V. TRAGEDY AND COMEDY DURING THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES; MONTI, GOLDONI,

ETC.

A.D. 1600-1800. VICENZO MONTI followed close upon the footsteps of Alfieri in the terribil via struck out by that Michael Angelo of the Italian drama. The Aristodemo, Monti's best tragedy, was inspired by the recital of Alfieri's Virginia in Rome (1782). Deeply impressed with the beauty and vigour of that play, Monti, immediately on his return home, sketched out the plot of Aristodemo, King of Messenia, which appeared to him an equally fine subject for a tragedy. The discussion among the litterati of the day as to the merits and defects of Alfieri's style stimulated Monti to improve upon the rugged asperities and strained inversions which occasionally mar the grand passages of his fellow-tragedian. And his success was signal; for Signorelli, an eminent critic, remarks that when Alfieri's noble conceptions are illustrated by Monti's polished style, Italian tragedy at last attains to the summit of perfection. Aristodemo carried away the gold medal offered by the Duke of Parma for the best drama, a distinction which, owing to the general inferiority of tragical composition, had not been claimed for two years. The style is noble and sustained, the versification fluent, the dialogue easy and polished, the plot clearly and rapidly unfolds itself; but, above all, the passions are delineated with the hand of a master. The anguish of Aristodemo, soothed by the tender compassion of Cesina, to whom, while still unaware that she is his daughter, he feels drawn with the strong chain of parental affection; the attachment shown by the faithful servant Gonippo-all these, in the hands of an author who writes as if entranced with his subject,

of

make a series of beautiful and pathetic pictures; so that the interest is wrought up to the highest pitch by those alternations of terror and compassion which are the great elements of a well-sustained tragedy. It is an awful drama; and if the mere perusal of it is sufficient to stir the strongest emotions, the effect when represented on the stage can easily be imagined. In the third Act (Scene 7) there is a remarkable discourse upon suicide between Gonippo and Aristodemo, and the same scene contains the description of the apparition the spectre to the unhappy king, one of the most powerful passages in the drama. The accessories of spectres and tombs have since been objected to as a kind of tragic terror too hackneyed for use; and the entrance of Cesira into the tomb has been censured as an unnatural act of courage on her part; but Monti urges in her defence that the desire to save her father is sufficient to outweigh all the ordinary fears such an action would inspire; and we must here observe that, like Merope, the whole interest of Aristodemo centres in filial affection Aristodemo is looked upon as undoubtedly the best of Monti's three dramas, although the other two-Caio Gracco and Galeotto Manfredi-have also obtained distinguished laurels. Gracco owed its reputation in some measure to its patriotic sentiment, which was in accordance with the spirit of the age. It has besides great intrinsic merit, showing a vigour and power in depicting the Roman character which can only have been derived from deep study of the classics. It would seem as if the ardent spirits of this century in Italy looked back fondly to the past, as though to learn from their Roman ancestors how to gain that liberty for which they sighed in vain. But Monti is careful to draw the distinction be tween the true liberty established on the basis of truth and justice and the

The

Stese quanto son lunghe, equeste dita
Pur tutte aperte, come d'uom che sente
Afferrarsi alla gola, e si dibatte
Finchè forza il soggioga."1

one

The imitation of Shakspeare again appears in Galeotto Manfredi, Principe di Faenza, Monti's third and last tragedy, the character of Zambrino, the wicked courtier, resembling closely the Iago of Othello. But he is also painted from the life as a portrait of the author's personal enemy. By the character of Ubaldo, the contrast to Zambrino, Monti intended to represent himself; and it is said that on occasion when the tragedy was being played the allusion struck the spectators so forcibly that they insisted upon the repetition of the whole scene between the faithful and false courtiers.2 The argument of the tragedy, the author tells us, is taken from Tenducci's Storia di Faenza. It had a great attraction for Monti, who had spent much of his time in that brilliant and cultivated city, and had seen with his own eyes the chamber where Manfredi was murdered. Monti was born in Alfonsina, he was near Ravenna, in 1754; educated at Faënza. His talents early

legate at Ferrara, Cardinal Borghese, under whose protection he went to Rome. There he resided some years, and became secretary to the Duca di Nemi, nephew to Pius VI. He obtained a high reputation as a poet some time previous to the appearance of those tragedies already mentioned; but. the limits of our subject will not admit of the mention, except by name, of his famous poem, La Bassvigliana, written in the "terza rima" of Dante, and of the same visionary character as the Divina Commedia. The subject was the

2 Galeotto Manfredi, Act iv. Sc. 6.

3 Also to be found in Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. ii. pp. 168-172.

death of the French envoy at Rome, Ugo de Bassville. It was published in 1793, the year of the murder of Louis XVI., and contains a striking description of the death of that unhappy monarch. Monti witnessed the rise and fall of Napoleon, some of whose victories he celebrated in his poetry. In the zenith of his fame he recognised and acknowledged the bright star of the rising genius of Manzoni, and Manzoni, making allusion to the classical subjects of Monti's poetry, takes leave of the last tragedian of the eighteenth century in the graceful couplet

