How to obtain a Persian
cat—Grey-hounds—Toolahs—Watch-dogs—Monkeys—
Tame lions—Tame and cage birds—Superstition
concerning house-snakes—I kill a clockwinder—Wild ass
—Fighting rams—Tame partridges—Gardening—
Ordinary flowers—The broom-plant—Vine-culture—
Quinces and pomegranates—Orchards—Garden parties 302
CHAPTER XXIX.
 PERSIAN CHARACTER, COSTUMES, AND MANNERS.
Character of the Persians—Exaggeration—Mercifulness—
Anecdote—Costumes of men—Hair—Beards—Arms—
Costumes of women—Jewellery—Glass bangles—Nose-
rings—Painting of the face—Tattooing—Hair—Out-door
costume—Dress of children—Their manners—Strange
custom—Love of mothers—The uncle—Cousins—
Slaves—Servants—Slavery 314
CHAPTER XXX.
TRAVELLING—ART WORK—FOODS.
Travelling—Difficulties of posting—Saddles and bits—Cruel
joke—Old stories—Pastimes—Enamels—Persian
pictures—Curio buyer—Carvings—Metal-work—
Calligraphy—Kahtam—Incised work on iron—
Embroideries—Silver-work—Washing of linen—Ironing—
Needlework—The bath—Washing the hair with clay—
Bread and baking—Unleavened bread—Other kinds—
Travellers’ food—Inordinate appetites—Food of the poor 328
CHAPTER XXXI.
EDUCATION—LEAVE, AND RETURN VIÂ INDIA.
Education—Schools—Punishments—Love of poetry—
Colleges—Education of women—Religion—March to
Bushire—Extremes of cold and heat—Good luck—Go
home to England—Leave viâ India—The “Boys”—Lisbon
—Algiers—Port Said and Suez—Jeddah—Donkeys—
Coral reef—Sea-slugs—Aden—Madagascar oranges
—“Grimes”—Kurrachee—Drives—Visit to the alligators
at Muggerpir—Disgusting scene—A legatee—Black-
wood furniture—A lost bargain—Persian Gulf—Bushire
—Leave for Shiraz 337
CHAPTER XXXII.
FROM THE PERSIAN GULF TO ISPAHAN.
Our start for Shiraz—Camp out—Borasjūn—Spring at Dalliké 347
 —Kotuls—Kazerūn—Buy a horse—A tough climb—
Place of Collins’s murder—Arrive in Shiraz—Hire a
house—Settle down—Breaking horses—Night marching
—Difficulties of start—Mūrghab—Find our muleteer and
loads—Abadeh—Yezdikhast—Kūmishah—Mayar—Marg
—Arrive in Julfa
CHAPTER XXXIII.
JULFA.
Hire a house—Coolness of streets—Idleness of men—
Industry of women—Stone mortars—Arrack—Hire a
vineyard—A wily Armenian—Treasure-trove—The
“Shaking Minarets”—A hereditary functionary—A
permanent miracle—Its probable explanation—
Vaccination—Julfa priests—Arrack as an anæsthetic—
Road-making—Crops of firewood—Fire temple—Huge
trees—The racecourse—Disappearance of ancient brick
buildings—Donkeys—Healthiness of Julfa—Zil-es-Sultan
—His armoury—Prospects of the succession to the
throne—Bull-terriers—Mastiffs—Politeness and
rudeness of the prince 359
CHAPTER XXXIV.
JOURNEY TO AND FROM TEHERAN.
Proceed to Teheran—Takhtrowan—Duties—Gulhaek—Lawn- 368
tennis—Guebre gardener—A good road—The Shah—
Custom of the Kūrūk—M. Gersteiger—Cossack
regiments—Austrian officers—New coinage—Count
Monteforte—New police—Boulevard des Ambassadeurs
—English Embassy—Tile gates—Summer palaces—
Bazaars—Russian goods—Demarvend—Drive to
Ispahan—Difficulties of the journey—Accidents—Danger
of sunstroke—Turkeys—Keeping peacocks—Armenian
tribute of poultry—Burmese and Japanese embassies—
Entertainment and fireworks—Cruel treatment of Jews—
Oil paintings—Bahram and his queen—Practice makes
 perfect—Pharaoh and the Red Sea—Pharaoh and the
magicians
CHAPTER XXXV.
