INTRODUCTION

The first mime, or rather the first comic actor, was he who leapt upon a bench or table to delight the assembly by his singing, his dancing or his relation of an amusing story. Improvisation prompted all such early attempts.

Some of these primitive comedians assemble in Icaria under the direction of Susarion, who gives a form and a sequence to their buffooneries, and they set out to trail their booths and chariots through the cities of Greece (800 B.C.).

They represent a slave with shaven head, a drunkard rubicund of face, brutalised by libations, an obese glutton, who tumbles incessantly. Soon comic poets, such as Magnes, Achæus and Timocreon, conceive for them performances mingled with comic dances (termed cordaces) and pantomimes.

Thespis, born in Icaria, sets up a theatre, assigns rôles to his mimes, dresses them grotesquely, parades them in chariots, their faces smeared with dregs or soot, and sets about presenting little dramas and comedies mingled with music. He detaches from the chorus an individual, assigns to him a rôle and thus creates the corypheus. Æschylus the Athenian (393 B.C.) adds a second one. Thenceforward no comic or tragic performances are given without music.

In Athens and in Sparta charlatans set up their trestles in public places, and by means of their displays attract a crowd, to whom they then proceed to sell their unguents (400 B.C.). Here we behold among others a thieving rogue, or a foreign doctor who speaks a ridiculous dialect.

Whilst Aristophanes is performing his comedies in the great theatre, the streets of Athens are encumbered by diviners, sorcerers, fortune-tellers, jugglers, equilibrists, rope dancers and prestidigitators, amongst whom are cited Theodorus and Euryclides.

In the theatre we behold equilibrist performances, such as the leap on that earliest of spring-boards, the air-inflated goatskin. From these performances were derived the rope dancers, called by the Greeks schœnobates and acrobates, and later, by the Latins, funambuli.

Among the Greek actors we find several classes, the ethologues, famous in Magna Græcia and in Alexandria, who display the lowest and most corrupt of manners; the biologues, who portray and parody the personages of their day; the cinedologues, also called simodes and lysiodes, from Susim of Magnesia and Lysis, the authors of their pieces, who perform and utter obscenities; the hilarodes, dressed in white, shod with sandals and wearing golden crowns on their heads, who act and sing to the accompaniment of string instruments; and the phallophores, a name fully justified by a part of their costume, as is to be seen in all the monuments that have survived. At Sicyonia, where the phallic choirs and the scenes called episodes are more ancient than in Athens, the actors preserve this name of phallophores.

Later this Sicyonian phallophore, his countenance blackened with soot or concealed under a papyrus mask, is transformed into a planipes in Rome and becomes in the sixteenth century the Bergamese Harlequin.

All these actors performing on the orchestra very close to the spectators found it unnecessary to increase their height by the aid of the buskin with elevated heels. They played without masks, their countenances merely smeared in various colours according to the types which they represented. Women, too, performed on the orchestra, singing, miming and moving in the pieces that did duty as interludes, much after the fashion of our modern actresses.

These female mimes passed from the Doric countries into Sicily and Magna Græcia, and finally found their way to Rome.

The Etruscans were, in the art of the theatre as in many other things, the preceptors of the Romans. Having long been in communication with the Greeks they possessed stone theatres such as that at Tusculum, long before the Romans had so much as wooden booths. In the year 442 the youth of Rome studied Oscan literature, according to Titus Livy, much as in his own time it devoted itself to the study of Greek letters.

Between Naples and Capua, Atella (to-day Aversa) was one of the first ancient cities to possess a theatre, and above all a particular style of comedy; thus she gave the name of Atellanæ to the first comedies performed in Rome, comedies which derived largely from the satirical and buffoon pieces of the Greeks.

These comedies, interlarded with dancing, singing and pantomime, in which the actors improvised upon a scenario, or agreed subject, were full of pleasantries and quips, and they very quickly eclipsed the Saturæ, the indigenous and national comedies of Rome.

The Roman youth appropriated this style of piece and the right to perform it. The actors of the Atellanæ alone enjoyed exemptions and liberties without limit. Later these pieces became licentious and obscene, and the name of Atellanæ was given to all those which were written in a ribald style. They were also called exodiæ from the custom of playing them after other pieces or at the end of the spectacle. They were performed on the orchestra under the proscenium, hence the name of comædiæ planipediæ, because the actors dispensed with buskins. They dispensed also with those enormous masks termed personæ.

The tabernariæ comedies, the subjects for which were drawn from the lower orders and from tavern life, were sometimes played in the same manner as the planipediæ; this was also the case with the togatæ, in which the actors appeared arrayed in the toga.

The other styles of comedy were designated variously as follows:—mixed comedies, partly developed in speech, partly in mimetic action, such as The Eunuch of Terence; Motoriæ comedies, in which all was action, such as The Amphitryon of Plautus; Palliatæ comedies, in which the subject, the characters and the costumes were Greek; Prætextatæ comedies, in which the subject and the characters were drawn from the nobility; Latinæ or comic-lachrymose comedies invented by Rhinthonus, a buffoon of Tarentum; Statariæ comedies, which contained a great deal of dialogue and little pantomime, such as the Asinaria of Plautus and the Hecyra of Terence.

In the performance of some pieces theatrical declamation was shared between two actors, one of whom spoke whilst the other gesticulated. The Abbé du Bos in his critical reflections upon poetry and painting offers the following explanation of this, based upon the writings of Titus Livy:—

“Livius Andronicus, a celebrated poet who lived in Rome some five hundred and fourteen years after its foundation and some sixty years after the opening there of theatres, himself performed in one of his pieces. It was then the custom for dramatic poets to show themselves upon the stage, there to take part in their own works. The people, who took the liberty still taken to-day in France and Italy to demand the repetition of passages with which they were pleased, by dint of crying bis caused the poor Andronicus to recite so long that he grew hoarse. Out of all condition to continue to declaim, he induced his audience to consent that a slave placed in front of the instrumental performer should recite the phrases, and, whilst the slave recited, Andronicus went through the same gestures which he had made when reciting himself. It was observed then that his action was very much more animated because he employed all his energies in gesticulation, whilst another was entrusted with the labour of enunciation; hence, according to Titus Livy, was born the custom of dividing the declamation between two actors, and of reciting, as it were, to the rhythm of the gestures of the comedian.”

“Of all the Roman spectacles,” says M. Charles Magnin, “none was more appreciated than pantomime; it became even peculiar to this people to whom the masterpieces of the Greek tragedies were foreign.” They required shows, but shows contrived for the eyes. This term pantomime, signifying imitator of all things, suggests that these actors had the art of rendering all manner of subjects by gesture alone. Lucian says that sometimes the subject of the piece performed by the pantomime was sung, and that at other times he performed, in silence, expressing the verses by his mute action.

“This spectacle,” says M. Charles Magnin, “which admitted no words, was better suited than any other to the suspicious politics of the emperors; and it possessed moreover the inappreciable advantage of supplying a sort of language intelligible and common to all those nations so diverse in their idioms and customs that composed the Roman empire.”

And further on he says:

“Observe in what terms Nonnus of Panopolis, a poet of the time of Theodosius, speaks of the pantomime in Book VIII. of his Dionysiaca: ‘there are gestures that have a language, hands that have a mouth, fingers that have a voice.’

“Although the use of the mask permitted the Roman mimes to perform either male or female rôles, nevertheless, female mimes were already in existence in the fourth century. The incredible licence of this epoch rendered the presence of women necessary to the enjoyment of the crowd. They appeared with uncovered heads, and often—incredible statement!—entirely nude. They swam thus before the spectators in a sort of vat or basin placed upon the large orchestra.

“The number of the Roman mimes in the fourth century is hardly credible. Ammianus Marcellinus reports, as a thing shameful to the Romans, that in the reign of Constantius, when the fear of famine compelled the authorities to expel from Rome all strangers practising the liberal arts, six thousand mimes were suffered to remain there undisturbed.”

