VOLUME XXXVII 1982 ITALIAN STUDIES An Annual Review EDITED BY T. G. GRIFFITH C. GRAYSON U, LIMENTANI F, HASKELL B, MOLONEY ASSISTED BY B, RICHARDSON PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY FOR ITALIAN STUDIES AND PRINTED BY W. S, MANEY & SON LTD, LEEDS48 RICHARD ANDREWS separate dramatic visions, If this is so, then the authors, once they decided to effect the merger, seem to have taken advantage of the situation by, springing a deliberate dramatic surprise: after leading their audience to believe that they are watching one kind of spectacle, they abruptly and even hilariously alter the rules of the game, The opening of Act mz thus constitutes a considerable coup de shédtre, almost a denouement half-way through the play, ia the sense that the tensions previously aroused by Lelia’s predicament are unexpectedly defused. Whether this unusual structure was intended all along, or whether it was a way of reconciling in a hurry contributions to the play which were not mutually compatible, is by now probably impossible to discover. In any case, itis larpely irrelevant, toa judgement of the play as it now stands, By luck os by judgement, the authors produced one of the most popular comedies of their centary. It seems probable that professional performers, from the 15408 onwards, understood how it was to be cast and staged, and built it rapidly into their tepertoite of scenarios, perhaps also using it as a model for other plots in which similar tricks could be played. These tricks, like most of the arte repertoire, soon beceme a matter of rather stale routine, standard frame- works of performance to which only a brilliant team of performers would manage to bring any freshness, But Gif ingannati continued to be attractive as a full text in its own right, because it contained other qualities which would survive its frst presentation to the Accademia degli Intronati: notably the verve and fluency of its comic dialogue which, although lacking the firm authorial stamp of a Machiavelli or an Aretino, has a colloquial sureness of touch which circumvents Hiterary models almost entitely while remaining accessible and unproviacial throughout, These qualities are surely worth testing again on a modern stage, since assessments of the effectiveness of dramatic dialogue remain mere guess- work until a team of actors has tried out that dialogue ona living audience, The present essay has attempted to identify some central practical aspects of staging and casting, which seem inescapably contained in the text once it is read as a manual for performance, and which one would hope to see incorporated into any modern revival of the comedy, Canterbury Rickarp Anparws‘FUOR DI QUEL COSTUME ANTICO’: INNOVATION VERSUS TRADITION IN THE PROLOGUES OF GIRALDI CINTHIO’S TRAGEDIES Despite the fact that many of Seneca’s plays had been performed in Italy, both ia Latin and in translation, duting the early sixteenth century, the Grst Italian regular tragedies, as is well known, had followed the so-called ‘Grecian’ pattern. When Giamabattista Giraldi Cinthio’s Orbecche, modelled on the Senecan five-act division, was first staged at Ferrara in 1541, it therefore represented an important break with tradition. In addition to the new five-act form, Gisaldi also made another impor- tantinaovation in this tragedy by the inclusion of a separate prologue. ‘This may not sound a very bold new step today, nor of course was Giraldi doing more for tragedy than writers of comedy had been doing since Roman times, but in adding such a preamble to his tragedies he was directly contravening the authority of Aristotle, who had decreed that a tragedy should consist of three parts, Prologue, Episode and Exode, and that the term prologue applies to ‘the whole of that part of the tragedy which precedes the parode or first entrance of the Chorus’? While writers of comedy could seek support in the practice of Plautus and Terence for using the tezm-prologue to apply solely to the section preceding the play proper, there was no classical precedent for a sepatate prologue wheze Roman tragedy was concerned, since Seneca does not use the term