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The Divine Madness of Isabella Andreini

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Anne Macneil*
Affiliation:
Chicago

Extract

      Nel giorno, che sublime in bassi manti
      Isabella imitava alto furore;
      Estolta con angelici sembianti
      Ebbe del senno altrui gloria maggiore;
      Alhor saggia tra 'I suon, saggia tra i canti
      Non mosse piè, che non sorgesse Amore,
      Né voce aprì, che non creasse amanti,
      Né riso fè, che non beasse un core.
      Chi fu quel giorno a rimirar felice
      Di tutt'altro quaggiù cesse il desio,
      Che sua vita per sempre ebbe serena.
      O di Scena dolcissima Sirena,
      O de' Teatri Italici Fenice,
      O tra Coturni insuperabil Clio.
      Gabriello Chiabrera

In the spring of 1589, the commedia dell'arte company known as the Gelosi travelled to Florence in order to perform for the wedding of Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici and Christine of Lorraine. The Gelosi were among the very best commedia dell'arte players of the time, their fame heralded throughout the noble and royal households of western Europe.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 Royal Musical Association

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References

Preliminary versions of this article were read at the American Academy in Rome and at the University of Rome (La Sapienza) in 1991 and at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 7 November 1992 Isabella Andreini's 1589 performance ol La pazzia d'Isabella is also discussed in chapter 2 of my doctoral dissertation, ‘Music and the Life and Work of Isabella Andreini Humanistic Attitudes toward Music, Poetry, and Theater in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries’ (Ph D dissertation, University of Chicago, 1994), 55-102 This article is dedicated to Steven BrookeGoogle Scholar

1 Andreini, Isabella, Rime d'Isabella Andreini comica gelosa, academica intenta detta l'Accesa (Milan, 1601), 200Google Scholar

The day on which, sublime in lowly cloaks,Google Scholar

Isabella imitated high madness,Google Scholar

And exalted with angelic featuresGoogle Scholar

Had greater glory from the wisdom of others,Google Scholar

Then, wise among the sound, wise among the songs, She did not move a foot that did not bring forth Amore, Nor lifted voice that did not create lovers, Nor made a smile that did not delight a heartGoogle Scholar

Whoever was that day to gaze happily. For all else of this world desire ceased, That his life forever was sereneGoogle Scholar

Ol of the stage sweetest Siren,Google Scholar

Ol of Italian theatres the Fenice,Google Scholar

Ol among Thespians unsurpassable ClioGoogle Scholar

2 Pavoni, Giuseppe, Diarto descritto da Giuseppe Pavoni Delle feste celebrate nelle solennissime nozzi delli serenissimi sposi, il sig Don Ferdinando Medici, & la sig Donna Christina di Loreno gran duchi di Toscana Nel quale con brevità si esplica il torneo, la battaglia navale, la comedia con gli intermedii, & altre feste occorse di giorno in giorno per tutto il di 15 di Magio MDLXXXIX (Bologna, 1589), 29–30, 43–4 Pavoni gives the time of performance for La pazzia as the twenty-second hour, which would be counted from Vespers of the previous evening or roughly 6 p m A transcription of excerpts from the diary may be found in Sara Mamone, Il teatro nella Firenze medicea Problemi di storta dello spettacolo (Milan, 1981), 125–7 Louise George Clubb has translated passages from Pavoni's diary in Italian Drama in Shakespeare's Time (New Haven and London, 1989), 263–4; another, rather liberal translation may be found in Kenneth Richards and Laura Richards, The Commedia dell'arte A Documentary History (Oxford, 1990), 74–6Google Scholar