Already, before the Christian era, the funambuli or rope dancers were a source of sensation in Rome. The Romans preferred their spectacles to all others. Terence himself experienced this; and he laments that during the performance of one of his pieces the appearance of a new funambulus so attracted the notice of the spectators that they could give no thought or attention to anyone else. Ita populus, studio spectaculi cupidus in funambulo animam occupaverat.

The celebrated perfection of the ancient mimes amazes us when we consider the masks they wore, which must have deprived them of all power of expression and even of the natural character of their countenances, unless this superimposed face was contrived with such art and scenic experience as to render it effective at a given distance. These masks, however, were less deformed than those of other actors, since at least they were not equipped with those enormous mouths whose aim was to increase the volume of the voice—a measure necessary in the vast theatres of antiquity.

It may be well to enter into some details of the uses of the ancient mask, with which the mask worn by the actors of the Italian comedy is undoubtedly connected.

We know already that the chief advantage of those ancient scenic masks was to enable men to appear in female rôles. This mask was a kind of great helmet covering the entire head of the actor and representing, in addition to the features of the countenance, the hair, the ears and even the ornaments which women might employ in their headdresses.

This mask was called persona; it is thus that Phædrus, Horace and other authors have named it in their works. It appears that the earliest were contrived of bark; later they were made of leather, lined with cloth; but as their shapes were liable to distortion it became the custom to make them all of a light wood, and it was conceived, moreover, that they should be constructed in a manner calculated to increase the volume of the actor’s voice; this was accomplished either by lining them with plates of bronze or other sonorous material, or else by fitting to the interior of the mouth a sort of trumpet which was to have the effect of a megaphone. Hence is it that a large number of these masks have mouths of a size and an extent that render them hideous at close quarters; but it should be considered that this deformity was no doubt diminished when they were seen from a distance, the spectator then being able to perceive no more than a very strongly marked expression.

Aulus-Gellius, who wrote under the Emperor Adrian, gives us the following account of the effect of these masks in increasing the voice:—

“The entire head and face of the actor being enclosed within the mask, so that the voice could issue by only one restricted opening, it follows that the voice thus confined must be greatly increased in volume and distinctness. This is why the Latins have given the name of persona to these masks, because they cause the voices of those who wear them to resound and reverberate.”

It was natural to provide different sorts of masks according to the employment for which they were destined. Consequently they were divided into comic, tragic and satiric masks. These last in particular were horribly overcast, and no doubt very much larger than the others, because, being intended to represent fauns, satyrs or cyclops, which poetical imagination depicted as superhuman beings, the actors entrusted with these rôles had to appear as men very much above the natural. Consequently they never failed to increase their stature in proportion to the size of their masks.

Only the masks designed for feminine rôles or those worn by dancers were, far from being deformed, of pleasing and regular features. They were called, according to Lucian, mute or orchestric masks.

We also know that among the Greeks, where the aim of comedy, more free than amongst the Romans, was to depict living citizens, the actors wore masks displaying the features of those persons whom they portrayed. It is thus that Aristophanes in his comedy of the Clouds gave one of his actors a mask which so perfectly resembled Socrates that the spectators thought to behold the man himself upon the stage. The Romans corrected this abuse, and it seems that in the comedies of Terence the masks of the actors expressed the age, the condition, the manners and the nature of the character, but without ever offering to the spectators any features with which they were acquainted.

The name of histrion, which is derived from the Etruscan hister, came from Etruria to Rome together with scenic performances; it became the designation of all actors. These were for the most part slaves or freedmen who did not enjoy the privilege of Roman citizenship. Moreover, any citizen who should have been so ill advised as to appear upon the stage to perform or declaim would thereby have forfeited his civic rights. For the rest, only the law was rigorous with histrions; custom dealt with them tolerantly. We know that an actor could become rich, and free if he were a slave, when by his genius and his talents he attained celebrity.

Quintus Roscius, a famous Roman actor, born 129 B.C., earned from five to six hundred thousand sesterces, and the actor Esopus, his contemporary, left to his son, on his death-bed, a fortune of twenty million sesterces[1] acquired entirely in the theatre.

Sorix and Metrobius were his contemporaries, and shared with him the friendship and favour of Sylla.

The city of Tarentum, in Magna Græcia, was famous for its actors, who came to Rome after the conquest of their city. Cleon performed his mimetics to the sound of the flute; he was the most celebrated actor in all Italy and played without mask, like Nymphodorus, his rival. Istomachus, who, at first a charlatan, followed later in the ways of Cleon, began by performing his farces in the public squares; afterwards, when he had acquired a certain celebrity, he set up a theatre for his shows.

Esopus, according to Quintilian, was considered one of the greatest tragedians of Rome, whilst Roscius excelled as a comic actor; he was the friend of Cicero, and as esteemed for his talents as for his probity. He had brought that art of gesture which the Latins called saltatio to such a point of perfection that Cicero often challenged him as to which of them would render the same thought with the greater eloquence, the one by gesture, or the other by word.

Pylades and Bathyllus, in the first century, were both famous as pantomime actors, and the former assembled a troupe which enjoyed a wide celebrity. Lentulus, mime and mimographer, lived also in the first century under Domitian and Trajan.

In the third century, Genes or Genest of Rome, a comedian, was martyred.

In addition to the actors subsidised by the State there were itinerant mountebanks, mimes and buffoons—the etymology of which, buffo, is derived from the action of inflating the cheeks so that the smacks which the actor is to receive must make more noise, and induce to greater laughter. All these mountebanks overran Italy, and performed their pieces, which were in the nature of Atellanæ, and written—like those intended for the great theatres—in verse, which was often sung to accompaniments on the flute.

The Romans, like the Greeks, had also their nevrospastes or marionette performers, for we see the actors of the Atellanæ borrowing religious pomps, such as the Manducus, from the ancient marionettes. “Thus was established in Rome,” says M. Charles Magnin, “a sort of interchange between the characters of the Atellanæ and those of the theatre of marionettes, just as much more recently in France the masks of the Italian comedy mingled, and, as it were, duplicated themselves with the actors of the troop of Polichinelle; so that it is not easy to know whether in certain rôles marionettes preceded living actors or living actors preceded marionettes.” The marionettes, or αύτοματα, as Aristotle calls them, were brought from Egypt into Greece.

It is necessary to sketch the history of this theatre, for it is essential to that of certain types of the Italian comedy.

Herodotus relates that the origin of puppets on wires is of the greatest antiquity; but he claims to have seen the women of Egypt bearing in procession, in the religious festivals of Osiris, whom he calls Bacchus, images which sometimes were veritable statues, certain parts of whose bodies were moved by cords. The Greeks appropriated this mechanism, but they did not confine the uses of it to religious ceremonies; they employed these automata in the theatre.

Similarly in the religious ceremony, which in Rome preceded the games in the circus and the triumphs, wooden statues were carried which were equipped with hidden strings. Amongst them were the African ghouls, known as Lamiæ, and the sharp-toothed Manducus, the eater of children, a monster with a human head (undoubtedly the primitive type of Mâchecroûte and Croquemitaine), which opened, says Rabelais, in Pantagruel, “large and horrific mandibles, armed with teeth, above and below, which by means of the device of the little hidden cord, were made terrifically to clash the one against the other.”

The identical custom of promenading monsters and colossal figures is to be found again in the Middle Ages, with the difference, however, that instead of being paraded in the triumphs of emperors they are now seen in the anniversaries of the holy bishops, canonised for delivering the country of awesome monsters, or just simply for having curbed idolatry; even in the processions of our own day we may behold monsters, whose jaws are armed with horrible teeth, or a giant Goliath and a Saint Christopher moving arms and legs.

This name of marionnette is derived from Maria, Mariola, a diminutive which the young girls in the Middle Ages gave to the little figures of the Virgin exhibited in churches and by the wayside. Our fathers have drawn therefrom various derivatives, marote, mariotte, mariole, mariette, marion, and lastly marionnette. All these infantile names, given at first to young girls, were appropriated afterwards by mountebanks for their wooden puppets, which they called marmozets and mariottes, as they are still called in Languedoc.

