Commedia dell'Arte, its Structure and

Tradition: Antonio Fava in conversation

with John Rudlin John Rudlin
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/commedia-dellarte-its-structure-and-tradition-antonio-
fava-in-conversation-with-john-rudlin-john-rudlin/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Data Structure and Algorithms With Python: The Ultimate

Guide Towards Coding John Thomas

https://ebookmass.com/product/data-structure-and-algorithms-with-
python-the-ultimate-guide-towards-coding-john-thomas/

Reality And Its Structure: Essays In Fundamentality

Ricki Bliss

https://ebookmass.com/product/reality-and-its-structure-essays-
in-fundamentality-ricki-bliss/

Science and Religion: Edwin Salpeter, Owen Gingerich

and John Polkinghorne: In conversation with Mark Turin
and Alan Macfarlane 1st Edition Edwin Salpeter

https://ebookmass.com/product/science-and-religion-edwin-
salpeter-owen-gingerich-and-john-polkinghorne-in-conversation-
with-mark-turin-and-alan-macfarlane-1st-edition-edwin-salpeter/

The Purposes of Education: A Conversation Between John

Hattie and Steen Nepper Larsen 1st Edition John Hattie

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-purposes-of-education-a-
conversation-between-john-hattie-and-steen-nepper-larsen-1st-
edition-john-hattie/
ELECTRON SCATTERING FOR NUCLEAR AND NUCLEON STRUCTU
John Dirk Walecka

https://ebookmass.com/product/electron-scattering-for-nuclear-
and-nucleon-structure-john-dirk-walecka/

Quantum Mechanics Mathematical Structure and Physical

Structure Part II (Revised 2022) Third Edition John
Boccio

https://ebookmass.com/product/quantum-mechanics-mathematical-
structure-and-physical-structure-part-ii-revised-2022-third-
edition-john-boccio/

John among the Apocalypses: Jewish Apocalyptic

Tradition and the 'Apocalyptic' Gospel Benjamin E.
Reynolds

https://ebookmass.com/product/john-among-the-apocalypses-jewish-
apocalyptic-tradition-and-the-apocalyptic-gospel-benjamin-e-
reynolds/

King John: Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition Joseph

Candido (Editor)

https://ebookmass.com/product/king-john-shakespeare-the-critical-
tradition-joseph-candido-editor/

Complacency: Classics and Its Displacement in Higher

Education 1st Edition John T. Hamilton

https://ebookmass.com/product/complacency-classics-and-its-
displacement-in-higher-education-1st-edition-john-t-hamilton/
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
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
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
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
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
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook
of Sonnets and madrigals of
Michelangelo Buonarroti
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: Sonnets and madrigals of Michelangelo Buonarroti

Author: Michelangelo Buonarroti

Translator: William Wells Newell

Release date: March 6, 2024 [eBook #73109]

Language: English

Original publication: Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin and Company,

1900

Credits: Charlene Taylor, A. Marshall and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file
was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONNETS

AND MADRIGALS OF MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI ***
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
 S ON N E T S A N D
M A D R I GA L S
OF M I C H E L A N GE L O
B U ON A R R OT I
S O NNE T S A ND MADRIG A L S
O F MICHEL ANG EL O
BU O NA RRO T I