"Salve, O divino, a cui largì natura,

Il cor di Dante, e del suo Duca il canto,
Questo fia il grido dell'età ventura
Ma l'età che fu tua tel dice in pianto."1

We have seen how great an effort was required to restore Italian tragedy, but it was a yet more difficult task to give stability to her comedy. The great writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Bibbiena, Ariosto, and Machiavelli, had once given it the shape and form of dramatic composition; but their improvements were confined to their own comedies, and, with very rare exceptions, no writers worthy of note continued the task which these had begun. Thus in the seventeenth century we find the comic drama of Italy chiefly depending for its reputation upon the old commedie dell'arte, which still maintained the position they had acquired by their classical origin. Goldoni conceived the ingenious idea of enlisting harlequin and his troop in the service of the true drama, availing himself of the license they enjoyed, and the immunities they claimed from long prescriptive right. This was a work of time, and required all the skill and ingenuity of the greatest of Italian comedians before he could substitute the dialogues and plots of his own invention for the extempore jests and "Hail Bard divine! at once to thee were given

The heart of Dante and his leader's
theme;

Meet salutation for the age to come,
Thine own, o'er glories past, must weep
and dream."

grotesque wit of the personages of the old Italian Mascherata. We find the account in Memoirs which rival those of Alfieri in candour, and make so lively and sparkling a narrative, that Gibbon pronounces them "to be a great deal more comic than the comedies themselves." Carlo Goldoni was born in Venice in 1707, and from his childhood gave unmistakable signs of his passion for the drama. We have already seen how he employed the puppet-show which had been given to him for a toy, and at the age of eight he wrote his first comedy-so good that his father would not believe it was his unassisted work. At thirteen he composed a prologue to the comedy La Sorellina di Don Pilone, by Gigli, in which he acted the part of the prima donna. It was represented at the Jesuit College at Perugia, the scene of his early education. He pursued his studies at Rimini, under the tutelage of the Dominican fathers, and there he fell in with a troop of comedians, with whom he rapidly made friends. Every night he attended their performances, and was in such despair when their engagement at Rimini came to a close that he accepted their invitation to accompany them to Chiozza, under pretext of seeing his mother, who had taken up her abode there. His voyage

of three days in the "Barca dei Comici' seems to have influenced the whole of his after-life. At college he spent the time he ought to have devoted to his studies in reading all the plays he could lay hands upon, in every language; and perceiving the inferiority of the Italian drama to that of other nations, he determined that it should be the work of his life to place it on an equal footing with theirs. When dismissed in disgrace from college for a satirical dramatic composition, called L'Atellana, in imitation of the old Roman farces, he nearly fled to Gravina at Rome, in the hope that he would take him, as a second Metastasio, under his protection; but not having sufficient funds for the journey, he was obliged to return to his parents at Chiozza. What were

they to do with him? From his father's profession he had already turned with loathing; he thought in a moment of despair of entering a monastery, but as quickly abandoned the idea. There seemed some chance of success for him in the legal profession, when, after passing his examination at Padua, he became enrolled in the corps of advocates at Venice. But his career as a lawyer came to an abrupt end, and although it was afterwards resumed with some distinction, it has been entirely eclipsed by his fame as the greatest writer of Italian comedy.

He

began, however, by writing an opera. "The authors of comedy," he tells us, "were ill paid, while the Opera offered a prospect of an immediate fortune."1 And so he wrote his "Amalassunta.” He read it aloud to the director of the Opera, who pronounced it to be a complete failure as an opera. "You have written it," he said, on the true principles of tragedy, but you did not know that in the composition of an opera you must be guided by rules, which, however destitute of common sense they may appear, are none the less essential to the construction of a musical drama." And then he proceeded to enumerate all the arbitrary arrangements and restrictions as to the number of ariette, and their distribution among the actors and actresses, which Metastasio had managed to observe without marring the poetical effect of his drama. Made wiser by experience, Goldoni consulted a musical composer before he wrote his second opera.

