Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T20:45:19.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Eight Portraits of Gelosi Actors in 1589?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

M. A. Katritzky
Affiliation:
M. A. Katritzky, Wimbledon School of Art.

Extract

The group of actors from whom the Gelosi company arose are thought to have first come together in 1568, with the amalgamation of two troupes led by the prima donnas Vincenza and Flaminia. They were already known by the name Gelosi when they toured France in 1571; by 1572 they were popular enough to be able to complain that the stanze in Genoa could only hold an audience of 150; in 1574 their performance, and that of their leading lady, Vittoria Piisimi, were the highlight of Henri III's visit to Venice, and their reputation as the foremost com-media dell'arte troupe was fully established. Por-cacchi's pamphlet of 1574 notes some of the Gelosi actors of the time as Simon of Bologna, who played a facchino Bergamasco, Giulio Pas-quati as the Magnifico and Rinaldo. A Mantuan decree of 5 May 1579 names as Gelosi actors Simon the Bergamasco, Orazio and Adriano the innamorati, and Gabriele their friend.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Lea, K. M., Italian Popular Comedy, a study in the com-media dell'arte, 1560–1620, with special reference to the English stage (Oxford, 1934), 2 vols, I, p. 262Google Scholar; Ughi, Stefanella, ‘Di Adriatic Valerini, di Silvia Roncagli e dei Comici Gelosi’, Biblioteca Teatrale, 3, 1972, pp. 147150, 150.Google Scholar

2. Baschet, Armand, Les comédians Italians à la cour de France sous Charles IX, Henri HI, Henri IV et Louis XIII (Paris, 1882), p. 61Google Scholar; Lea, 1934, I, 57, p. 80.Google Scholar

3. Gambelli, Delia, ‘Arlecchino: dalla “preistoria” a Bian-colelli’, Biblioteca teatrale, V, 1972, pp. 1768, 42Google Scholar & Arlecchino a Parigi, dall'infemo alia cone del re sole (Rome, 1993), p. 152.

4. Rasi, Luigi, I comici italiani (Florence, 1897 & 1905), 2 vols, II, p. 243.Google Scholar

5. Lea, 1934, 1, p. 48Google Scholar; Richards, Kenneth and Richards, Laura, The commedia dell'arte. A documentary history (Oxford, 1990), p. 75.Google Scholar

6. Richards, and Richards, 1990, pp. 71–2Google Scholar; Gambelli, 1993, pp. 179180.Google Scholar

7. Duchartre, Pierre Louis, The Italian Comedy (1929/1966), p. 68Google Scholar; Kutscher, A., Die Comedia dell'arte und Deutschland (Emsdetten, 1955), fig. 22Google Scholar; Oreglia, G., Commedia dell'arte e le sue Maschere (Milan, 1976), fig. 1Google Scholar; Jockel, N., Commedia dell'arte zwischen Strassen und Palästen (Hamburg, 1983), p. 16.Google Scholar

8. Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Xni, 1971, pp. 729–31; Nagler, G. K., Die Monogrammisten, I (18771889), I, nos. 942, 946Google Scholar; Arrigoni, P. and Bertarelli, A., Piante e vedute di Roma (Milan, 1939), pp. 8, 15, 79, 134, 160ff., 220, 353Google Scholar; R. Mortimer, Harvard College Library Department of Printing and Graphic Arts, Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts, Part II: Italian 16th-century Books, 2 vols (Cambridge (Mass.), 1974); Katritzky, M. A., ‘Italian Comedians in Renaissance Prints’, Print Quarterly, 4, 1987, p. 246Google Scholar & ‘The Recueil Fossard 1928–88: a review and three reconstructions’, in The commedia dell'arte from the Renaissance to Dario Fo, ed. Cairns, Christopher (Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter, 1989), pp. 107–8Google Scholar; & A study in the commedia dell'arte 1560–1620, with special reference to the visual records, 2 vols, [D.Phil, thesis, St. Catherine's College, University of Oxford 1995 = Thesis], pp. 76–80, 228–32.

9. Pierce, Glenn Palen, The ‘caratterista’ and comic reform from Maggi to Goldoni (Naples, 1986), pp. 30–1.Google Scholar

10. Wind, Barry, ‘Pitture ridicole: some late cinquecento comic genre paintings’, Storia dell'arte, 20, 1974, p. 28.Google Scholar

11. Smith, Winifred, ‘The Academies and the popular Italian stage in the sixteenth century’, Modem Philology, 8, 1911, pp. 110.Google Scholar

12. Pandolfi, Vito, La commedia dell'arte. Storia e testo (Florence, 19571961), 6 vols, II, p. 302.Google Scholar

13. Katritzky, 1987, p. 251; 1989, pp. 107–8.Google Scholar

14. Beijer, A. and Duchartre, P.-L., Recueil de plusieurs fragments des premières comédies italiennes (Paris, 1928), p. 18Google Scholar; Katritzky, 1987, p. 250Google Scholar; Brown, John Russell (editor), The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre (Oxford, 1995), p. 126.Google Scholar