In 1550, in Italy, they were called bagatelli and magatelli; but when Burattino, one of the masks of the Italian comedy, came to be personified among the marionettes, he bestowed his name upon them, and they came generally to be known as burattini, from the end of the sixteenth century onwards.

The names of burattini and fantoccini are given to those whose limbs are articulated and moved by wires, whilst bamboccie applies to those that are worked by a string stretched horizontally from a stick on the one side, to the performer’s knee on the other; these are still in use among the little savoyards who “make la Catarina dance.” Puppi and pupazzi describe those whose hands and heads only are of wood. The body is merely a cloth pocket, into which the hand is introduced; the thumb and the middle finger work the arms, the index moves the head, being thrust into the hollow neck. These marionettes, simple in their structure, go a long way back. It was by means of them—easy of transport and maintenance as they are, and as is also their theatre, a mere booth of a primitive simplicity revealing no more than the upper half of their bodies—that the traditions of farce and satire were preserved throughout the Middle Ages.

In Spain the marionettes bear the name of titeres but they are more commonly called bonifrates because in their masque performances they always represent hermits and saintly characters. “The crowd,” says M. Charles Magnin, “has ever shown itself greedy of scenic amusements, and when it has not been possible to obtain comedians, the people themselves have been their own comedians and buffoons. Well might the Church condescend to the mimetic inclinations of the multitude and strongly endeavour to satisfy the bizarre fancies of the crowd by serious, and sometimes comic, representations; well might she give to the laity a rôle in the sacred ceremonies. But there remained ever outside the Church a surplus of unsatisfied mimetic passion which demanded, notwithstanding all inhibitions, the maintenance of comedians and dancers in the public places.”

In the fourth and fifth centuries the little familiar dramas, similar in manner to the later Italian subjects, were greatly in vogue in the Greek and Roman theatres. Women took part in them. As for the subjects of the pieces, they were always, say the Fathers of the Church, intrigues of gallantry and the misadventures of guardians or betrayed husbands. “Philosophers and doctors are always ridiculed in them. We behold more or less the same subjects and the same characters as those which passed later into the Italian comedy.”

Cassiodorus, writing in 560, says that the performances of mimes and pantomimes are still flourishing in his day.

The Fathers of the Church sought to extinguish the last traces of paganism by forbidding comedies and all histrionic performances, upon the ground that they were impious and sacrilegious. But the taste and the passion for the theatre being inherent in the Italian, the new religion could not succeed in abolishing this art. The Church Victorious—leaving out of consideration the spirit of the early Christians, which contented itself with the Catacombs of Saint Agnes for only temple—felt the need of monuments and luxurious churches and of pomps calculated to strike the imagination. Thus we can see certain dramas and religious representations intermingling with the mise-en-scène of Catholicism Triumphant. It is in the very Church itself that dramatic art finds refuge. The theatres had ceased to be places of pleasure and entertainment. The majority had been converted into citadels and fortresses to resist the constant invasions of the Huns, the Vandals, the Goths, the Lombards and the Normans.

Although the people of Italy had no leisure in which to occupy themselves with farces and show-plays when the avalanche of the Northern people descended upon their cities and overran the countryside now desolated by famine, no sooner was a moment of respite conceded to this poor land than the taste for comedy and spectacles was born again of its own ashes.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, who lived in 1224, speaks of the comedy of his day as of a spectacle which had existed for many centuries before him. He calls comedy histrionatus ars and comedians histriones.

When the feudal and barbarous nobility was compelled, under a pious pretext, to bear arms in the East to stem the incessant wave of Saracen invasion which threatened Christendom, the whole of Europe traversed the civilisation of the empire of the East, and it was upon their return from the Crusades that the pilgrims, their imagination fired by the marvels of Byzantium, performed the remarkable adventures of the knights-errant, miracles of saints and religious legends, first in Italy, and later in France. These were the sources of our theatre. In Italy the histrionic art began to assume two distinct manners: the sacred and religious mystery plays, and the comedies, which continued to be what they had been in the hands of the ancient Latin mimes—that is to say, burlesque farces, improvisations mingled with tumbling, dances and scraps of ancient pieces which the Italian dancers have preserved, often unconsciously, down to our own days.

“It is to the Italians,” says Voltaire, in his Questions sur l’Encyclopédie, “that we owe the vicious style of drama called mystery plays. They began in the thirteenth century and perhaps earlier, by farces drawn from the Old and New Testaments: an unworthy abuse which soon passed into Spain and France! It was a vicious imitation of the attempts which Saint Gregory of Nazianza had made to oppose a Christian theatre to the pagan theatre of Sophocles and Euripides. Saint Gregory of Nazianza infused some eloquence and some dignity into his pieces; the Italians and their imitators introduced into theirs nothing but buffooneries.”

With the fourteenth century Italy enters upon a new era, upon the epoch of reflorescence, the renaissance of arts and letters which was not experienced in France until a century later; nevertheless, in the beginning of the fourteenth century Italian influence inspired Luco, the Provençal poet, to compose a satirical piece against the Duke of Anjou, King of Naples. Towards the middle of the same century, Parasolz, another Provençal poet, composed a series of five pieces, or rather a piece in five chapters, against Jeanne I., Queen of Naples; therein her life, her adventures, her crimes, were dragged into the light of day under the titles of L’Andreasse, La Tarenta, La Mahorquina, L’Allemande, La Johanella. This satire was performed at Avignon, before the anti-pope Clement VII. (Robert of Geneva), who was so pleased with the work that he appointed Parasolz Canon of Sisteron.

The Italian language, having been purified by Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, and Ariosto, the fifteenth century was in Italy an epoch of taste, of art and of letters. Whilst in France the theatre was the monopoly of the religious confraternities, jealous of their privileges, in Italy it was always open to the productions of wit and of genius. Two distinct styles existed there: the noble tragedies and comedies written, memorised and recited, such as Il Pastor Fido of Guarini, La Calandra of the Cardinal of Bibbiena, La Mandragora of Macchiavelli, I Simili of Giorgio Trissino, L’Aminta of Tasso, etc., etc.; and the free theatre of the improvisers given over to singing, dancing, raillery and facetiousness. Whilst in France one might take delight only in mystery plays, into which had been introduced, it is true, many profane and gross pleasantries, or in the plumed mountebanks, who swallowed swords and canes, walked on their hands or with blindfolded eyes, to the sound of tambourines, and performed what is still known to-day as la danse des œufs, in Italy the theatre was rediscovered, honoured and cultivated.

Whilst the Zingari, Bohemians or Gypsies, that errant race of Hindu soudras, overran Europe, and sometimes took the risk of displaying their pupazzi or magatelli—which caused them in certain countries to be taken for sorcerers and got them condemned by sentence to be hanged and burnt—troupes of comedians and of buffoons, such as Martino d’Amelia and Gian Manente, went about Italy performing plays written by Poliziano, Macchiavelli, Ariosto, the Cardinal of Bibbiena, Nicolò Secchi, Tasso, Fedini, Guarini, and others, dramas, tragedies and pieces in which tragedy, comedy and satire were mingled, called tragisatirocomedie, improvisations upon given subjects, termed commedie dell’ arte, and lastly, commedie sostenute.

In speaking of the Italian comedies Montaigne says: “I have often conceived a fancy to write comedies such as those of the Italians who are so felicitous in that art. They find in everything something to excite their laughter; they are in no need to tickle themselves.”

Throughout the sixteenth century, down to the seventeenth, two distinct theatres were therefore in existence: one occupied by comedians who played impromptu (commedia dell’ arte) with Harlequin and other masked actors; the other occupied by the academicians, or academic actors, who performed written and regular pieces (the commedia sostenuta) which sometimes passed into the theatre of the buffo-comedians.

It was Angelo Beolco, surnamed Ruzzante, who was the first to open a career to the Italian dialects. In 1528 he presented his first prose comedy, in which each character spoke a different dialect. This entertainment became extremely popular. Every locality desired to have its own type represented in it. Hence its infinity of characters and of names, which may be summed up into a few principal types: Harlequin, Pulcinella, the Captain, Scaramouche, Brighella, Pantaloon and the Doctor.