WE RETURN VIÂ THE CASPIAN.
New Year’s presents—Shiraz custom—Our cook’s
weaknesses—He takes the pledge—And becomes an
opium-eater—Decide to go home—Dispose of kit—Start
for Europe—Our own arrangements—Diary of our
journey home—Arrival 379
APPENDIX A.
Table of Post Stages and Ordinary Marches from Bushire,
Persian Gulf, to Teheran 410
APPENDIX B.
Duration of our Journey from Ispahan to London 412
APPENDIX C.
Travelling in Persia 413
APPENDIX D.
RUSSIAN GOODS VERSUS ENGLISH.
The Karūn River route—The best means of reaching the
Commercial Centres of Persia—Opinions of Experts—
Wishes of Merchants 417
Glossary of Persian Words 420
Index 429
LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY Frontispiece.
PERSIAN BAND To face page 91
FEMALE DANCERS AND EQUILIBRIST ” 114
THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS (NAKSH-I-
RŪSTAM) ” 119
ARMENIAN WOMEN ” 132
THE BASTINADO ” 147
THREE SHOPS IN BAZAAR ” 189
THE PUL-I-KOJŪ ” 195
TENT LIFE—WANDERING TRIBES ” 262
A ROSEH-KHANA, OR PRAYER-MEETING ” 283
LION AND LUHLIS ” 307
MIDDLE-CLASS PERSIANS—PERSIAN BOY ” 317
OUTDOOR DRESS OF PERSIAN WOMEN ” 325
DR. WILLS’S HOUSE IN JULFA ” 360
A CHUPPER-KHANA, OR POST-HOUSE ” 386
 IN THE
LAND OF THE LION AND SUN.
 CHAPTER I.
I GO TO PERSIA.

Wanted, a doctor—The Director-in-chief—Doubt and distrust—Simple advice—Am

referred to ‘Hadji Baba’—My kit—Saddle for riding post—Vienna—Rustchuk—
Quarantine—Galatz—Kustendji—Constantinople—Turkish ladies—Stamboul
—I have my hair cut—“Karagews”—Turkish coffee—A philo-Turk—Shooting
party—The theatres—The Opera—Armenian theatre—Gambling-house—A
Bashi-bazouk—We leave, viâ the Black Sea—The Russian captain—
Unarmed vessels—White Crimean wine—Foreign wines in Russia—Deck
passengers—Sinope—Batoum—Poti—The post-house—Difficulty in getting
food—Travelling en tröika—Kutais—A tarantass—Apply for horses—An
itching palm—We start—Tiflis—Lecoq’s beer—A happy reprieve—The joys of
travel—Chief of the Telegraph in Tiflis—Uniforms—Persian Consulate—
Coffee and pipes—Smoking an art—Effects on the tyro—Tea—The Consul—
His age—Dyeing the hair—The Opera, varied costumes at—The Tiflis ballet—
Leave Tiflis—Erivan—The Pass—We lighten our load—Hotel—Washing—
Nakchewan—Julfa, the frontier of Persia.

I think that there is no more painful position than that of the young
medical man. I had “passed,” and had got my qualifications. An
assistant I did not wish to be, and I therefore consulted the
advertisement columns of the Lancet, and was prepared to go
anywhere, if I might see the world, and have what Americans call a
good time.
At my first attempt I came on an advertisement of three
appointments, under the Indian Government, in Persia; the address
was the Adelphi. Off I started for the Adelphi, which I had always
looked on as a neighbourhood full of mystery, and whose inhabitants
were to be mistrusted. Timeo Danaos.