3 Pavoni, Diano, 43–6Google Scholar

4 On the basis of the evidence of a manuscript diary by Francesco Settimani, housed in the Archivio di Stato, Florence, and cited by Angelo Solerti, Gli albori del melodramma, ii (Hildesheim, 1969), 1718, Nino Pirrotta concluded that the Gelosi's comedies were probably performed in three acts and in the Great Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio, causing the machinery for the intermedii to be moved twice and, in the second instance, over the space of only two days This arrangement also would have necessitated performing only four of the six intermedii or otherwise arranging the intermedii so that they might be presented in four intervals allotted in the course of a three-act play Nino Pirrotta and Elena Povoledo, Li due Orfei (Turin, 1969), published in English as Music and Theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi, trans Karen Eales (Cambridge, 1982), 213 Setumani's diary, however, has been shown to be an unreliable source, in that it constitutes an eighteenth-century copy of various pre-existing manuscripts, see Benedetti, Giovanni, Notizie e documenti intorno la vita di Francesco Settimani fiorentino e cavaliere de S Stefano (Florence, 1875), and John Walter Hill, The Life and Works of Francesco Marta Veracint (Ann Arbor, 1979), 441Google Scholar

5 Francesco Andreini, Dedication to the Readers, Le bravure del Capitano Spavento (Venice, 1607, 1609, 1615, 1624), ed Roberto Tessari (Pisa, 1987), 7, also in La commedia dell'arte e la società barocca La professione del teatro, ed Ferruccio Marotti and Giovanna Romei, La commedia dell'arte Storia, testi, documenti, 2 (Rome, 1991), 218Google Scholar

6 Solerti, Angelo, Ferrara e la corte estense nella seconda metà del secolo decimosesto I discorsi di Annibale Romei gentiluomo ferrarese (Città di Castello, 1891), 78–9, Ferdinando Taviani and Mirella Schino, Il segreto della commedia dell'arte La memoria delle compagnie italiane del X VI, XVII e X VIII secolo (Florence, 1982, 1986), 332, Robert Erenstein, ‘Isabella Andreini A Lady of Virtue and High Renown’, Essays on Drama and Theatre Liber amicorum Benjamin Hunningher (Amsterdam, 1973), 37–49 The second generation of the Andreini family continued the tradition of comici enacting composed plays at court in their performances of Guarini's L'Idropica and Monteverdi's Arianna at the Gonzaga wedding festivities of 1608 Further evidence of comedians performing composed plays may be found in Giovanni Battista Andreini, Prologue, La centauro suggello diviso in commedia, pastorale, e tragedia (Paris, 1622), idem, La feria ragionamento secondo contra l'accuse date alla commedia (Paris, 1625), idem, Prologo in dialogo fra Momo, e la Ventà, spettante alla lode dell'arte comica. Da Lelio, et Flormda, comici del Sereniss di Mantova, in Ferrara rappresentato Et altro discorso più grave in favor di dett'arte (Ferrara, 1612), idem, La saggia egiziana dialogo spettante alla lode dell'arte scenica Di Gio Battista Andreini fiorentino, comico fedele Con un trattato sopra la stessa arte, cavato da San Tomaso, & da altri santi (Florence, 1604)Google Scholar

7 Pavoni, Diano, 2930Google Scholar

8 Ibid., 45–6Google Scholar

9 Ibid., 46Google Scholar

10 Ibid., 46–7.Google Scholar

11 Scala, Flaminio, Il teatro delle favole rappresentative (Venice, 1611), repr., ed. Ferruccio Marotti (Milan, 1976), published in English as Scenarios of the Commedia dell'arte, trans and ed. Henry F Salerno (New York, 1967) Common opinion holds that one or both of Scala's scenarios entitled La finta pazza and La pazzia d'Isabella correspond to Isabella Andreini's performance in 1589, Louise Clubb, however, has shown that these three comedies follow different plot lines and exemplify the kinds of variation possible from a single theatregram. See Clubb, Italian Drama, 263–6.Google Scholar

12 Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, con tre indici delle voci, lucozioni, e proverbi latini, e greci, posti per entro l'opera, ed Accademia della Crusca (Venice, 1612), s v ‘virtù’ Further discussion of virtue as a condition of one's submission to authority or ownership during the sixteenth century may be found in Constance Jordan, Renaissance Feminism Literary Texts and Political Models (Ithaca and London, 1990)Google Scholar