15. Katritzky, 1987, pi. 173.Google Scholar

16. Bellini, P., ‘Printmakers and Dealers in Italy during the 16th and 17th Centuries’, Print Collector, 13, 1975, p. 33.Google Scholar

17. Beall, K. F., Cries and itinerant trades (Hamburg, 1975), p. 319.Google Scholar

18. Corrigan, Beatrice, ‘Commedia dell'arte portraits in the McGill Feather Book’, Renaissance Drama, n.s.2, 1969, pp. 167–88.Google Scholar

19. Katritzky, M. A., ‘A Renaissance commedia dell'arte performance: towards a definitive sequence of Sieur Fossard's woodcuts?’, Nationahnuseum Bulletin (Stockholm), 12, 1988, p. 52Google Scholar; Gambelli, 1993, pp. 151–3.Google Scholar

20. Taviani, Ferdinando, ‘Bella d'Asia. Torquato Tasso, gli attori e l'immortalita’, Paragone/Letteratura, n.408–10, 1984, pp. 376, 74.Google Scholar

21. Baschet, 1882, p. 69.Google Scholar

22. Wolff, Max J., ‘Die Commedia dell'Arte’, Germanisches Romanisches Monatsschrift, 20/21, 1933, pp. 307–18, p. 315Google Scholar; Taviani, 1984, p. 74.Google Scholar

23. Katritzky, 1987, p. 248.Google Scholar

24. Lea, 1934, I, p. 288.Google Scholar

25. Ferrone, Siro, Attori mercanti corsari: la commedia dell'arte in Europa tra cinque e seicento (Turin, 1993), p. 21.Google Scholar

26. Ferrone, 1993, pp. 23–4, 30, 244, 247–53.Google Scholar

27. Askew, Pamela, ‘Fetti's “portrait of an actor” reconsidered’, Burlington Magazine, 120, 1978, pp. 5965.Google Scholar

28. Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo, I, 1954, pi. 9.

29. Lea, 1934, I, pp. 266–7, 275–7; n, pp. 485–6.Google Scholar

30. Lea, , 1934, I, pp. 48, 226, 275–7 & n, pp. 485–6Google Scholar; Scherillo, Michele, ‘The commedia dell'arte’, The Mask, 4, 1911, p. 152.Google Scholar

31. Pandolfi, , (Florence 1957–61), V, p. 238.Google Scholar

32. Katritzky, M. A., ‘The diaries of Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria: commedia dell'arte at the wedding festivals of Florence (1565) and Munich (1568)’, in Mulryne, and Shewring, , eds., Italian Renaissance Festivals and their European Influence (Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter, 1992), pp. 143172 & plates 24–46, pp. 159160.Google Scholar

33. Ughi, Stefanella, ‘Di Ludovico de’Bianchi e dei Comici Gelosi, Biblioteca Teatiale, 10/11, 1974, pp. 184–8.Google Scholar

34. Lea, 1934, I, p. 29.Google Scholar

35. Lea, 1934, I, p. 270.Google Scholar

36. Krogh, Torben, Musik og Teater (Munksgaard, 1955), fig. 20.Google Scholar

37. Nicoll, Allardyce, Masks, Mimes and Miracles (London, 1931), p. 295Google Scholar; The World of Harlequin (Cambridge, 1963), p. 89.Google Scholar

38. D'Ancona, Alessandro, Origini del teatro italiano (Rome, 1891/1971), 3 vols, II, pp. 478–9.Google Scholar

39. Barbieri, Nicolo (ed. Taviani, ), Supplica, overo discorso famigliare intorno alle comedie mercenarie (Venice, 1634/1971), pp. 86–7Google Scholar; Lea, 1934, I, p. 264.Google Scholar

40. Ferrone, 1993, p. 129.Google Scholar

41. Richards, and Richards, 1990, p. 272.Google Scholar

42. Ferrone, 1993, pp. 103, 106, 109, 118.Google Scholar

43. Gambelli, 1993, pp. 152–3.Google Scholar

44. Corrigan, 1969, p. 179Google Scholar; Lea, 1934, II, p. 491Google Scholar; Posner, Donald, ‘Jacques Callot and the dances called Sfessania’, Art Bulletin, 59, 1977, pp. 203–16 p. 216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45. Falconieri, John, ‘Historia de la commedia dell'arte en Espana’, Revista de Literatura, 11, 1957, pp. 337 and 12, pp. 6990 (26, 31).Google Scholar

46. Katritzky, M. A., ‘Harlequin in late renaissance pictures’, Renaissance Studies, forthcoming, note 36; & Thesis, pi. 179.Google Scholar

47. Falconieri, John, ‘The commedia dell'arte, the actors' theatre’, Theatre Annual, 12, 1954, pp. 3547, p. 41.Google Scholar

48. Gambelli, 1993, pp. 152–3, 190.Google Scholar

49. Nicholl, 1931, p. 306.Google Scholar

50. Ughi, , 1972, p. 15 & 1974, p. 187.Google Scholar