A first-floor—this looked well. I knocked, was told to enter. Two
gentlemen, kneeling on the floor, looked at me in a disturbed
manner. The whole room is strewn with sheets of written foolscap,
and it appears that I have arrived inopportunely, as official
documents are being sorted. I am asked to take a seat, having
stated to the elder of the two that I am come to see the director on
business.
Now I couldn’t at that time fancy a director who knelt—in fact, my
only idea of one was the typical director of the novel, a stout,
bechained man—and my astonishment was great at being quietly
informed by one of the gentlemen that he was Colonel G⸺, and
should be glad to hear anything I had to communicate. I stated my
wish to obtain such an appointment as was advertised; the duties,
pay, &c., were pointed out, and I came to the conclusion that it would
suit me as a “pastime” till the happy day when I should have a brass
plate of my own. But if my ideas of a director were lofty, my ideas of
a colonel were loftier; and I said to myself, one who combines these
two functions, and can be polite to a humble doctor—must be an
impostor.
I was asked for my credentials. I gave them, and was told to call in
the morning, but distrust had taken hold of me; I got an ‘Army List,’
and, not finding my chief-that-was-to-be’s name in it, I, forgetting that
we had then an Indian as well as an English army, came to the
conclusion that he must be an impostor, and that I should be asked
for a deposit in the morning, which was, I believed, the general way
of obtaining money from the unwary.
With, I fear, a certain amount of truculent defiance, I presented
myself at the appointed hour, and was told that my references were
satisfactory, that a contract would be drawn up that I should have to
sign, and that I should be ready to start in a fortnight; but, rather to
my astonishment, no mention was made of a deposit. “I think there is
nothing more,” said Colonel G⸺.
This, I concluded, indicated the termination of the interview; and,
after considerable humming and hawing, I came to the point, and
blurted out that, after searching the ‘Army List,’ I couldn’t find any
Colonel G⸺, and that no one had ever heard of the Telegraph
Department in Persia.
Instead of being annoyed, the Colonel merely asked if I knew any
one at the War Office. As it happened I did. “Well, go to him, and he
will tell you all about it.”
Off I went to the War Office, found my friend, and, to his horror,
told him that I wanted to know if the Persian Telegraph Department
existed or not, and if the director was or was not a myth. He easily
satisfied me, and I felt that I had been stupidly suspicious.
I then announced to my friends and relatives my probably
immediate departure for Persia. Strange to say, they declined to see
it in any other light than a peculiarly elaborate and stupid joke.
Instead of congratulations, I was treated as an unamiable and tiring
lunatic, and from none of my friends was I able to get any
information as to Persia. One man had a son in Baghdad! but it was
no good his writing him, as it took six months to get an answer.
After a day or two I again presented myself at the office, and I had
the country described to me, and various recommendations as to
outfit given me, and I also was introduced to Major C⸺, the
assistant-director. His advice was delightfully simple. “You’ll be able
to wear out all your old clothes; don’t buy any new ones; have a
‘Dayrell’ bridle; get nothing but flannel shirts.” Colonel G⸺ certainly
took great trouble to explain to me all about the country, and, taking
me out to lunch with him, bought me Morier’s ‘Hadji Baba,’ saying,
“When you read this you will know more of Persia and the Persians
than you will if you had lived there with your eyes open for twenty
years.” This is going a long way; it is seventeen years since I went to
Persia, and I read ‘Hadji Baba’ now, and still learn something new
from it. As Persia was in Morier’s time so it is now; and, though one
sees plenty of decay, there is very little change.
Two other candidates came forward, to whom I was deputed to
explain matters. They accepted the conditions, and, the deeds being
prepared, we all three went to the India Office and signed a contract
for three years.
On going to the Adelphi I was told that a sum of one hundred
pounds had been handed to each of my two colleagues to take them
to Persia. But I was glad to seize the opportunity kindly given me by
Colonel G⸺ of travelling with him, and he told me to meet him in
Vienna on a certain day.