Pulcinella had never ceased to exist from the days of the Atellanæ, in which he went by the name of Maccus, the mimus albus.

Casnar, Pappus, the flouted and ridiculous old man, became Pantaloon, and later Cassandro.

The two Zanni, Harlequin and Brighella, are the sanniones of the ancient theatre; the first is a lackey or loutish peasant, stupid and gluttonous; the second is an astute and wily slave, avenging himself upon his masters by robbing them.

The ancient tradition has been preserved down to our own days in the garments of the characters of the Italian comedy. First the mask, which has been but little modified; for the principal types, such as Pulcinella, Harlequin, Brighella, Pantaloon, Coviello, Tartaglia, still wear the mask which, in itself, lends them an ancient character and, except in the case of old men, a nightcap which conceals the hair and so perpetuates the tradition of the shaven heads of the ancient mimes.

The tradition of that other part of the costume worn by the Greek phallophores was preserved by comedy mimes and buffoons down to the time of Louis XIII. It suffices to cast a glance at such illustrations as Callot’s Les Petits Danseurs, as Cerimonia, Smaraolo, Scaramuccia, Captain Spezza-Monti and others, to realise this.

Most of the characters also wore the mantle (il tabaro), and all the lackeys, like the slaves of the Atellanæ, appeared in short garments. The toga and the long robes were permitted only to the nobles and the old men.

The club of Pulcinella and the bat of Harlequin are probably no more than modifications of the curved staff of the peasants of the Greek theatre, the attribute of the Muse of Comedy.

Other essential analogies are to be considered. First, La Cantatrice included in all Italian troupes, who, in the manner of the ancient chorus, came to sing and to explain the scenes. Then the modern planipes, the Bolognese Narcisino, who still comes, by way of interlude, to chat with the public and scoff at the manners of the day; finally and chiefly the method of performing impromptu, the actors having memorised no rôles and playing after merely having read an outline of the subject nailed up in the wings. These resemblances and many others would prove that the Commedia dell’ Arte is no more than the continuation of the theatre of Atella with its improvisations and its free and often licentious scenes, mingled with songs and pantomime.

We have said that every province desired to be represented. Thus Bergamo provided Harlequin and Brighella; Milan supplied Beltrame and Scapino, who are merely varieties of Brighella and Meneghino; Venice contributed Pantaloon and his lackey Zacometo; Naples gave us Pulcinella, Scaramouche, Tartaglia, el Capitan (who became metamorphosed under his Spanish designation) and the Biscegliese. From Rome came Meo-Patacca, Marco-Pepe and Cassandrino, this last a more modern type, a sort of monsignore; Florence supplied Stenterello; Bologna, the Doctor and Narcisino; Turin, Gianduja; Calabria, Coviello and Giangurgolo; Sicily, the Baron, Peppe-Nappa, etc., etc.

Harlequin, Brighella, the Doctor and Pantaloon may be called the four fundamental modern masks.

Salvator Rosa indicated seven—namely, these four, and Pulcinella, Tartaglia and Coviello.

Why are these set apart to-day? Perhaps they are so old that they have fallen into disfavour. Where are the Menego, the Truffa, the Zaccagnino, Cavicchio, Bagatino, Ciurlo Guazeto and many others? But then—

When Flaminio Scala travelled through Italy with his troupe, towards the middle of the sixteenth century, a few years after Beolco (Ruzzante), he found the personages of the Commedia already established, and the greater part of them baptized. Nothing remained for him but to bring them into action. Since the advent of the Christian era women had disappeared from the theatre; with the Renaissance they re-entered it again.

Flaminio Scala’s company played in Italy from the second half of the sixteenth down to the beginning of the seventeenth century; chiefly they performed commedie dell’ arte upon subjects very succinctly sketched. Scala did no more than continue the performances of fables and farces which had been played long before his day. He has left us some fifty subjects, printed in 1611. Among the personages in these are Arlecchino, Pedrolino (Pierrot), Burattino, Fritellino, Capitan Spavento, Mezzetino, Pantalone, il Dottore, Cavicchio, and Flaminio Scala himself under the name of Flavio. Thus in the middle of the sixteenth century we find a considerable number of our Italian masks named and performing.

“This same Flaminio Scala,” says Riccoboni (in his History of the Italian Theatre, written in 1723), “caused his plays to be printed; they contain no dialogue, but merely expound the subject in simple scenarii which are not as concise as those which we use and attach to the walls behind the wings of our theatres, nor yet so prolix that one may derive from them the least hint of the dialogue: they explain merely what the actor is to do and the action in question, and no more.”

Evaristo Gherardi, on the subject of performances upon scenarii and the improvisation of the actors in the Commedia dell’ Arte, writes as follows:—

“... The Italian comedians learn nothing by heart, and to perform a comedy it suffices them to have glanced over the subject for a moment before entering the stage. Therefore the chief merit of their pieces is inseparable from the action; the success of their comedies depends absolutely upon the actors, who render them more or less amusingly according to the measure of their personal wit and as a result of the advantages of the situation in which they are placed when playing. It is this necessity of spontaneous performance which renders it so difficult to replace a good Italian comedian. There is no one who may not learn by heart and declaim on the stage what he has learnt; but it is a very different affair in the case of the Italian comedian. He who speaks of a good Italian comedian, speaks of a man of solid qualities, of one who performs from imagination rather than from memory; who in the course of performing invents all that he utters; who knows how to support his fellow-actor on the stage; in short, one who so perfectly weds his actions and his words to those of his fellow-actors that he enters at once into the play and action demanded by the others to such an extent as to make it all appear to have been preconcerted.”

Further, on this same subject, here are the sentiments of Riccoboni:

“One may not deny that it has graces peculiar to itself such as the written comedy may never boast. Impromptu affords opportunity for such variety of performance that although you may return again and again to see the same scenario performed, you will always witness a different piece. The actor who performs impromptu performs in a more lively and natural manner than he who discharges a rôle which he has learned by heart. The actor feels more deeply and consequently gives a better delivery to words proceeding from himself than it were possible to give to those borrowed from another by the aid of memory; but these advantages of the impromptu comedy are purchased at the price of great drawbacks; it is necessary that the actors shall be ingenious; it is essential that they shall be more or less of equal talent, because the weakness of impromptu lies in the fact that the best of actors depends absolutely upon those who are his partners in the dialogue; should he find himself playing with one who does not know how to seize with precision the moment of retort or who interrupts him imprudently, his subject languishes or the vivacity of his wit is stifled. Face, voice, sentiment even, may not suffice the actor who performs impromptu; he will not excel unless his imagination is lively and fertile and he is gifted with a great facility of expression, unless he possesses all the niceties of language and unless he has acquired all such special knowledge as may be necessary to enable him to deal effectively with the different situations in which he is placed by his rôle.”

The opinion of the witty and very artistic Président de Brosses (1740) may be added to the foregoing.

“This method of performing impromptu which renders the style very weak, renders the action on the other hand very lively and very true. The Italians are natural comedians: even among men of the world you will find in their conversation a fire which does not exist with us, lively though we are accounted. The gesture and the voice inflexion are always wedded to the subject in their theatre; the actors come and go, they speak and move as in their own homes. This action is natural in a very different sense and wears an air of truth very different from that which is seen when four or five French actors, arranged in line, like a bas-relief, on the foreground of the stage, recite their dialogue each speaking in his turn.”

Enough has been said to show that the Italian comedy is directly descended from the performances of the ancient Latin mimes; and the genre called commedia dell’ arte in particular is none other than that of the Atellanæ. It is the only theatre in Europe which has preserved the traditions of antiquity. The theatre in France did not begin to take form until the Italian influence came to soften and to abolish the rudeness of the marvellous and grotesque French mystery plays.

It is often wondered how it could have been possible to play such scenes as that in which two actors, finding themselves on the stage, seek each other and speak without seeing each other; or sometimes five or six characters perform at the same time, forming nevertheless two or three groups, who again do not see one another. These scenes, which are constantly to be found in the plays of Plautus and Ruzzante, are to be explained by the shape and construction of the theatres of antiquity and of the Renaissance, of which a very beautiful specimen, the work of Palladio, is still to be seen at Vicenza.