13 Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973), 330.Google Scholar

14 Musicological sources outlining this trend include Angelo Solerti, Musica, ballo, e drammatica alla corte medicea dal 1600 al 1637 (New York and London, 1968), Pirrotta and Povoledo, Li due Orfei, published in English as Music and Theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi, Claude Palisca, The Florentine Camerata (New Haven, 1989), Iain Fenlon, ‘Preparations for a Princess: Florence 1588–89’, In cantu et in sermone For Nino Pirrotta on his 80th Birthday, ed. Fabrizio Della Seta and Franco Piperno (Florence, 1989), 259–81; Barbara Russano Hanning, ‘Glorious Apollo Poetic and Political Themes in the First Opera’, Renaissance Quarterly, 32 (1979), 485513; eadem, Of Poetry and Music's Power (Ann Arbor, 1980); eadem, ‘Apologia pro Ottavio Rinuccini’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 26 (1973), 240–62, Daniel Pickering Walker, ‘La musique des intermèdes florentins de 1589 et l'humanisme’, Les fêtes de la Renaissance (Paris, 1956), 133–44; idem, Music, Spirit, and Language in the Renaissance, ed Penelope Gouk (London, 1985), idem, Musique des intermèdes de ‘La pellegrina‘ (Paris, 1963).Google Scholar

15 Cochrane, Eric, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries 1521–1800 (Chicago and London, 1973), 69, 145–6, 156–7, 242 Other sources that discuss the Medici court's association with Neoplatonism during the Renaissance include Bernard Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols. (Chicago and London, 1961); The Italian Renaissance, ed. Werner L. Gundersheirner (Toronto, Buffalo and London, 1993), James Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1990), idem, ‘The Myth of the Platonic Academy of Florence’, Renaissance Quarterly, 44(1991), 429–75, Michael J B Allen, The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino A Study of his Phaedrus Commentary, its Sources, and Genesis (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984), idem, Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedran Charioteer (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981), Paul Oskar Kristeller, Marsilio Ficino and his Work after Five Hundred Years (Florence, 1987), Claude Palisca, Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought (New Haven, 1985), Mamone, Il teatro nella Firenze medicea, Thomas Bulfinch, Myths of Greece and Rome (New York, 1979), Alois Maria Nagler, Theatre Festivals of the Medici 1539–1631 (New Haven and London, 1964), Giovanna Gaeta Bertelà and Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, Feste e apparati medicei da Cosimo I a Cosimo II Mostra di disegni e incisioni (Florence, 1919).Google Scholar

16 Bastiano de' Rossi, Descrizione dell'apparato e degl'intermedi, fatti per la commedia rappresentata in Firenze, nelle nozze de' serenissimi Don Ferdinando Media e Madama Christina di Loreno, Gran Duchi di Toscana (Florence, 1589), 7 The preface of Rossi's publication is dated 14 May 1589, at which time the wedding festivities were still in progress Rossi probably composed most of his narration while the scheduled wedding entertainments were still in rehearsal, since he does not mention either of the comedies performed by the Gelosi, and his is the only account to describe the symbolism of the Roman amphitheatre – a stage effect that may not have been realized in performanceGoogle Scholar

17 Michael C J Putnam, ‘Virgil and History’ (lecture, University of Chicago, 9 January 1995), outlined these Apollonian and Bacchic attributes in his reading of the intersignificance of history and literature in the AeneidGoogle Scholar

18 Rossi, Descrizione dell'apparato, 61Google Scholar

19 Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, ed and trans William Harris Stahl (New York, 1952), 3–66, Palisca, Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought, 35–54, 164–90Google Scholar