 I had now no time to lose, and proceeded to buy my kit; what that
kit was it is as well the reader should know.
I got enough ordinary clothing for three years, such as we use in
England for morning or country wear, also two pairs of riding-boots;
these fitted me, and were consequently useless, for I soon found that
in riding long distances boots much too big are the thing, as then the
foot is neither cold in winter or crippled in summer; a knife, fork, and
spoon, to shut up; a revolver; a small bradawl, with the point buried
in a cork, for boring holes in straps; a military saddle (hussar
officer’s), with wallet-holsters and a high cantle (this cantle keeps
one’s rugs off one’s back when riding post, which is the only way of
quick travelling in the country); a double-barrelled fowling-piece
(nearly useless). My kit was packed in a couple of bullock-trunks,
and my saddle sewn up in my rugs, which were thick and good. I
also had a blanket-lined waterproof sheet.
I gave myself a week in Paris previous to my nominal start, and
thence I proceeded to Vienna, to be ready to leave with Colonel G
⸺ as soon as he arrived there.
I went to the “Golden Lamb,” a very comfortable hotel which the
Colonel had chosen, and beguiled my time pleasantly enough in
going nightly to the theatre to hear Offenbach’s operas done in
German. I saw ‘Bluebeard,’ ‘La Belle Hélène,’ &c. I was a fortnight in
Vienna, and I began to pick up a smattering, for, of course, the
German learnt at school is useless; my Offenbach system I found
more effectual than the usual one of “the gardener’s wife has
brought the hat of the merchant’s little boy,” &c.
A week after the Colonel’s arrival our stay in Vienna ended. We
left for Basiatch (by rail twenty-seven hours); slept there, and started
early in the morning for Rustchuk by steamer. There we found that
passengers from up the river were in quarantine; and the letters
were taken with a pair of tongs, with immense precautions, for
fumigation; we were advised not to land, as we should certainly have
to go to the lazaretto; and we were told that if we quietly went on to
Galatz, and said nothing, we could return the next day as from a
healthy port.
 We were lucky in taking the advice, as a passenger did venture on
to the lighter, and was, willy-nilly, marched off to what we learnt
afterwards was a six weeks’ quarantine.
We went on to Galatz, which we reached the next day.
Galatz is like a rural Wapping, but muddier. We went to bed, to find
ourselves under weigh in the morning. We soon got to Tchernavoda,
which seemed a mere village. There we landed, and thence, by a
very slow train indeed, to Kustendji. At this place we heard the
ravages of the cholera had been very great. We slept there that
night, and started at noon next day for Constantinople by steamer.
It blew hard, and we were very glad indeed to find ourselves in the
Bosphorus. There the scenery became splendid; no description of
mine can do justice to the castles and palaces hanging on the
water’s edge; the crowded picturesque villages that were reflected in
the clear blue water; the shoals of porpoises that accompanied the
ship at full speed, ploughing the water with a loud noise, and then, in
their course, leaping, still continuing the race, from the water; and
then entering it again amid a shower of spray. This wonderful scene
continued for eighteen miles. At 5 p.m. we anchored in the Golden
Horn. The scene was indescribable; all I had ever seen or read of
paled before it. We were too late to land, as one cannot do so after
sunset.
Next morning we went ashore in a caique, rowed by very
picturesque boatmen in white kilts, passed the Custom House, and
went straight to Misseri’s, preceded by our baggage, borne by three
porters. These “hammals” bear gigantic burdens, and as in most
Eastern towns there are no carriage-roads, they are of great use,
and generally form a distinct corporation.
At Misseri’s the Colonel was well known, having stayed there
several times before. In Constantinople, happily for me, instead of
going on at once, my chief was delayed by orders from home for
nearly two months; and I was enabled to see a good deal of the
town.