The auditorium is constructed in the shape of a semicircle supplied with steps. It is surrounded by a colonnade, the intervals between the pillars forming the boxes, and by stairs leading to a gallery which crowns the whole. The stage consists of two parts, the proscenium, a semicircular platform which reaches to the foot of the steps, and behind this the stage proper, bearing the scenery. But the scenery was hung very differently from that in our modern theatres. The stage was divided into three arcades, and under each arcade one saw, upon a sloping ground, a real street with wooden houses; these streets, proceeding from the back of the stage, come to debouch upon the proscenium, which is deemed an open square. The actors may therefore perform and circulate through all the streets, conceal themselves, spy upon one another, listen, or very naturally surprise secrets and mysteries in such a manner as is often impossible in our modern theatres. A further great advantage was that the actors performing, whether on the proscenium or the stage, might be equally well heard in any part of the auditorium owing to its circular construction and to the fact that the stage was not raised as is the case with us. This theatre, called the Olympic, built by Palladio at the beginning of the sixteenth century, is an architectural gem.

On the occasion of the fêtes with which the city of Lyons received Henry II. and Catherine de Medicis in 1548, the Florentine merchants established in that city brought at their own expense a troupe of Italian comedians to perform the Cardinal of Bibbiena’s La Calandra before the King and Queen of France. But the Italian comedy theatre was not seen in Paris until 1570, when it was established there by one Ganasse or Juan Ganassa. Here both tragedy and comedy were performed, and “The charge of admission was up to five or six sous for each person.” Ganassa’s troupe, authorised by letters patent from the king, does not appear to have made a long sojourn in France. Ganassa had been in Spain in the early years of the reign of Philip II. managing a company of Italian comedians, who performed farces in the Italian language. In this company were included Harlequin, Pantaloon, the Doctor, Pagliaccio, Burattino, and Tabarino whose homonym enjoyed later on so great a vogue in the Place Dauphine in Paris. The performances of these personages and their costumes achieved a great success in Spain, where they made a protracted sojourn before going to France.

Porbus shows in one of his pictures a ball or divertissement at the Court of Charles IX. in 1572. In this the king and all his courtiers are to be seen in the costumes of various Italian buffoons. The Duke of Guise (le Balafré) appears as Scaramouche, the Duke of Anjou (Henry III.) as Harlequin, the Cardinal of Lorraine as Pantaloon, Catherine of Medicis as Columbine, and His Very Christian Majesty is seen cutting capers under the mask of Brighella. Singular prelude to the horrible tragedy of the 24th August of the same year!

In 1571 the Italian troupe, known under the name of I Comici Confidenti—that is to say, the confident comedians (confident, it was understood, of the indulgence of the public)—journeyed through the provinces of France. The performances of this company consisted in impromptu comedies, pastorals and written comedies and tragedies.

The famous Celia, whose real name was Maria Malloni, was one of the members of this troupe, as was also Bernardino Lombardi, actor and poet, and Fabrizio di Fornaris, known by the name of Captain Crocodile—Capitan Cocodrillo.

At about the same time a second troupe, under the name of I Comici Gelosi (that is to say, zealous, anxious to please the public), came also to France to perform the same style of pieces. This troupe also included some excellent actors, such as Orazio Nobili, of Padua, Adriani Valerini, of Verona, known under the name of Aurelio, and the beautiful Lidia, of Bagnacavallo.

In 1574 the two rival companies amalgamated into a single troupe, which took the name of I Comici Uniti (the united comedians); but the Masters of la Passion caused the theatre to be closed.

At the end of 1576 the two united troupes separated once more, and again resumed their respective titles of I Confidenti and I Gelosi. It was then that Flaminio Scala placed himself at the head of the Gelosi, and travelled through France and Italy alternately, always encouraged by the greatest success. This troupe was in Venice when Henry III. summoned it to Blois, whence he commanded it to Paris. The arrival of these artists, in 1577, is announced by L’Etoile in the following terms:—

“In this month the Italian comedians called li gelosi, whom the king had sent for from Venice, and whose ransom he had paid, they having been captured by Huguenots, began the performance of their comedies in the Salle des Etats at Blois; and the king permitted them to charge a half testoon to all who should come to see them play.”

“On Sunday the 19th of May, the Italian comedians, surnamed li gelosi, began the performance of their comedies at the Hôtel de Bourbon, in Paris; they charged the members of their audience a fee of four sous per head, and such were the crowds they attracted that the four best preachers of Paris had not amongst them all as many present at their sermons when they discoursed.”

“On Saturday, the 27th July, the Italian comedians, li gelosi, after having presented at Court letters patent accorded them by the king, permitting them to perform their comedies notwithstanding the prohibition of the Court, were dismissed under plea of objection with prohibition ever to obtain and to present such letters to the Court subject to a penalty of ten thousand livres, to be paid into the poor-box. Notwithstanding this inhibition, in the early part of the following September they renewed the performance of their comedies at the Hôtel de Bourbon, as before, by the king’s express command; the corruption of these times being such that comedians, buffoons, harlots and mignons enjoy the fullest credit with the king.”

But this company did not long remain in Paris.

“Long sojourns” (says M. Charles Magnin) “were not the custom of these itinerant troupes, and moreover the magistrates, being little in favour of the establishment of new theatres, sustained with rigour the monopoly of the ancient confraternity of la Passion, which was then being infringed by professional comedians at the Hôtel de Bourgogne.”

The Gelosi troupe returned therefore to Florence in 1578; and it was there that Flaminio Scala brought together the most famous Italian company of the sixteenth century. This company visited France on several occasions. It had for its device a two-faced Janus with this legend, punning upon the word gelosi:

The principal actors engaged by Flaminio Scala, who himself played lovers under the name of Flavio, were: a young actress named Prudenza, born at Verona, who played second lady, and who had already formed part of the company in 1577 at Blois and in Paris; Giulio Pasquati, of Padua, who played Pantaloon and il Magnifico; Gabriello, of Bologna, creator of the character of Franca-Trippa; Simone, of Bologna, the first to bear the name of Harlequino; Girolamo Salimbeni, of Florence, under the name of Zanobio (an elderly citizen of Piombino); Signora Silvia Roncagli, of Bergamo, who filled soubrette parts under the name of Franceschina; Lodovico, of Bologna, who played Doctor Graziano; Francesco Andreini, of Pistoia, who performed upon “all musical instruments and spoke six or seven languages”; Francesco Bartoli, an able comedian; and Isabella, who married Francesco Andreini (Captain Spavento).

From 1584 to 1585 the troupe called the Confidenti was in France. Fabrizio di Fornaris gave a pastoral play and then a comedy (Angelica), which was first performed impromptu in Italian at the house of the Duke of Joyeuse. The author himself played the rôle of Captain Crocodile, who spoke only Spanish. This new troupe established itself at the Hôtel de Cluny, but it was driven out by the Confraternity of la Passion.

In 1588 there was a fresh attempt by the Italians to establish themselves in Paris. On the subject M. Charles Magnin says:

“One may read in a remonstrance addressed to the king on the occasion of the opening of the Seconds Etats, at Blois, amongst many other plaints, ‘that the performances of the Italian strangers are a great evil which it is wrong to tolerate.’ Further, a warrant of the 10th of August of this year renews the inhibition to all comedians, whether Italian or French, to give any performance anywhere but at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. Evil times rather than this inhibition compelled the Italian actors to return beyond the Alps. During this sad epoch, indeed, there was no room in France for the blithe frolics of Harlequin, Pantaloon, the Bolognese Doctor, Franca-Trippa, Franceschina, and Captain Spavento. The Sixteen and their adherents were giving very different spectacles to France.”

In 1600 Henry IV., after the peace of Savoy, at the time of his marriage with Mary of Medicis, introduced from Italy a new troupe which, according to some authors, was none other than that of the Gelosi, under the direction of Flaminio Scala. They were lodged in the Rue de la Poterie at the Hôtel d’Argent, and were salaried by the king. They came to an arrangement with the comedians at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and played alternately with them in the theatre of the Rue Mauconseil.