20 Andreini, Isabella, Lettere d'Isabella Andreini padovana, comica gelosa, et academica intenta, nominata l'Accesa (Venice, 1602), eadem, Fragmenti d'alcuni scritture della signora Isabella Andreini, comica gelosa ed academica intenta Raccolti da Francesco Andreini comico geloso, detto il Capitano Spavento, e dati in luce da Flamminio Scala comico, e da lui dedicati all'illustrissimo signor Filippo Capponi (Venice, 1620); Nicolò Barbieri, La supplica, discorso famigliare a quelli che trattano de' comici, ed Ferdinando Taviani (Milan, 1971), 150–2, also in La commedia dell'arte, ed Marotti and Romei, 592, Domenico Bruni, Fatiche comiche di Domenico Bruni detto Fulvio, comico di Madama Serenissima Principessa di Piemonte (Paris, 1623), in La commedia dell'arte, 366, Tommaso Garzoni, La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo, nuovamente ristampata, e posta in luce da Thomaso Garzoni da Bagnocavallo Aggiuntovi in questa nuova impressione alcune bellissime annotationi a discorso per discorso (Venice, 1610), f 319v, idem, De' comici e tragedi così auttori come recitatori, cioè de gli istrioni, in La commedia dell'arte, 11Google Scholar

21 Pavoni, Diario, 44–6. ‘Il soggetto principale di detta Comedia fu questo, che Isabella figliuola unica di M. Pantalone de’ Bisognosi s'innamorò di Fileno Gentil'huomo molto virtuoso, e lui di lei La serva d'Isabella s'innamorò ancora lei del servitore del Sig Fileno, & il servitore di lei, per il cui mezo li loro patroni si servivano dell'ambasciate In questo mentre Flavio, studente in detta Città, che Padova per nome si chiamava, s'innamora d'Isabella, ma non trova riscontro, perche lei era di già presa dell'amore di Fileno Avenne, che il detto Gentil'huomo la fece da un suo amico domandare al padre per moglie, il vecchio rispose non volerne fare altro, sendo che Fileno era troppo giovanetto, sopra di che ne passò per mezo d'amici molti ragionamenti, ne mai fu possibile a poter concluder nulla Peniche li giovani innamorati vedendo il lor negotio andar tutto al contrario, vennero in tanta disperatione, che non sapevano che partito pigliare al fatto loro, e stando le cose in questi termini, Isabella si risolse alla fine di torsi di casa del padre una notte, & andarsene con Fileno in altri paesi, e così posero l'ordine per la sera, dandosi i cenni l'un l'altro del riconoscersi Simile accordo fece la serva con il servitore di star'uniti, e seguir la fortuna de i lor patroniGoogle Scholar

Avenne, che mentre ponevano l'ordine di questa fuga, Flavio, che stava in disparte nascosto, udi tutti li ragionamenti passati tra l'amata, & il suo rivale, & ne prese tanto cordoglio, quanto si può imaginare chi habbi provato simili tormenti La onde si dispose servirsi di questa occasione, e per tal via conseguire la sua amata Isabella, come fece Così venuta l'hora dell'accordo ma un poco prima, comparve Flavio, & con li cenni, che Fileno dovea dare ad Isabella si fece udire la quale subito n'uscì di casa, & fu raccolta con tanto contento di Flavio, che più non si può imaginare & così alla muta se n'andarono ne appena hebbero volte le spalle, che comparve Fileno col servitore, & fatti li cenni ordinati, non comparve mai nessuno. Alla fine la serva si fece fuori dell'uscio, & disse a Fileno, che non trovava la Patrona, & cercando di nuovo per casa, non la seppe mai ritrovare la onde il misero, & infelice Fileno venne in tal dispiacere, che cominciò a farneticare, col discorrere fra se ove se ne potesse essere andata, & tanto immerso stette in questi pensieri, che come insano, over pazzo divenne, uscendo fuori di se stesso L'Isabella in tanto trovandosi ingannata dall'insidie di Flavio, ne sapendo pigliar rimedio al suo male, si diede del tutto in preda al dolore, & così vinta dalla passione, e lasciandosi superare alla rabbia, & al furore uscì fuori di se stessa, & come pazza se n'andava scorrendo per la Cittade, [] 'Google Scholar