 Great was my delight to watch the Turkish ladies, their muslin
yashmaks lending a fictitious delicacy to their complexions, going
about in handsome carriages. Innumerable were the mysterious
stories I heard after table d’hôte of these veiled beauties. Many a
time have I gone on long expeditions into Stamboul with Mr. Ayrton,
a brother of “Board of Works Ayrton,” who, with a thorough
knowledge of Turkey and the Turk, took me under his wing in his
daily pilgrimages to the most unsavoury but interesting nooks of the
Mahommedan portion of the city. We went to coffee-houses, and
listened to story-tellers; we dined on savoury kabobs; and, alas! I
well remember my philo-Turk friend persuaded me to have my hair
cut by a Turkish barber. It was only too well done; when the satisfied
shaver handed me the glass I was as a sheep before the shearer,
dumb, but with horror; my head was pink, so closely was it cropped,
and my only consolation was the remark of my introducer to oriental
life, that “in the East they generally did things thoroughly.”
I saw too the Turkish Punch (“Karagews”), a most immoral puppet;
and the mildest and most favourable description of him was that “his
manners were none, his customs disgusting,” but then my mentor
said he was “very oriental”—perhaps the terms mean much the
same thing.
As the coffee seemed particularly delicious in the native cafés, I,
after some trouble, ascertained the real receipt for coffee à la Turca
(not à la Turque), as they call it. Here it is; for each tiny cup (about a
small wineglassful), a teaspoonful of coffee fresh roasted, and
ground at once while hot to a fine powder in a brass hand-mill, or at
times pounded in a mortar, is thrown into a small and heated
saucepan; add the required quantity of boiling water. Place on the
embers; when it threatens to boil over, remove; replace, and remove
a second and a third time; serve. All the dregs go to the bottom. No
sugar or milk used—never clean the saucepan!
At these cafés long chibouques with yellow clay heads are
smoked, the heads being rested on a brass tray. A ball of live
charcoal is placed on the long-cut Samsoon tobacco (or if the
customer be liberal, Macedonian), the stem is jasmine or cherry
wood, and the grander the pipe the longer the stem; rich customers
bring their own mouth-pieces, which have a long inner conical tube
that fits any stem. These mouth-pieces are of amber, and are
frequently ornamented with a hoop of brilliants. The pieces of amber
are two in number, and if of large size and of good colour cost two
pounds, upwards to even five-and-twenty: the ordinary fashion is to
separate these two pieces by a thin circle of lapis-lazuli or other
stone.
The narghilé is also much used. It will be fully described as the
“kalian” further on. In it is smoked the tumbaku of Persia. A few
pence is charged for the whole entertainment of coffee, smoke,
shelter, and music, such as it is, generally a guitar or flute-player,
who is glad to play to order for a cup of coffee. The customers sit on
little low stools like the French church chairs without their backs. In
some of the grander cafés divans, and even chairs, are provided.
Mr. Ayrton had spent many years in Egypt. He wore a coat made
by a Turkish tailor, a shawl waistcoat and a fez, and with his cropped
grey hairs (it was his barber who operated on me) and his big
chibouque with the amber mouth-piece (he had a large collection of
them) with the ring of diamonds, he looked a thorough Turk, and I
fancy posed and was treated as such. I remember myself thinking
that the get-up was assumed for the purpose of getting a deeper
insight into Turkish life. From what I know now, I merely suppose
that, from his wearing the fez, he was, or had been, in Turkish
employ; all government servants in Turkey have to wear it. Dr.
Millengen, in whose arms Byron died, and who was an old
government employé (physician to three Sultans), wore it; so did his
son, who was in the Turkish Government Telegraph; and another son
of his, I afterwards met in the Turkish Quarantine Service at Teheran,
told me he wore it always while in Turkey.