RE NDE RED INTO ENG L ISH

V ERSE BY WIL L IAM
WEL L S NEWEL L

WI T H ITAL IAN T EXT

I NT RO DU CT I O N
AN D N O T ES

H O U G H TO N
MIFFLIN AND
C O M PA N Y
MDCCCC
Copyright 1900 by William Wells Newell
All rights reserved
 CONTENTS
Michelangelo as Poet Page i
Sonnets ” 1
Epigrams ” 26
Madrigals ” 28
Notes ” 59
Index of First Lines ” 105
MICHELANGELO AS
POET
 MICHELANGELO AS
POET
MICHELANGELO, who considered himself as primarily sculptor,
afterwards painter, disclaimed the character of poet by profession.
He was nevertheless prolific in verse; the pieces which survive, in
number more than two hundred, probably represent only a small part
of his activity in this direction. These compositions are not to be
considered merely as the amusement of leisure, the byplay of fancy;
they represent continued meditation, frequent reworking, careful
balancing of words; he worked on a sonnet or a madrigal in the
same manner as on a statue, conceived with ardent imagination,
undertaken with creative energy, pursued under the pressure of a
superabundance of ideas, occasionally abandoned in dissatisfaction,
but at other times elaborated to that final excellence which exceeds
as well as includes all merits of the sketch, and, as he himself said,
constitutes a rebirth of the idea into the realm of eternity. In the
sculptor’s time, the custom of literary society allowed and
encouraged interchange of verses. If the repute of the writer or the
attraction of the rhymes commanded interest, these might be copied,
reach an expanding circle, and achieve celebrity. In such manner,
partly through the agency of Michelangelo himself, the sonnets of
Vittoria Colonna came into circulation, and obtained an acceptance
ending in a printed edition. But the artist did not thus arrange his own
rhymes, does not appear even to have kept copies; written on stray
leaves, included in letters, they remained as loose memoranda, or
were suffered altogether to disappear. The fame of the author
secured attention for anything to which he chose to set his hand; the
verses were copied and collected, and even gathered into the form
of books; one such manuscript gleaning he revised with his own
hand. The sonnets became known, the songs were set to music, and
the recognition of their merit induced a contemporary author, in the
seventy-first year of the poet’s life, to deliver before the Florentine
Academy a lecture on a single sonnet.
Diffusion through the printing-press, however, the poems did not
attain. Not until sixty years after the death of their author did a grand-
nephew, also called Michelangelo Buonarroti, edit the verse of his
kinsman; in this task he had regard to supposed literary proprieties,
conventionalizing the language and sentiment of lines which seemed
harsh or impolite, supplying endings for incomplete compositions,
and in general doing his best to deprive the verse of an originality
which the age was not inclined to tolerate. The recast was accepted
as authentic, and in this mutilated form the poetry remained
accessible. Fortunately the originals survived, partly in the
handwriting of the author, and in 1863 were edited by Guasti. The
publication added to the repute of the compositions, and the sonnets
especially have become endeared to many English readers.
The long neglect of Michelangelo’s poetry was owing to the
intellectual deficiencies of the succeeding generation. In spite of the
partial approbation of his contemporaries, it is likely that these were
not much more appreciative, and that their approval was rendered
rather to the fame of the maker than to the merits of the work. The
complication of the thought, frequently requiring to be thought out
word for word, demanded a mental effort beyond the capacity of
literati whose ideal was the simplicity and triviality of Petrarchian
imitators. Varchi assuredly had no genuine comprehension of the
sonnet to which he devoted three hours of his auditors’ patience;
Berni, who affirmed that Michelangelo wrote things, while other
authors used words, to judge by his own compositions could scarce
have been more sensible of the artist’s emotional depth. The
sculptor, who bitterly expressed his consciousness that for the
highest elements of his genius his world had no eyes, must have felt
a similar lack of sympathy with his poetical conceptions. Here he
stood on less safe ground; unacquainted with classic literature,
unable correctly to write a Latin phrase, he must have known, to use
his own metaphor, that while he himself might value plain homespun,
the multitude admired the stuffs of silk and gold that went to the
making of a tailors’ man. It is likely that the resulting intellectual
loneliness assumed the form of modesty, and that Michelangelo took
small pains to preserve his poetry because he set on it no great
value.