The beautiful and famous Isabella Andreini was the queen of this troupe, and her death in 1604 was the signal for its disbandment. Flaminio Scala retired, worn out by twenty-eight years of work, and occupied himself thereafter with the publication of scenarii.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century Italy possessed several companies of comedians: the Comici Uniti, a troupe formed in 1583 by Adriano Valerini of deserters from the camp of the Gelosi; the Confidenti, who were slowly disappearing; the Gelosi, whom we have seen disbanded after the death of Isabella, and a new troupe, inheritor of the glory of the Gelosi, which was known and applauded for forty-seven years throughout Europe under the name of the Comici Fedeli (the faithful comedians). Giovanni Battista Andreini, the son of Isabella, assumed in 1605 the direction of this company, which, several times renewed, did not disband until 1652. Its principal actors were: Gian-Paolo Fabri, who had already performed under the name of Flaminio in the troupe of the Uniti; Nicolò Barbieri, known by the name of Beltrame, who became in 1625 joint director of the troupe with G. B. Andreini; Virginia Ramponi, married to G. B. Andreini in 1601, and known by the name of Florinda; Girolamo Gavarini of Ferrara, known by the name of Captain Rhinoceros (Capitan Rinoceronte); Margarita Luciani, his wife; Lidia, an actress of great merit, who married G. B. Andreini in 1635, after the death of Virginia Ramponi; and Eularia Coris.

In 1613, Mary of Medicis summoned to Paris the troupe of the Fedeli, under the direction of G. B. Andreini, who had just dedicated his religious piece L’Adamo to the queen. He remained there until 1618, presenting the old repertory of the Gelosi and playing now at Court and now in the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne by arrangement with the French comedians.

In 1621 Andreini was again called to Paris and he remained there, according to M. Ch. Magnin, “until the end of carnival of 1623, having, during these two years, performed to great applause and published five or six pieces of his own in Paris. After a short journey beyond the Alps, he comes yet again to spend the year 1624 and the beginning of 1625 in Paris.”

The performances given by his various troupes consisted of comedies, both improvised and memorised, tragedies, and plays of the comic opera and pastoral variety. The dialects of Venice, Naples, Bergamo or Genoa, besides French, German and Castilian, were sometimes employed, in certain pieces of his, such as La Ferinda. It is fairly certain that the French public cannot have understood them to any great extent, and the author himself would have to compensate them on the morrow of such performances by giving them such works as La Centaura (dedicated to Mary of Medicis).

This equestrian piece presented an entire family of centaurs, father, mother, son and daughter. In the first act they prance in a comedy, in the second they graze happily in a pastoral and in the third they gallop and rear in a tragedy. Numerous and picturesquely bizarre adventures pivot about the father, the son and the mother centaurs, in the course of their combat to recover the crown of the island of Cyprus. Despairing of success in their design, they resolutely kill themselves. This accomplished, the offer of that crown so ardently desired is made to them. The little female centaur, an orphan, sees herself compelled to ascend the throne, which she does at the gallop.

The influence of these Italian comedies, farces and buffooneries, the picturesqueness of the costumes, the impromptu of this class of play, soon begat in France comedians and buffoons who sometimes even surpassed their models. Whilst borrowing the mask, the mantle and the liveries of the Italians, the French comedians very quickly created in the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne—fallen into discredit on account of the tiresome pieces presented there—characters, half-French, half-Italian, full of originality, wit and mirth, such as Gros-Guillaume, Turlupin, Gaultier-Garguille, Guillot-Gorju and Jodelet, whilst from 1618 to 1625 Tabarin performed in the Place Dauphine, in company with Mondor, his farces in Italian, in Spanish or in French according to the types presented. This was a field in which Molière had the ability to glean as well as in that of the Italian comedy.

In 1639 Louis XIII. summoned from Italy a troupe of players, half singers, half improvisers, which remained but a little while in France. It included the celebrated Tiberio Fiurelli, who went by the name of Scaramouche. These short visits were several times repeated, as we gather from the works of Andreini and Beltrame. They tell us that these troupes of Italian comedians were not settled in Paris. They were sent for and the expenses of their journeys were defrayed; they remained in Paris or attached to the Court for as long as they afforded entertainment, and, after some years, they were given a sum sufficient to meet the expenses of their return journey.

A company summoned to Paris in 1645 by Cardinal Mazarin played at the Petit-Bourbon Theatre. It was made up of Pantaloon, Harlequin, Mezzetin, Trivelino, Isabelle, Columbine, the Doctor, Scaramouche, Aurelia, Gabriella Locatelli, Giulia Gabrielli, and Margarita Bartolazzi.

Here is the title of a piece performed in this theatre:

“Explanation of the scenery and action of the piece entitled La Folle Supposée (La Finta Pazza), the work of the celebrated Giulio Strozzi, most illustrious Italian poet, to be performed by the grand royal troupe of Italian comedians, entertained by his Majesty at the Petit-Bourbon, by command of the Queen Mother of the Very Christian King [Louis XIV.] printed in Paris, November 1645.

“Flore will be played by the graceful and pretty Louise Gabrielle Locatelli, named Lucile, who by her vivacity will prove herself a true light of harmony....

“Thétis will be played by the signora Giulia Gabrielli, named Diane, who will marvellously portray her choler and her love.

“The prologue of this piece will be spoken by the very excellent Marguerite Bartolazzi, whose voice is so ravishing that it is impossible worthily to praise it.”

Further on we read on the subject of another scene:

“Note: This scene will be entirely without music, but so admirably performed that the harmonies dispensed with will not be missed.

“The first act of the piece concludes with a ballet by four bears and four apes, performing a very amusing dance to the sound of little drums.

“And ostriches will appear and in the course of lowering their necks to drink at a fountain will perform a dance.”

Here is the argument of the eighth and last scene of the third act:

“Nicomedes recognises Pyrrhus for his grandson, and meanwhile there arrives an Indian, who, having made his bow to the king, announces that among the merchandise aboard his ship which the tempest has driven into port, there are five parrots, of which he makes offer, causing them to be brought on in a cage.

“At the same time four Indians go through a Moorish dance; finally the parrots take flight from the hands of their owners and leave these in despair at the loss; after which the piece concludes and all take ship for the war in Troy.”

In 1653 a new troupe appeared, in which again we find some actors who had already visited France several times, such as Tiberio Fiurelli (Scaramouche), Locatelli (Trivelino), and Brigida Bianchi (Aurelia). This troupe was the first to settle definitely in Paris. The Petit-Bourbon Theatre was assigned to them, as well as to the troupe of Spanish comedians who, from 1650 to 1672, played concurrently with the Italians.

The following is an announcement by Loret, who published his letters in verse every Saturday:—

The Historic Muse of Loret, for the 10th August 1653

N. Turi (of Modena) played the parts of Pantaloon; Angelo-Agostino-Constantino Lolli (of Bologna) the parts of Doctor Baloardo; Marco Romagnesi, under the name of Orazio, the parts of first lover; Turi the son, under the name of Virginio, those of second lover; Beatrice Adami, under the name of Diamantina, the parts of soubrette; Jean Doucet appeared in the character of a zany; Tiberio Fiurelli in that of Scaramouche; Brigida Bianchi played the parts of leading lady or amoureuse under the name of Aurelia, and Domenico Locatelli was seen as Trivelino.

The performances were held between two and five o’clock in the afternoon, the choice of hour being governed by consideration of the mud and thieves encumbering the badly lighted streets of Paris after dark.

This troupe left the Petit-Bourbon in 1660 and found accommodation, by order of the king, together with Molière’s company, at the theatre of the Palais-Royal. Performances were given on alternate days and the company, reinforced by several other actors and actresses from Italy, was made up as follows:—

Valerio, Ottavio, Andrea Zanotti.

Eularia, Orsola Corteze, wife of Domenico.