I was introduced to a M. la Fontaine, a most enthusiastic
sportsman, and his many nephews, and by him I was given a day’s
cock-shooting, and there was plenty of it. As for me, I was an utter
muff and cockney, or rather town-reared; but had I not a new pin-fire
breechloader, and was it not my first day’s real shooting? And as I
really did shoot two brace, I returned a delighted but tired youth. That
night will be ever memorable. I ate my first pillaw, with fowls boiled to
rags in it, and followed by curds with thick cream on the top called
“yaourt.” How we all ate!
We had come from Pera, crossing in a steamer, and had to ride
some twenty miles on rough little ponies to the sleeping place, and—
horror of horrors!—on Turkish saddles. Now to the timid rider a
Turkish saddle is at first a delight, for to leave it without great effort is
impossible, and there is a pommel which is so high that it appears
the height of folly not to cling to it; but when one’s knees are in one’s
mouth, when one’s saddle is hard as iron and cuts like a knife, when
one has new and heavy shooting-boots on, and one’s
unmentionables have a tendency to ruck, besides having the glory of
carrying a forty-guinea gun slung (oh, demon cockney gun-maker!)
by a sling that slips along the barrel, and was highly recommended,
with the addition of one hundred loaded cartridges distributed over
the many pockets of a very new shooting-coat, in the sun, with a fur
cap on—is it to be wondered at that the sufferings of the tortured
Indian at the stake were child’s-play to what I endured without a
groan, and repeating constantly assurances of my delight and
enjoyment?—and remember, reader, we went at a brisk canter all
the time.
How glad I was to lie down! How grieved I was, at 4.30 a.m. the
next day, to be called, and, after a hurried wash, to start in the half
dawn in my tight and heavy boots! But the firing began; I forgot the
tightness of my boots, the stiffness of my back. Do you remember
how stiff you felt after your first riding lesson, my friend? and you
hadn’t one hundred loaded cartridges about you, and an intermittent
garotte with your knees in your mouth; and I thanked Heaven I need
not sit down, for weighty reasons.
Of course I fired wildly; of course I missed continually, but it was
my first day, and I never enjoyed anything so much in my life. I
hobbled bravely on till there was no more daylight, but I did feel
thoroughly done on getting in, and I did not enjoy my ride back the
next day.
I used to try and learn Persian in my idle hours, and I soon
mastered the printed character and could read fluently, but without
the slightest idea of meaning. Kind Colonel G⸺ gave me many a
lesson, but I fear that loafing in Stamboul by day and going to the
French or Italian theatre in the evening had greater attractions.
I was always passionately fond of the stage, and, as we were
always going in a day or two, I used, on the principle that I might
never be able to go to the play again, to go every evening.
Of course there was only a third-rate French company, but how
very good they were! The term “stick,” so justly applied to many of
our actors, could not be attached to any player in the little band. All
were good, and all were good all round, and though the leading man
might be everything in the drama, yet he didn’t object to play the
lover in the little vaudeville, and played it well. An Englishman, in the
event of anything so dreadful happening to him, would soon let his
audience see that he was only doing it under protest.
At the Opera the prima donna was ridiculously fat, and to a man
unmusical this somewhat destroys the illusion—but then the fauteuils
d’orchestre only cost ten francs. I also went to an Armenian theatre,
but it had the national characteristics, squalor and misery, and I did
not repeat the visit. I failed even to see an Armenian piece (if such a
thing exists), but sat out a fearful edition of ‘The Chiffonier of Paris;’
and I was told that all the pieces played in Constantinople (Pera) in
Armenian were mere translations.
Even the delights of gaming were permitted in Pera. A few doors
from Messeri’s was the Café “Flam,” as it was affectionately called
by the Pera youth. “Café Flamand” was, I fancy, its real title. Here
were played “pharaon” and roulette. I was recommended the former
game, for economical reasons—it took longer to lose a napoleon.
Nobody seemed to win at either game, but pharaon certainly “took
longer.” I was not tempted to make frequent visits, as I had played
for some small sums at Baden-Baden a year or two before. There
one was at least cheated fairly; here the robbery was open.
