Note 46 — CARLO GOZZI. (continued 3)

This man was called Francesco Bartoli. We owe to his pen a valuable collection of biographical notes on Italian actors and actresses: Notizie Istoriche dei Comici Italiani che fiorirono intorno al MDL fino ai giorni presenti (Padova, Conzatti, 1781). This work contains a life of Teodora Ricci and the author's own autobiography. After the events of 1777 he separated from his wife, and only acknowledged the first of her three children. Critics may pause to wonder, at this point, whether Gozzi's relations to Mme. Ricci were as Platonic as he painted them. In 1782 Bartoli retired from the stage and lived at Rovigo. On Teodora's leaving the profession in 1793, he took her back, and endured her hysterical tempers until the date of his own death in 1806. She died mad about the year 1824 in the asylum of S. Servilio at Venice.