Diamantina, Patricia Adami, wife of Angelo Lolli.

Harlequin, Giuseppe-Domenico Biancolelli, called Domenico.

Cinthio, Marco-Antonio Romagnesi.

Scaramouche, Tiberio Fiurelli.

Flautino, Giovanni Gherardi (1675).

Mezzetino, Angelo Constantini (1682).

Columbine, Catarina Biancolelli, daughter of Domenico.

Pierrot, Giuseppe Giaratone (1684).

Pasquariello, Giuseppe Tortoretti (1685).

Aurelio, Bartolomeo Ranieri (1685).

Marinetta, Angelica Toscano, wife of Tortoretti.

Pulcinella, Michel-Angelo da Fracassano (1685).

Gradelino, Constantino Constantini (1687).

Ottavio, Giovanni-Battista Constantini (1687).

Harlequin, Evaristo Gherardi.

Leandro, Charles-Virgile Romagnesi de Belmont.

Spinetta, Brighella and the Captain, whose real names are not known.

La Cantatrice, Elisabeth Danneret, called Babet.

In 1697 the troupe was expelled from Paris, and the theatre closed as the result of a comedy (La Fausse Prude) in which Constantini, who filled the rôle of Harlequin, permitted himself satirical allusions to Madame de Maintenon.

Under the designation of Théâtres de la Foire were comprised, down to the end of the eighteenth century, the performance halls established on the sites of the markets of Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent, which had begun their existence with rope dancers, trained dogs, etc. It was then that the actors of the forain theatres appropriated the Italian repertory, establishing themselves upon that suspension of privileges and upon the exemptions granted to the traders of the fairs of Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent.

But the actors of the Comédie-Française, anxious to secure the maintenance of their rights, obtained from M. de la Reynie, the Lieutenant of Police, a sentence including “prohibition to all excepting the French comedians to perform in comedy or farce in the city of Paris under pain of fine.”

The forain[2] players appealed against this sentence, and continued their performances pending judgment. There was renewed opposition from the French comedians. M. de la Reynie again forbade the forain players to perform “any spectacle in which there is dialogue.”

Obedient to this mandate they declared that they would perform no more dialogues, and two or three days later they announced: Scaramouche and the Scrupulous Pedant, a comedy in three acts entirely in monologues. When a comedian had spoken his part he withdrew to the wings, and he who was to deliver the answer came to take his place to disappear again in his turn and make room for the first one. In this fashion seven actors took part in this comedy.

Derided by the public, and exasperated by the forain players, the actors of the Comédie-Française and the magistrates, accompanied by several squads of the watch, by forty archers, two parliamentary ushers and two constables, invaded the forain theatres on the 20th February 1709, destroying the booths, the benches and the scenery, after which they withdrew extremely proud of having made an end of these recalcitrant folk.

But the forain players did not account themselves beaten. No sooner had the archers departed than, with the aid of the public, they restored the damage in a few hours, and on the morrow they billed a play and performed it as if nothing had happened. But on the next day the ushers and archers reappeared, and this time they did not confine themselves to breaking up and pulling down; they delivered everything to the fire, and for several days twelve archers were on guard over these ruins of farce with no other occupation but that of burning and annihilating.

The forain actors were therefore compelled to submit; but they again found means to re-establish themselves, for some years later they were to be heard singing the following verses of Panard in their theatres:—

The directors of the Opéra soon came to understand that no successful opposition could be made to the development of these little theatres, and they sold the right to sing to the theatre of the fair of Saint-Laurent since the Théâtre-Français denied it the right to speak. That theatre thereupon assumed the title of the Opéra-Comique.

Amid the enterprises of the forain theatres were the performances of Bertrand, Alard, the widow Maurice and Decelles, associated and primarily the sole proprietors of the shows given at the fairs. Later on they admitted Dolet and Laplace to share this right with them. Then came Ottavio and Domenico, to be succeeded by Saint-Edme and Madame Baron who, in rivalry with the Chevalier Pellegrin, came to replace Francisque and Lalauze, and finally by Ponteau, who obtained the privilege of the Opéra-Comique from the Royal Academy of Music in 1728, and kept it until 1742.

A large number of more or less celebrated French authors worked for the forain theatre, such as Lesage, Fuzelier, d’Orneval, Panard, Favart, Diderot, Piron, Vadé, Carolet, Sedaine, Dorville, Laffichard, Gallet, Fagan, Dallainval, Boissy, Taconet.

“Who would believe,” asks Grimm, in 1772, “that the opera and the two comedy troupes, the French and the Italian, should be perpetually united to persecute by virtue of their privilege, the theatre of the fairs? From the moment that a manager conceives a good idea to attract the public, and from the moment that he attempts something which is tinted by success, that successful thing is forbidden. In the hope of hindering the better classes from patronising these performances, the managers have been forbidden to charge more than twenty-four sous for the best seats, so as to compel decent people to be mingled and confounded with the populace. Preach tolerance and flatter yourselves to see it reign in a country in which Henry IV. and Polichinelle were persecuted with equal fury!”

The theatre of the fairs introduced actors and actresses of recognised merit to the public, and the public have applauded these—the comical and singular performances of Domenico, the son of Harlequin, the naïveté of Belloni as Pierrot, the voice and the slyness of Mademoiselle de Lisle in soubrette rôles, the amusing gibberish of Desgranges as Scaramouche, the grimaces of Paghetti in the rôles of Pantaloon and Cassandre, and the modest air of Mademoiselle Molin as leading lady.

Harlequinades and pantomimes were also played from 1759 to 1771 at the Ambigu-Comique, which was situated then on the Boulevard du Temple, whilst at the Théâtre Gaudon, in 1769, were to be seen performances by Polichinelle, Harlequin, Isabella and other Italian characters.

The four halls of the fair of Saint-Germain were open from the 3rd of February to Palm Sunday. Those of the fair of Saint-Laurent were open from the 1st July to the 30th September, as was also that of the fair of Saint-Ovide, which was made up chiefly of mountebanks and marionette shows.

Some of the Italian types preserved their original form, and were played in costumes adopted long since and remaining invariable. Others, however, underwent changes of name, of character and of costume. Pierrot became Gilles, Pantaloon came to be called Cassandre, Leandro became a ridiculous lover, a coxcomb, a poltroon, a sort of Captain; Jeannot, which in the Italian companies had been no more than a very sketchy character, became a complete and important rôle, and attracted all Paris. Nor yet had the forain actors hesitated to borrow types from the Théâtre-Français; thus Crispin, Harpagon, Sganarelle, and Gros-René came to be mingled with the Italian types, a further happy amalgamation which endured until the closing of the fairs of Saint-Laurent and Saint-Germain, fallen into desuetude and out of fashion, in 1789.

The last of the Italian troupes seen in France was that which the regent, Philippe of Orléans, summoned in 1716, under the direction of Louis Riccoboni (named Lelio); it was housed at the old Hôtel de Bourgogne in Rue Mauconseil, and was composed as follows:—

Lelio, Luigi Riccoboni.

Mario, Giuseppe Baletti.

Harlequin, Vicentini, called Thomassin.

Pantaloon, Alborghetti.

The Doctor, Matterazzi.

Scapino, Bissoni.

Scaramouche, Giacopo Rauzzini.

Flaminia, Elena Baletti.

Silvia, Gianetta Benozzi.

Violetta, Margarita Rusca.

Columbine, Teresa Biancolelli (1739).

Lelio, Giovanni-Antonio Romagnesi (1725) and Francesco Riccoboni (1726).

Harlequin, Carlo Bertinazzi (1741).

Lelio, Antonio-Luigi Baletti (1741).

Coraline, Anna Veronese (1744).

Camille, Antonia Veronese (1744); Elisabetta Constantini; Mademoiselle Belmont and Mademoiselle Dehesse (1730); Marie Laboras de Mézières (1734); Madame Riccoboni (1762); Madame Favart (1749); Madame Bognioli (1758).

Angélique, Mademoiselle Foulquier, named Catinon (1753); Mesdames Vesian, Bacelli, Zamarini, Billoni.

