The Commedia dell'Arte in Naples: A Bilingual Edition of the 176 Casamarciano Scenarios. 2 vols. Edited and translated by Francesco Cotticelli, Anne Goodrich Heck, and Thomas F. Heck. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001; pp. 1,168. $99.50 cloth.

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In 1896, Benedetto Croce donated to Naples's Biblioteca Nazionale two manuscript volumes from the late seventeenth century. These books had been prepared by Annibale Sersale, Count of Casamarciano, and contained 183 canovacci (scenarios) of the commedia dell'arte. Today, this Casamarciano zibaldone (collection) comprises the largest extant collection of commedia canovacci with nearly a quarter of the total surviving scenarios from any source. By contrast, Flaminio Scala's Il teatro delle favole rappresentative (first published in 1611, and translated into English by Henry F. Salerno in his influential 1967 edition) contains only 50. The Casamarciano scenarios have never been published in English translation, or even, astonishingly, in any complete Italian version, before now. For this reason alone, The Commedia dell'Arte in Naples is a publication of enormous significance for the dramaturgical study of commedia.