in relation to his plays and includes no separate introductory section, Giealdi was well aware therefore that such an innovation needed explaining and justifying, In his Discorso intorno al comparre delle comedic ¢ delle tragedie although conceding that the separate prologue of Roman comedy, being extrancous to the dramatic action, was not a prologue at all in the strict Aristotelian sense, Giraldi argues that it was stilla worthwhile addition and that it could be said to constitute 2 new type of prologue peculiar to the Romans, and additional to the Greek type of prologue: ‘non si pud dire 2 Trissino’s Sofonicba, written in 2514-15 and frst printed in 1524, is of course the best-knowa example of such plays. See for example the discussion in Marvin 'T, Hettick's Italian Tragedy i the Renciszance (Urbana, 1965), Chapter 1m, “The Grecians’, 3 Acistotle, On the Art of Peeir, translated by 1. 8, Dorsch (Aristotle, Horace, Longines: Clastcal Lay Ceti (aamonderort, 1965), B * All subsequent references to this ttle will take the abbreviated form of Diseorse, and will sefer 10 the text in G, G, Gisaldi Cinzio, Siritt cite, edited by C, Guczsieri Crocetti (Milan, 1973), PP. 169-224. 4950 PEGGY OSBORN tal prologo parte della favola; perché non ha legamento aleuno coll’azione che nella favola si tratta, né a quel modo si recita che si recitano Paltre parti’, he states in his Discorso, by which he means that these Roman comic prologues were recited by one of the actors on behalf of the poet, whose personal views could aot of course be expressed during the action of the comedy, and that they were addressed by the actor directly to the audience, which again is not permissible during the play itself. Such prologues, then, ate clearly quite separate from the true action of the play and ae simply ‘una giunta postavi da’ Romani per dispotre gli animi degli spettatoti alla attenzione, 0 pet conciliate insieme benevolezza al poeta’,é and the same applies to the prologues of comedies written by contemporary Italians, who have followed the Romans. Inall tragedies so far written, however, whether in Greek, Latin, ot the vernaculas, Giruldi claims that the true prologue bas been correctly interpreted as ‘tutta quella patte che era posta innanzi al primo coto’.® This definition could equally well be applied to comedy, he argues, for although it is true that the Romans abandoned the use of choruses in thei comedies, Aristotle has shown us that these were a feature of the gente in his day and so all that preceded the first chorus (which was the equivalent of the first act in Roman comedy) was in fact the prologue, or the exposition of the theme.’ Like the Roman plays, modern Ttalian comedy has no chorus, but Gialdi points out that there ate still interludes between the acts, in which music is played, so the distinction still holds good, ‘e cost si dee ella nominar prologo, come prima si chiamava’s Having paid this lip-service to Aristotle by relating his definition of the prologue to comedy, Giraldi then goes on to admit to using the term prologue in relation to his own tragedies exclusively as the Roman comedy- writers had used it: "Vero & che io sono stato un poco pitt ardito che non sono stati gli altri compositori di tragedie che hanno scritto prima di me, in porte il prologo innanzi alle tragedie mie, dlistinto dalle patti della # Ditcorto, p, 202, * Dirori p, 202, Aclivs Donatus, whose foureh-eentury commentaty on Terenees comedies Yeap s0 popula in the stenth century, fer fin tion ofthe prologue shat was in heping 1th the practice of the Roman comedy waiter and silos to that formulated by Giadlt ‘Comoedia per quatuor partes diuiditur: Profogum, Protasin, Epitasin, Catastrophen, Prologus cit uclut pracfatio qusedam fabulae in quo solo lett practer argumeatum allguct a postions uclex Poste uel ex ipsiut fabulae uel ex atoris commodo, loquj see 1, W, Lawton, Hndook of French Renaissance Dramatic Theory (Manchester, 1949), p. 12. § Diseorte,p. 201, *"E quantunque i Romani vi abbiana posto il prologo sepatato dalle altre patti della comedia, nondimeno non yoglio io lasciate di credere che quella ptime parte mort st debbe cost dite prologe appresso J Latinl e appresso no}, come a diceva al tempo di Axstotile, che, sebibene & levato il coto alle comedie, non & per’ che sion vi si Pordine delle parti che vi exn’primay e fl coro non era quello che desse nome di prologo alla prima paste, ma era solo egli quello che la ingueva dalle altre parti? (Dieorsa, pp. 201-02), ® Discoria,p. 202,GIRALDI’s TRAGEDIES sr favola, come feto i Romani, e dopo loro gli Kaliani alle comedie”.