22 Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, trans Harold North Fowler (Cambridge and London, 1982), 405580 For a detailed analysis of the allegory of the winged charioteer, see Allen, Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedran Charioteer, idem, The Platonism of Marsilio FicinoGoogle Scholar

23 Allen, The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, 5Google Scholar

24 Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, trans Fowler, 469Google Scholar

25 Allen, The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, 35Google Scholar

26 Ibid., 67Google Scholar

27 Hanning, ‘Glorious Apollo’, eadem, Of Poetry and Music's Power, eadem, ‘Apologia pro Ottavio Rinuccini’ The imagery of the pastoral landscape and its significance for musical performance in sixteenth-century pastoral plays was further discussed in my paper ‘Music in the Pastoral Landscape’, read at the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society in Minneapolis, 30 October 1994Google Scholar

28 Grafton, Anthony, Defenders of the Text The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450–1800 (Cambridge, Mass, 1991), 162–77, Bulfinch, Myths of Greece and Rome, 292–8Google Scholar

29 Allen, The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, 61–2Google Scholar

30 On the immorality of actresses, see Taviani and Schino, Il segreto della commedia dell'arte, 537, Barbieri, La supplica, ed Taviani, i-lxxxv. Authors who have praised Isabella's high moral character include Garzoni, La piazza universale, f 320, Isabella's fellow academician of the Intenti, Antonio Maria Spelta, La curiosa, et dilettevole aggionta del Sig Ant Maria Spelta, cittadino pavese, all'historia sua, nella quale oltra la vaghezza di molte cose, che dall'anno 1596 fino al 1603 s'intendono, sono anco componimenti arguti, da quali non poco gusto gli elevati spiriti potranno prendere (Pavia, 1602), 169, Francesco Bartoli, Notizie isteriche de' comici italiani che fiorirono intorno all'anno MDL fino a' giorni presenti (Padua, 1781), i, 32–3Google Scholar

31 Ericius Puteanus to Isabella Andreini, Milan, 9 November 1601 Puteanus later published his letters to Isabella in Eryci Puteant epistolarum ferculo secunda Ad clariss V Ludovicum Septalium, patrictum & medicum mediolanensi Adiuncta eloquentiae auspicio secunda (Hanover, 1603) The entire correspondence is recorded in Charles Ruelens, Erycius Puteanus et Isabelle Andreini Lecture faite à l'Académie d'Archéologie le 3 Février 1889 (Antwerp, 1889) A transcription and translation of the letters may be found in my ‘Music and the Life and Work of Isabella Andreini’, 403–34, my heartfelt thanks to Michael and Christopher Siciliano for their assistance in translating Puteanus's sometimes tortuous proseGoogle Scholar

32 The relationship between Isabella and Chiabrera is briefly outlined in A Bruno, Gabriello Chiabrera e Isabella Andreini (estratto dal Bulleltino della Società Storica Savonese, Anno I N 1) (Savona, 1891) Further evidence of their friendship may be seen in the sonnet Chiabrera wrote for Isabella that appears at the beginning of this article and in the canzonette morali Isabella composed in tribute to her Genoese colleague, ‘Vago di posseder l'indico argento’, prefaced by the note ‘Nessuna cosa esser più durabile della Virtù’ (‘Nothing to be more lasting than virtue’), and ‘Faccia al gran Marte risonar le ‘ncudi’, with the motto ‘Che la virtù fa il vero Principe’ (That virtue makes the true Prince’), Isabella Andreini, Rime d'Isabella Andreini, padovana, comica gelosa (Milan, 1601), 20, 23 Others of Isabella's scherzi, dedicated to Chiabrera in later editions of her Rime, include ‘Io credèa che tra gli amanti’ and ‘Movea dolce un zefiretto’ Claudio Monteverdi's relationship with the Andreini family was established mainly through Isabella's son, Giovanni Battista, and his wife, Virginia Ramponi Andreini Monteverdi collaborated with Muzio Effrem, Salamone Rossi and Alessandro Ghivizzani in setting Giovanni Battista's La maddalena to music, and Virginia created the title role in the first performance of Monteverdi's Arianna Both generations of the Andreini family and Monteverdi shared the patronage of the Gonzaga court in Milan See my 'Music and the Life and Work of Isabella Andreini, 154Google Scholar

