Commedia dell'arte

[6] Characterized by masked "types", commedia was responsible for the rise of actresses such as Isabella Andreini[7] and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios.

[15] The genesis of commedia may be related to Carnival in Venice, where the author and actor Andrea Calmo had created the character Il Magnifico, the precursor to the vecchio (meaning 'old one' or simply 'old') Pantalone, by 1570.

Although commedia dell'arte flourished in the Italian theatre during the Mannerist period, there has been a long-standing tradition of trying to establish historical antecedents in antiquity.

In keeping with the tradition of the Italian Academies, the Gelosi adopted as their impress (or coat of arms) the two-faced Roman god Janus.

Despite fluctuations, the Gelosi maintained stability for performances with the "usual ten": "two vecchi, four innamorati (two male and two female lovers), two Zanni, a captain and a servetta (serving maid)".

Flaminio Scala, who had been a minor performer in the Gelosi, published the scenarios of the commedia dell'arte around the start of the 17th century, really in an effort to legitimize the form—and ensure its legacy.

In commedia dell'arte, female roles were played by women, documented as early as the 1560s, making them the first known professional actresses in Europe since antiquity.

[27] The Italian scholar Ferdinando Taviani has collated a number of church documents opposing the advent of the actress as a type of courtesan, whose scanty attire and promiscuous lifestyle corrupted young men, or at least infused them with carnal desires.

Taviani's term negativa poetica describes this and other practices offensive to the church, while giving us an idea of the phenomenon of the commedia dell'arte performance.

Three books written during the 17th century—Cecchini's [it] Fruti della moderne commedia (1628), Niccolò Barbieri's La supplica (1634) and Perrucci's Dell'arte rapresentativa (1699)—"made firm recommendations concerning performing practice".

Katritzky argues that, as a result, commedia was reduced to formulaic and stylized acting; as far as possible from the purity of the improvisational genesis a century earlier.

[28] In France, during the reign of Louis XIV, the Comédie-Italienne created a repertoire and delineated new masks and characters, while deleting some of the Italian precursors, such as Pantalone.

Commedia dell'arte moved outside the city limits to the théâtre de la foire, or fair theatres, in the early 17th century as it evolved toward a more pantomimed style.

The Punch and Judy puppet shows, popular to this day in England, owe their basis to the Pulcinella mask that emerged in Neapolitan versions of the form.

The Gelosi, for example, used the two-headed face of the Roman god Janus, to signify its comings and goings and relationship to the season of Carnival, which took place in January.

Actors, both male and female, were known to strip nearly naked, and storylines typically descended into crude situations with overt sexuality, considered to teach nothing but "lewdness and adultery...of both sexes" by the French Parliament.

They would move on to the next location while their popularity was still active, ensuring the towns and people were sad to see them leave, and would be more probably to either invite them back or pay to watch performances again should the troupe ever return.

Castagno posits that the aesthetic of exaggeration, distortion, anti-humanism (as in the masked types), and excessive borrowing as opposed to originality was typical of all the arts in the late Italian Renaissance.

[37] Theatre historian Martin Green points to the extravagance of emotion during the period of commedia's emergence as the reason for representational moods, or characters, that define the art.

[38] According to 18th-century London theatre critic Baretti, commedia dell'arte incorporates specific roles and characters that were "originally intended as a type of characteristic representative of some particular Italian district or town" (archetypes).

Harlequin originally wore a tight fitting long jacket with matching trousers that both had numerous odd shaped patches, usually green, yellow, red, and brown.

[45] His hat, which was a soft cap, was modeled after Charles IX or after Henri II, and almost always had a tail of a rabbit, hare or a fox with the occasional tuft of feathers.

Performers made use of well-rehearsed jokes and stock physical gags, known as lazzi and concetti, as well as on-the-spot improvised and interpolated episodes and routines, called burle (sg.

Since the productions were improvised, dialogue and action could easily be changed to satirize local scandals, current events, or regional tastes, while still using old jokes and punchlines.

In the early period, representative works by painters at Fontainebleau were notable for their erotic depictions of the thinly veiled innamorata, or the bare-breasted courtesan/actress.

The Flemish influence is widely documented as commedia figures entered the world of the vanitas genre, depicting the dangers of lust, drinking, and the hedonistic lifestyle.

While the iconography gives evidence of the performance style (see Fossard collection), many of the images and engravings were not depictions from real life, but concocted in the studio.

The Callot etchings of the Balli di Sfessania (1611) are most widely considered capricci rather than actual depictions of a commedia dance form, or typical masks.

Accounts of the early commedia, as far back as Calmo in the 1570s and the buffoni of Venice, note the ability of comici to sing madrigali precisely and beautifully.

Mozart's Don Giovanni sets a puppet show story and comic servants such as Leporello and Figaro have commedia precedents.