® His reasons for including a separate prologue ate that it is in keeping with the times, that it detracts nothing from the play, and that it arouses the spec- tator’s interest and curiosity, ‘dandogliene un poco di gusto inaanzi che pit oltre si vada’, and his views have been confirmed by observing his audience's reactions to this innovation, first in Orbecebe and then in his subsequent tragedies, ‘avendo veduto questo mio atdimento essere riuscito gratissimo alla migliore e maggior parte degli spettatori’.12 While anxious then to make it clear that he understands what Aristotle meant by the term and is not misusing it out of ignorance, Giraldi is nevertheless prepared to stand up and boldly state that he is the first tzagedy-writer of modern times to depart from accepted tradition in this respect. He is well aware that he is establishing a precedent and is by 20 means ashamed of it: “E potrebbe forse avvenire che, come ai nostri tempi hanno avuto da me principio le sappresentazioni delle tragedie, pet tanto spazio di anni tralasciate, cost anco per loro il prologo innanzi avesse da me principio nella nostca favella’.% From the way he has spoken of it, there- fose, it would appear that Giraldi attached quite a high degree of im- portance to his adaptation of the comic prologue to tragedy and is clearly relieved that as yet no one has attacked him for so doing: ‘mi sto contento di non avere ancora veduto giudizioso aleuno che di cid sia simaso offeso’23 Giraldi refers in two of the prologues of his tragedies to the novelty of introducing a tragedy by means of a separate ptologue, In Orbecehe the Prologue opens with its reciter telling the audience not to be surprised che qui venuto ? sia Prima d’ognun, col ptologo diviso Da le parti che son ne la Tragedia A ragionar con voi fuor del costume De le Tragedie, ¢ de’ Poeti antichi, for he has come expressly to warn them of the anguish that is to follow; instead of the ‘astute insidie’, ‘pronti mott?, ‘amorosi piacesi’ ot ‘abbraccia- menti? productive of laughter and delight that his audience were ac- customed to, the evening’s entertainment holds for them nothing but ‘Iagtime, sospiri, angoscie, afanni, e crude morti” giving tise to ‘acerba, ¢ ‘ntolerabil doglia’. In view of this, the thoughtful poet has broken with tradition and sent him, the reciter of the prologue, to give them advance * Disoro, ps 205, 8 Divers, ps 205, 31 Discorso, p, 205, 18 Diseorso, p. 203. Many later ‘sixteenth-century writers of tugedy did indeed follow Giraldi’s lead in prefiing teit plays with» separate prolopvessee bos Coco eae Se Tragedy in Bh Reaaionce paste 1 Ditvorn, po tos.ye PEGGY OSBORN warning of what lies ahead and advise them, or so he playfully says, to depart while there is yet time: Deh piacciavi non esser spettatori Di tante aversita, di tante morti, Quanthanno ad ayenir’ in questo giorno, for how will the ladies’ gentle and delicate natures endure the spectacle of such terrible happenings? So in this, the first of Giraldi’s tragedies to be performed (in 1541) and his only horror tragedy — and also the first regular classical tragedy in the vernacular to be witnessed by the court of Ferrara — he is putting his prologue to good use both in whetting the curiosity of his audience and at the same time in cleverly helping them to adjust to the idea of watching a tragedy instead of their customary theatrical entertainment of comedy. ‘The staging of a tragedy following the Senecan pattern and based on an invented plot was undoubtedly a bold step in an age so respectful of tradition, and Giraldi uses the prologue to Orbecehe to emphasize that he is proud to be breaking new ground, Moreover