The company of 1716 was called the New Comédie-Italienne, or the Regent’s Company, to distinguish it from that of 1653, which it was agreed to name the Old Comédie-Italienne.

The several Italian troupes that played in France, down to that of 1716 inclusive, presented plays of various kinds. They gave a medley of scenes that had been committed to memory, of others that were entirely improvised, of scenes that were played throughout in dumb show, and of dances and singing, all with scenery and such mise-en-scène as was then possible. Fireworks were never absent from the opening of a season, the Italians being anxious to preserve their ancient pyrotechnic reputation.

That which in Italy was called opera (a work) was nothing more than this intermingling of various genres, of which an instance is afforded by Le Gelose Politiche e Amorose, of Pietro Angelo Zaguri, performed in the house of Giovanni Battista Sanuto, in Venice, in 1697. The prologue of this opera took place in an entirely imaginary country, inhabited by Eolus, to whom the Tiber, accompanied by Nymphs, came to pay a visit; it was at once a ballet, a drama, and a tragedy, mingled with couplets and dances.

The troupe of 1653 was chiefly concerned with the performance of pieces without much production, in which music played but a very minor part. The actors were very soon compelled to abandon their improvisations in Italian, as the spectators could not grasp the point of their pleasantries. It was thanks to this compromise that they were able to maintain themselves in France; for we see that the troupe summoned in 1639 by Richelieu—who was a great lover of Italian music and the Italian language—after having performed, danced and sung L’Ercolano Amante, was compelled to depart for lack of audiences.

That of 1645, summoned by Mazarin, which performed among other pieces La Finta Pazza and La Rosaura, would not have enjoyed very much more success but for the spectacular operas (such as Orpheus) which roused enthusiasm. In this there were twelve changes of scenery and these represented: a city besieged and defended; a temple surrounded by trees; the banqueting hall on the occasion of the nuptials of Orpheus; a palace interior; the temple of Venus; a forest; the palace of the Sun; a horrible desert; Hades; the Elysian Fields; a wood on the edge of the sea; Olympus and the heavens. The expense of production, the properties and the scenery, designed and painted by Giacomo Torelli, amounted to five hundred and fifty thousand livres.

The pieces played in France by the Italians consisted of bare scenarii, upon which the dialogue was improvised, but into which the actors would also interpolate scenes written for them and learned by heart. Regnard, Palaprat, Delorme, de Montchenay, Lenoble, Mongin, Fatouville, Dufresny, de Bois-France, etc., supplied this theatre with scenarii, some of the scenes of which were written in full and others left entirely to the impromptu wit of the actor. Thanks to Gherardi, who has collected a number of these scenarii (designated à la françoise), we are able to judge what French wit could accomplish crippled by a sort of half-and-half language, whose French and Italian components were alike incorrect, offering, consequently, a piquant babble, which combined perhaps better than would have been possible to any other form of speech the fantastic gaiety of both nations. Even in the parodies of the dramas and tragedies of the epoch in which the verse and the rhymes forbade improvisation, the Italian actor would cut into the middle of an act to introduce an entirely irrelevant scene of lazzi and of pantomime.

Nevertheless, towards the middle of the eighteenth century, and probably in consequence of the lack of good actors, singing came little by little entirely to displace dialogue. The Comédie-Italienne was no more than a theatre presenting comic operas or written pieces from the pens of Marivaux, d’Alainval, Laffichard, Legrand, Boissy, Delisle, Favart, Sedaine, Desportes, Lanoue, Fuselier, Anseaume, Vadé, etc. French actors were not slow to invade a theatre in which no one any longer spoke Italian.

In 1762 the Comédie-Italienne was amalgamated with the theatre of the Opéra Comique (the old fair of Saint-Laurent), and the troupe was made up as follows:—

Dehesse, A Lackey; Ciaverelli, Scapin; Carlino Bertinazzi, Harlequin; Baletti and Lejeune, Lovers; Champville, A Ridiculous Lover; Zanucci, Lelio; Colalto, Pantaloon; Caillot, Colus; Laruette, Cassandre; Clairval, Leading Lady; Madame Favart, Soubrette; and Mesdames Rivière, Desglands, Bognioli, Laruette, Bérard, Beaupré, Carlin and Mandeville.

In 1779 the administration dismissed the Italian players and thereafter comic operas only were performed. “The Comédie-Italienne having obtained permission not to perform any more Italian pieces, has replaced these by others of its old repertory which it had entirely abandoned after its amalgamation with the Opéra Comique. Therefore all our ultramontane actors have been dismissed with the exception of Carlino Bertinazzi and his double, who continue to perform their rôles of Harlequin in the French pieces” (Grimm, April 1779).

In 1780 the theatre of the Comédie-Italienne assumed the name of Théâtre des Italiens notwithstanding that there was no longer a single Italian actor connected with it.

In 1783, when the hall in the Rue Mauconseil began to show signs of falling into ruin, a theatre was built on the side of the Hôtel de Choiseul, on the Boulevard des Italiens, and the Théâtre des Italiens assumed the name of the Théâtre-Favart. Necessary repairs compelled the company to abandon it and to transfer themselves to the theatre of the Rue Feydeau, which was destined for a company coming from Italy. This company arrived in 1789 under the protection of Monsieur, the king’s brother.

After this rapid sketch of the history of the Italian comic style and of its types, let us say with the learned M. Charles Magnin, whose researches are so precious, that “the popular and plebeian drama along the open roads and in unroofed spaces has never failed to lighten the sadness of the serfs and the brief leisures of the rustics; it is an indestructible theatre which lives again in our own day in the open-air performances of Deburau, a theatre which links together the ancient and the modern stages. Erudition may discover for these joculatores, for these delusores, and for these goliardi of our own times and of the Middle Ages the most honourable ancestry in Greek, Latin, Oscan, Etruscan, Sicilian and Asiatic antiquity, from Æsop the wise Phrygian hunchback down to Maccus, the jovial and disguised Calabrian, the hero of the Atellanæ farces, who has since become in the streets of Naples, by the simple translation of his name, the very sprightly Master Pulcinella.”

Pierrot, Harlequin, Pantaloon and Columbine are the only Italian types of pantomime surviving to-day, and each has been thoroughly transfigured. In Italy they are to be found only in the lesser theatres or among the marionettes.

A propos of the witty pantomime of M. Chaumpfleury that was performed at the Funambules, M. Théophile Gautier writes as follows:—

“Pantomime is the true comédie humaine, and although it does not employ two thousand characters like that of M. de Balzac, it is no less complete. With four or five types, it suffices for everything. Cassandre [i.e. Pantaloon] represents the family; Léandre, the stupid and wealthy fop, favoured by parents; Columbine, the ideal; Béatrix, the dream pursued, the flower of youth and of beauty; Harlequin, with the face of an ape and the sting of a serpent, with his black mask, his many-coloured lozenges, his shower of spangles, represents love, wit, mobility, audacity, all the showy and vicious qualities; Pierrot, pallid, slender, dressed in sad colours, always hungry and always beaten is the ancient slave, the modern proletarian, the pariah, the passive and disinherited being, who, glum and sly, witnesses the orgies and the follies of his masters.”

None must expect to find here a history of the Italian theatre; we shall make no mention of the mystery play, which, in Italy and in Europe, was essentially religious throughout the Middle Ages, nor of the academic and classic drama and comedy, which, from the fifteenth century onwards, amused the courts of the Italian princes. Nor yet shall we occupy ourselves with the serious dramas and comedies, in verse or in music, performed in Italy in later times, and largely derived from the modern French theatre. Our researches are concerned only with that which sets forth the real character of Italy; with that art sui generis which is only to be found there, the impromptu comedy begotten of the Atellanæ, the masks full of originality, the buffoons full of wit and spontaneity, as much at their ease in the public square as in the Court of Versailles; it is in short of these Commedianti dell’ Arte, and of their successors along the same road, that we are going to attempt to disclose the history and to trace the types with the aid of our drawings, given to the light—as was said of old, in speaking of engravings—by our friend Alexandre Manceau.