A few days after the New Year the Colonel told me that we should
really leave for Persia by the very first opportunity. I bid farewell to all
the kind friends I had made, had my photo taken in breeches, boots,
and revolver at Abdullah’s—a weakness every Englishman who
reaches Constantinople is guilty of. It does not do to be too oriental.
At Abdullah’s I purchased a fearful-looking type, marked a Bashi-
bazouk, and found it out afterwards to be the portrait of a man whose
acquaintance I made in Persia, the Dutch Consul in Bushire; but he
made a very good type, being a big man; and he literally bristled with
weapons, and seemed capable of any atrocities.
One fine afternoon, on January 5th, 1867, we were rowed on
board the Russian steamer Oleg. We had an English-speaking
captain, who was genial and communicative. My chief was confined
to his cabin; and as there was nothing to read and nothing to do, I
saw a good deal of the Russian. He told me that all the commanders
of their mail-boats were naval officers, and that all the mail-boats
could be turned into war-steamers at a few hours’ notice, merely
requiring the guns to be put into them: “so that, as you English don’t
let us have war-vessels on the Black Sea, we run a superior class of
mail-boat” (built, however, on the Clyde). And a very superior boat
she was.
I was told by the captain to avoid the high-priced wines, and stick
to white Crimean. This was a particularly delicious light wine, like a
good Sauterne; and I find, from after experience of Russian railway
buffets, which far exceed anything of the sort we have in grandeur,
that, as a rule, the liquor is simply fair red and white country wine,
the only difference being in price and label.
In some of these labels the Muscovite imagination fairly runs riot.
You see “Château d’Yquem,” “Schloss Johannisberg,” &c., but
nobody ever seems to drink them, and they are mere table
ornaments. The rich drink nothing but champagne of known and
expensive brands, and bottled stout; while the middle classes stick to
“piver” (Russian beer) and vodki.
Tea, in tumblers, was continually being served, with a big slice of
lemon in it. The deck passengers, among whom were many rough
Circassians, all armed to the teeth, cuddled down into the nooks of
the cargo, and managed to keep themselves warm as best they
could. They too always were drinking tea, but they adopted a plan to
economise sugar that I have noticed constantly among the Russian
poor: a bit of sugar is placed in the cheek, and then the tea is
swallowed in gulps; the poor fellows thus keeping up a sort of
delusion that they are swallowing sweet and hot tea, though the
mouth only, and not the tea, is really sweetened. There was none of
the exclusiveness of the Englishman. A made tea, and regaled B, C,
and D; then B treated the rest, and so on; when not asleep, eating,
or tea-drinking, the deck people were card-playing and smoking. The
short pipe was a good deal used, and passed from hand to hand,
while the trader class smoked the cigarette. All the men, and most of
the women, wore a sort of rough butcher-boot; and, from the state of
the roads at Poti, any other foot clothing for pedestrians would have
been impossible.
We lay to off Sinope on the 7th (here the Russians, our little
captain took care to remind me, destroyed the Turkish fleet), but
could not land passengers, a gale blowing. We changed steamers at
Batoum on the 10th.
The scenery at Batoum is very fine; the sea, without a wave, of a
deep blue; well-wooded hills and the Elburz range of the Caucasus
covered with snows forming the horizon. So warm was it here that
we lay on the beach throwing stones into the tranquil sea.
At last we arrived at Poti, being the fifth day from Constantinople.
We were put on a lighter with our baggage, and taken direct to the
Custom House; thence we got on a little steamer that was to take us
up the Riom river, and of this we had some twelve hours, the great
part of the time being occupied in getting aground, and getting off
again.
From Poti to Merand we went in a telega, en tröika, some sixty
versts, over what was rather a track than a road, in thirteen hours.