The verse, essentially lyric, owed its inspiration to experience. A

complete record would have constituted a biography more intimate
than any other. But such memorial does not exist; of early
productions few survive; the extant poems, for the most part, appear
to have been composed after the sixtieth year of their author.
The series begins with a sonnet written in 1506, when
Michelangelo was thirty-one years of age. The sculptor had been
called to Rome by pope Julius, who conceived that the only way to
ensure an adequately magnificent mausoleum was to prepare it
during his own lifetime. A splendid design was made for the
monument destined to prove the embarrassment of Michelangelo’s
career; but the pope was persuaded that it was not worth while to
waste his means in marbles, and in the spring of 1506 the artist fled
to Florence. In that city he may have penned the sonnet in which
Julius is blamed for giving ear to the voice of Echo (misreporting
calumniators) instead of holding the balance even and the sword
erect (in the character of a sculptured Justice). The writer adds a
bitter complaint of the injustice of fate, which sends merit to pluck the
fruit of a withered bough. Another sonnet of the period seems to
have been written in Rome; the subscription reads: “Your
Michelangelo, in Turkey.” The piece contains an indictment against
the papal court, at that time occupied with plans for military
advancement, where the eucharistic cup is changed into helmet, and
cross into lance; for safety’s sake, let Christ keep aloof from a city
where his blood would be sold dropwise. Work there is none, and the
Medusa-like pope turns the artist to stone; if poverty is beloved by
heaven, the servants of heaven, under the opposite banner, are
doing their best to destroy that other life. In 1509, a sonnet
addressed to Giovanni of Pistoia describes the sufferings endured in
executing the frescoes of the Sistine chapel. We are shown
Michelangelo bent double on his platform, the paint oozing on his
face, his eyes blurred and squinting, his fancy occupied with
conjecture of the effect produced on spectators standing below.
Allusion is made to hostile critics; the writer bids his friend maintain
the honor of one who does not profess to be a painter. While looking
upward to the vault retained in the memory of many persons as the
most holy spot in Europe, it is well to recollect the sufferings of the
artist, who in an unaccustomed field of labor achieved a triumph
such as no other decorator has obtained. A fourth sonnet, addressed
to the same Giovanni, reveals the flaming irritability of a temper
prone to exaggerate slights, especially from a Pistoian, presumably
insensible to the preëminence of Florence, “that precious joy.”
With this group can be certainly classed only one sonnet of a
different character (No. XX). This was penned on a letter of
December, 1507, addressed to Michelangelo at Bologna, where he
was then leading a miserable life, engaged on the statue of Julius;
this work, on which he wasted three years, was finally melted into a
cannon, in order that the enemies of the pope might fire at the latter
by means of his own likeness. The verse is a spontaneous and
passionate outburst of admiration for a beautiful girl. With this piece
might be associated two or three undated compositions of similar
nature, which serve to show the error of the supposition that the
artist was insensible to feminine attractions. It may be affirmed that
the reverse was the case, and that the thoughtful temper of the
extant poetry is due solely to the sobering influences of time.
The verse which might have exhibited the transition from early to
later manhood has not been preserved; during twenty years survive
no compositions of which the date is assured. Subsequently to that
time, assistance is derived from the fortunate accident that several of
the sonnets were written on dated letters. It is true that this indication
is far from furnishing secure testimony. Even at the present day,
when paper is so easily obtained, I have known a writer of rhyme
who was in the habit of using the backs of old letters. That
Michelangelo sometimes did the same thing appears to be
demonstrated by the existence of a sonnet (No. L), which, though
written on the back of a letter of 1532, professes to be composed in
extreme old age. The evidence, therefore, is of value only when
supported by the character of the piece. Nor is internal testimony
entirely to be depended on. It is to be remembered that all makers of
verse remodel former work, complete imperfect essays, put into form
reminiscences which essentially belong to an earlier stage of feeling.
Attempts to classify the productions must follow a subjective
opinion, very apt to err. Nevertheless something may be
accomplished in this direction.
The nephew states that two sonnets (Nos. XXIV and XXV) were
found on a leaf containing a memorandum of 1529. Extant is another
sonnet, certainly written on a page having an entry of that year.
These three sonnets seem to breathe the same atmosphere; the
emotion is sustained by a direct impulse, the verse is apparently
inspired by a sentiment too lyric to be unhappy; the employment of
theologic metaphor and Platonic fancy is still subsidiary to emotion.
Allowing for the imaginative indulgence of feeling common to lyrical
poets, it seems nevertheless possible to perceive a basis of personal
experience. With these pieces may be associated a number of
sonnets and madrigals, among the most beautiful productions of the
author, which may conjecturally be assigned to the period before his
permanent Roman residence, or at any rate may be supposed to
represent the impressions of such time. As compared with the work
which may with confidence be dated as produced within the ensuing
decade, these correspond to an earlier manner. Wanting the
direct and impetuous passion of the few youthful verses, they
nevertheless show a spiritual conception of sexual attachment, not
yet resolved into religious aspiration. They suggest that the
inflammable and gentle-hearted artist passed through a series of
inclinations, none of which terminated in a permanent alliance.
At the end of 1534, near his sixtieth year, Michelangelo came to
live in Rome; and to that city, three years later, Vittoria Colonna
came for a long visit, in the twelfth year of her widowhood, and the
forty-seventh of her life. An acquaintance may have been
established in the course of previous years, when the lady visited
Rome, or possibly even at a prior time. Whatever was the date of the
first encounter, allusions in the poems seem to imply that the
meeting produced a deep impression on the mind of the artist