33 Chiabrera, Gabriello, Scherzi e canzonette morali di Gabriello Chiabrera (Genoa, 1599); idem, Canzonette, rime vane, dialoghi di Gabriello Chiabrera, ed Luigi Negri (Turin, 1964) The best source for discussions of the Pléiade's influence on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian poetry is still Ferdinando Neri, Il Chiabrera e la Pléiade francese (Turin, Milan and Rome, 1920) see also Pirrotta, Nino, ‘Scelte poetiche di Monteverdi’, Nuova rivista musicale italiana, 2 (1968), 1042, 226–54, trans. as ‘Monteverdi's Poetic Choices’, idem, Music and Culture in Italy from the Middle Ages to the Baroque A Collection of Essays (Cambridge, Mass., 1984), 271–316; Donna Cardamone, The Canzona villanesca alla napolitano and Related Forms, 1537–1570 (Ann Arbor, 1981); Gary Tomlinson, Monteverdi and the End of the Renaissance (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987).Google Scholar

34 Andreini, Rime (1601), 22–3Google Scholar

35 Henry Prunières, ‘Monteverdi and French Music’, The Sackbut, S (1922), 98–110, idem, ‘Monteverdi e la musica francese del suo tempo’, Rassegna musicale, 2 (1929), 483–93, idem. La vie et l'oeuvre de Claudio Monteverdi (Paris, 1926), trans as Monteverdi His Life and Work, trans Mane D Mackie (London, 1926, Westport, Connecticut, 1974) Further discussion of the canto alla francese and the impact of the Pléiade on Monteverdi's music may be found in Leo Schrade, Monteverdi, Creator of Modem Music (New York, 1950), Claudio Gallico, ‘Emblemi strumentali negli “scherzi” di Monteverdi’, Rivista italiana di musicologia, 2 (1967), 54–73, Pirrotta, ‘Scelte poetiche di Monteverdi’, Denis Stevens, ‘Monteverdi, Claudio’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), xii, 514–34; Cardamone, The Canzona villanesca alla napolitano, Tomlinson, Monteverdi and the End of the Renaissance; Ossi, Massimo, ‘Claudio Monteverdi's Concerto Technique and its Role in the Development of his Musical Thought’ (Ph D dissertation, Harvard University, 1989), idem, ‘Claudio Monteverdi's Ordine novo, bello et gustevole: the Canzonetta as Dramatic Module and Formal Archetype’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 45 (1992), 261–304.Google Scholar

36 Tutte le opere di Claudio Monteverdi, ed Giovanni Francesco Malipiero, x, Canzonette e scherzi musicali (Vienna, n d.), Preface The translation used here is based on that of Ossi, ‘Claudio Monteverdi's Ordine novo, bello et gustevole‘, 272 Ossi has provided a rigorous and much-needed reassessment of Monteverdi's scherzi and the Dichiarazione An earlier, widely used yet somewhat problematic translation of the Dichiarazione may be found in Oliver Strunk, Source Readings in Music History the Baroque Era (New York and London, 1965)Google Scholar

37 Monteverdi, Scherzi, trans Ossi, ‘Claudio Monteverdi's Ordine novo, bello et gustevole‘, 277Google Scholar

38 Gallico, ‘Emblemi strumentali negli “scherzi” di Monteverdi’, Pirrotta, ‘Scelte poetiche di Monteverdi’, 1042Google Scholar

39 Andreini, ‘Delle lodi d'Amore’, Lettere, ff 120r–v, also in La commedia dell'arte, ed Marotti and Romei, 192Google Scholar

40 Andreini, ‘Della forza d'Amore’, Lettere, ff 22–3, also in La commedia dell'arte, ed Marotti and Romei, 167201Google Scholar