A telega, or road-waggon, is easily described as an oblong box on
wheels, and of the severest simplicity. The box is about five feet by
three feet six inches at the top, and five feet by three feet at the
bottom, with a plank in the front for the driver. There are no attempts
at springs; strength and lightness are all that is aimed at; these are
attained—also the maximum of discomfort. To this machine are
harnessed three horses: one trots in the shafts with a yoke four feet
high, the other two, in traces at either side, gallop. The harness is
rope, the driver often drunk.
Travelling thus is monotonous, and after a time very painful. To the
Russian officer, with his big pillow, little or no luggage, and plenty of
hay, a tröika is comparatively comfortable, for he can lie stretched
out, and be tolerably free from bruises, but, doing as we did, we
suffered grinding torments. One telega was full of our luggage, and
in the other we sat on a portmanteau of the Colonel’s; at each jolt we
were obliged to clutch the edge of the machine to prevent knocking
one against the other, and there was no support of any kind. To
people accustomed to ride on springs our sufferings would only be
apparent if they had once tried what it was to travel in this way for
many hours over the roughest roads, day and night and at full speed,
and without springs of any kind. When our hands got painfully
bruised we changed sides, and bruised the other ones, for we were
forced to hold on. When we were lucky enough to get a broadish
telega we got some hay, and sat on it, thus resting our knees.
On our way we only saw one woman and, say, a hundred men.
The country seemed to me very thinly populated after teeming
England. On our arrival at the post-house at Merand we were shown
a room with two plank bedsteads and a fireplace. I little thought that
in Persia the post-houses hadn’t even the plank bedsteads.
Neither of us could speak one word of the language; we tried
French, German, Italian, Turkish, Persian—all of no avail—and we
had no food. At last we obtained fire and a samovar, or Russian tea
urn; the first by pantomime, the second by looking fierce and
repeating the word.
We pointed to our mouths, heads were shaken (perhaps they
thought we wanted a dentist); at last I had a happy thought, and, by
drawing a hen and egg, and hopping about the room clucking, the
postmaster’s wife at last produced the required eggs; they then
brought bread and sausage, the latter much decomposed.
Colonel G⸺ was taken ill in the night, and I feared we could not
proceed. But by 8 a.m. (of the 12th) we were again on the road, and
did the thirty-four versts on a good military road by noon. The 12th is
with Russians New Year’s Day, and we found the town of Kutais for
the most part drunk and letting off its firearms.
Here our landlord informed us that there was an opportunity to buy
a tarantass, which we could dispose of when we reached the
Persian frontier or at Tiflis.
I was greatly delighted when the Colonel decided on purchasing
this very primitive carriage. Fancy an old-fashioned open carriage to
hold two, with cushions stuffed in prehistoric ages with hay, a
tarpaulin apron, a huge hood provided with a leather curtain which,
when dropped, plunged the traveller into black darkness, but kept
the wind and rain out; a gigantic box and boot, the whole slung on a
perch from four posts by thick straps, and having very small fore and
very large hind wheels, a plumb-line dropped from the top of the
latter being quite a foot beyond the bottom. But it kept us warm and
dry, would hold all the luggage, and would in theory enable us to
travel with three horses instead of six. We found out afterwards that
we had to take five, when we were lucky enough to get them.
I fancy the whole machine cost one hundred and fifty roubles, or,
at the then exchange, fifteen pounds. Then came a wheelwright, and
he took some seven hours at the wheels. At length, about five, all
was pronounced ready, and we sent our “padoroschna,” or permit to
take post-horses, to the postmaster for horses. Reply: “None just at
present; would send them over as soon as they came in.” To lose no
time, we carefully filled the boot with our luggage, and my bullock-
trunks were firmly roped on behind.
We took tea preparatory to our start, and laid in provisions of
bread, beer, &c., with a couple of fowls; for we were told we should
find nothing but black bread and hot water on the road. Still no
horses.
We went to the post-house, where we found nine beasts, but were
told that these were all reserved for special service. The Colonel
then smelt a rat; but what were we to do? the postmaster (a major)
was dining out, and no one knew where he was.