(Madrigals LIV, LXXII). At all events, the relations of the two grew
into a friendship, hardly to be termed intimacy. Only a very few of the
poems are known to have been addressed to Vittoria; but the veiled
references of several pieces, and the tone of the poetry, appear to
justify the opinion that admiration for this friend was the important
influence that affected the character of the verse written during the
ten years before her death in 1547.
In Rome, the Marchioness of Pescara made her home in the
convent of San Silvestro, where she reigned as queen of an
intelligent circle. A charming and welcome glimpse of this society is
furnished by Francis of Holland, who professes to relate three
conversations, held on as many Sunday mornings, in which the
sculptor took a chief part. It is not difficult to imagine the calmness
and coolness of the place, the serious and placid beauty of the
celebrated lady, the figure of Michelangelo, the innocent devices by
which the sympathetic Vittoria contrived to educe his vehement
outbursts on artistic questions, the devout listening of the stranger,
hanging on the chief artist of Italy with the attention of a reporter who
means to put all into a book. So far as the conversation represents a
symposium on matters of art, no doubt the account is to be taken as
in good measure the method adopted by Francis to put before the
world his own ideas; but among the remarks are many so consonant
to the character of the sculptor that it is impossible to doubt the
essential correctness of the narration. In the language of
Michelangelo speaks haughty reserve, the consciousness of
superiority, accompanied by a sense that his most precious qualities
exceeded the comprehension of a world which rendered credit less
to the real man than to the fashionable artist, and whose attention
expressed not so much gratitude for illumination as desire of
becoming associated with what society held in respect.
 All students who have had occasion to concern themselves with
the biography of Vittoria Colonna have become impressed with the
excellence of her character. After the loss of a husband to whom she
had been united in extreme youth, she declared her intention of
forming no new ties; and it must have been an exceptional purity
which the censorious and corrupt world could associate with no
breath of scandal. She had been accounted the most beautiful
woman in Italy, of that golden-haired and broadbrowed type
recognized as favorite; but her intelligence, rather than personal
attractions or social position, had made her seclusion in Ischia a
place of pilgrimage for men of letters. The attraction she possessed
for the lonely, reserved, and proud artist is a testimony that to her
belonged especially the inexplicable attraction of a sympathetic
nature. Such disposition is a sufficient explanation of her devotion to
the memory of a husband who appears to have been essentially a
condottiere of the time, a soldier who made personal interest his
chief consideration. She may also be credited with a sound judgment
and pure ethical purpose in the practical affairs of life.
Yet to allow that Vittoria Colonna was good and lovable does not
make it necessary to worship her as a tenth muse, according to the
partial judgment of her contemporaries. Unfortunately, time has
spared her verses, respecting which may be repeated advice
bestowed by Mrs. Browning in regard to another female author, by
no means to indulge in the perusal, inasmuch as they seem to
disprove the presence of a talent which she nevertheless probably
possessed. In the case commented on by the modern writer, the
genius absent in the books is revealed in the correspondence; but
epistolary composition was not the forte of the Marchioness of
Pescara, whose communications, regarded as pabulum for a hungry
heart, are as jejune as can be conceived. Neither is she to be
credited with originality in her attitude toward political or religious
problems. It does not appear that she quarreled with the
principles of the polite banditti of her own family; nor was she able to
attain even an elementary notion of Italian patriotism. She has been
set down as a reformer in religion; but such tendency went no further
than a sincere affection toward the person of the founder of
Christianity, a piety in no way inconsistent with ritual devotion. When
it came to the dividing of the ways, she had no thought other than to
follow the beaten track. Nor in the world of ideas did she possess
greater independence; with all her esteem for Michelangelo as artist
and man, it is not likely that she was able to estimate the sources of
his supremacy, any more than to foresee a time when her name
would have interest for the world only as associated with that of the
sculptor. It may be believed that a mind capable of taking pleasure in
the commonplaces of her rhyme could never have appreciated the
essential merits of the mystic verse which she inspired. Here, also,
Michelangelo was destined to remain uncomprehended. Vittoria
presented him with her own poems, neatly written out and bound,
but never seems to have taken the pains to gather those of the artist.
Intellectually, therefore, her limitations were many; but she was
endowed with qualities more attractive, a gentle sympathy, a noble
kindness, a person and expression representative of that ideal
excellence which the sculptor could appreciate only as embodied in
human form.
While earlier writers of biography were inclined to exaggerate the
effect on Michelangelo of his acquaintance with Vittoria Colonna,
later authors, as I think, have fallen into the opposite error. To
Vittoria, indeed, whose thoughts, when not taken up with devotional
exercises, were occupied with the affairs of her family or of the
church, such amity could occupy only a subordinate place. One of
her letters to Michelangelo may be taken as a polite repression of
excessive interest. But on the other side, the poetry of the artist is a
clear, almost a painful expression of his own state of mind. We are
shown, in the mirror of his own verse, a sensitive, self-contained,
solitary nature, aware that he is out of place in a world for which he
lacks essential graces and in which he is respected for his least
worthy qualities. That under such circumstances he should value the
kindness of the only woman with whom he could intelligently
converse, that he should feel the attraction of eyes from which
seemed to descend starry influences, that he should suffer from the
sense of inadequacy and transitoriness, from the difference of
fortune and the lapse of years, the contrasts of imagination and
possibility, was only, as he would have said, to manifest attribute in
act, to suffer the natural pain incident to sensitive character.