This he called Il Gondolier Veneto, and it appeared as an intermezzo to an opera called Belisario, shining all the more by contrast with this indifferent composition. Goldoni offered to re-write Belisario; his offer was accepted with joy by the troop of comedians, and when the Belisario was represented at Venice (1714), the effect it produced surpassed their highest expectations. "Questa, questa," was the unanimous choice of the audience, when, according to the custom, the stage manager appeared before the curtain to announce the performance for the 1 Mem. del Sig. Goldoni, p. 103.

ensuing night. The Belisario had been supplemented by two supplemented by two "opere buffe," also by Goldoni, a kind of dramatic composition which, although well known in Naples and Rome, had not yet made its way into Northern Italy. This novelty added to the popularity of the performance, and the comedians discovered that Goldoni was henceforth indispensable to their dramatic arrangements. He lived with them on the most friendly terms, writing parts to suit this person and that, gratifying the whims and fancies of the prima donnas, and turning their very jealousies and quarrels to account; thus feeling his way by degrees to the reform which he had long meditated. The first step consisted in composing what he called a commedia di carattere, to be performed without masks, by contrast with the commedia a soggetto, the name given to plays with skeleton plots filled in at the pleasure of the actors, just as charades are now performed in private theatricals. The Italian comedians were very tenacious of this privilege. They considered it an insult to their talents to be given a written part to perform, and much disliked the trouble of learning it. They struggled with pertinacity for their rights in this respect, and Goldoni never obtained a complete victory over them, although he fought hard for it all his life. In his first commedia of the reformed kind he entrusted the principal parts to two actors, late additions to their company, of whose talents he had a high opinion, and it had an eminent success. After this attempt Goldoni tried another opera, Gustavo Vasa, about which he consulted the great Apostolo Zeno, then in his old age, and living in retirement at Venice. The tacit discouragement of so excellent a judge, and the lukewarm reception of Gustavo Vasa by the people, proved to Goldoni that comedy was the best field for his genius, for in it he could command the success which did not always attend his other dramatic compositions. Il Prodigo was another commedia di carattere of the same kind as his first experiment; but the comedians again complained that this class of drama took the bread out of

their mouths, and gave them nothing to do. To pacify them, he wrote Le Trentadue Disgrazie di Arlecchino, to be played by their best actor, Sacchi. It was very well received, and the comedians were for the time satisfied. It was followed by another of the same kind. But in the succeeding one, Il Fallimento, intended to expose the swindling speculations at that time prevalent in Venice, a much larger proportion of the drama was written than in either of the preceding commedie di carattere. Thus little by little, now yielding, and now taking advantage of his concession, Goldini advanced steadily on his way to the reform he contemplated.

He devotes a chapter of his Memoirs to the account of the origin of what he calls the "four masks of Italy," deriving his information from a manuscript containing a hundred and twenty commedie d'arte. Four personages were indispensable to the plot of each of these comedies-Pantaleone, a Venetian merchant; Il Dottore, a jurist, or Doctor of Law of Bologna; Brighella and Arlecchino, Bergamese servants, one a knave and the other a fool. Il Pantaleone and Il Dottore represent the parts of the old men, or fathers in the comedy; the other two are subordinate. Panteleone, the merchant, has always worn the Venetian costume, Venice being the most ancient mercantile city of Italy. Il Dottore, the lawyer, from the famous University of Bologna, is meant to draw the contrast between the man of learning and the man of commerce. He was always disfigured by a most hideous mask. The servants are Bergamese, because in Bergamo the two extremes of knavery and stupidity are most conspicuous. Brighella wears a kind of livery, and a brown mask, as a caricature of the sunburnt skin of the inhabitants of those high mountains. Arlecchino, as has been already said, wears a coat of many pieces, to represent a beggar who patches his torn coat with rags and tatters of all colours and kinds. Goldoni then laments over the necessity of the masks, as concealing all the play of feature and change of countenance, which often convey better than

words the desired impression to the audience. For this reason Goldoni determined sooner or later to extirpate the masks from Italian comedy. Meanwhile he continued indefatigable in providing for the public amusement, and in return he was a general favourite. His popularity stood him in good stead when, on his appointment to the consulship of Genoa, he left Venice (1741) to take possession of his new office. Italy was involved in the war of the succession of Austria, and the country was full of hostile troops. Goldoni and his wife fell a prey to the rapacity of the Austrian soldiers, and were robbed of all their goods; but they obtained immediate redress when the Commander-in-Chief discovered that he was the author of the comedies at that time so universally popular, and moreover presented him to Lobkowitz, the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Army, who placed in his hands the direction of the theatrical entertainments provided for the troops. At Pisa the comedians asked his leave to perform the Trentadue Disgrazie d'Arlecchino, but this being a comedy a soggetto, and depending in great measure upon the talent of Sacchi, who had played harlequin before, now fell completely flat. Goldoni, in a moment of disgust, resolved to abandon as a hopeless task the reform of the comici, who would always insist upon representing commedie a soggetto, regardless whether their actors were good or bad. There was at that time a branch of the Accademia degli Arcadi resident at Pisa; the Arcadians received Goldoni with open arms, and invited him to join their society, assuring him that his talents might be far more worthily employed than in writing comedies. By their advice, he resumed the forsaken practice of the law; his clients steadily increased, he was making himself a name as an advocate, when, fortunately for the Italian drama, his scheme of life was again changed by tidings from Sacchi that he had returned to Venice. This letter from his favourite actor had the effect of a trumpet upon a war-horse. Sacchi begged Goldoni to write a comedy for him to act; more