he makes it clear that the prologue, through which he can address the audience directly, is an important element of his new form. In the Apology, ‘La Tzagedia a chi legge’,)* purporting to be spoken by the Tragedy ‘herself, which he appended to the published vetsion of Orbecche, Giraldi lays much emphasis on the newness of the play’s theme and treatment and uses this as a justification for the inclusion of a separate prologue: : ____ Né perch’io {la Tragedia} Da gli atti porti il prologo diviso, Debbo biasimo haver, perd che i tempi Ne’ quai son nata, ¢ Ia novita mia, E qualche altro rispetto occulto fammi ‘Meco portarlo,2® for, he goes on daringly, it would be folly to neglect what modern times require simply to avoid departing from the practice of the Ancients, Although Giraldi participated in the cutrent scholarly enthusiasm for Aristotle's dramatic theory where the general structure and aims of tragedy were concerned, he nevertheless believed firmly in adapting classical form to modern requirements, writing as he was from the angle of a practical dramatist in ducal employment, whose plays were primarily intended, as he himself says, for staging rather than for reading. Where ¥ Giraldi gives draroatic form to this detailed defence of his play, pessonifying his tragedy and smgldog “het plead ‘hep ease with the public in enealal sot 3 Le sragedie di M. Glo. Battista Giraldi Cinthia, Nobile Ferrarese (ia Venetia appresso Giulio Cesaze Cagnacini, 1383)s Orbwrebe, p. x30, All references to Gisaldi’s plays will be to the abore, which is the only collected edition,GIRALDI’s TRAGEDIES 33 tradition and contemporary demands conflict, the former must give way to the latter, As he says in the Prologue to .A/tile, man’s free will has been given him to enable him to think for himself, not to remain fettered by the precepts of the Ancients: E percid ctede hora il Poeta nostro, Che si ferme non sian le leggi poste A le Tragedie, che non gli sia dato Useis fuor del prescritto in qualche parte, especially where he is dealing with a’subject that has never before been treated, He believes that if the poets of the ancient world were here today, they too would doubtless be aiming to satisfy the demands of a modern audience, just as the Romans in their own day adapted Greek practice, ‘Come l’uso | Dei fatti lor, deilor tempi chiedeva’ — as Horace has shown. So it is to uso’ and ‘Pet nostra’, as Giraldi goes on to say, that the playwright must owe his first allegiance. As in Orbeccbe, he uses his pro- logue to appeal to the audience to recognize that this adjunct is suitable and necessary to the tragedy, repeating his argument that the age they live in and the novelty of his theme require it, If they hear anyone attacking him for including a prologue to his tragedies, he begs his audience to tally to his support, since there are always people to be found che son si fermi Ne le sentenze lor, che sprezzan V’altre, O che non faano mai movere il piede Se nol ripongon ne Paltrui vestigia.1o It is intriguing to find Giraldi in this same prologue backing up his arguments for having “voluto | Usar sé stesso, uscir de l’uso antico’ on the grounds that it was to ‘sodisfare & chi sodisfar deve’, He tells his audience that if they hear anyone criticizing him for having introduced his separate prologue, ‘fuor di quel costume antico? they are to remind him 4 cui servigio io sono Hor qua venuto, che per voi comparso Son pria de gli altri. In his defence of Orbecebe he argues that the tragedy should not be censured for its separate prologue, for it is justifiable both on the grounds of audience requirements, the play’s novelty, and also of another factor — ‘qualche altro rispetto occulto’, In the Distorso, too, we find at the end of Giraldi’s list of reasons for prefixing his tragedies with separate prologues, asignificantstatement: ‘il voler esser grato a chi io cra gid debitore,edilvoler 1 Prologue to Alle,34 PEGGY OSBORN servirc a chi mi potea comandare, lo mi fe’ preporte alla mia Orbecohe, come dappoi anco Pho preposto alle altre sue sorelle’,!? and at the word ‘comandare’, Giraldi added in his own hand the marginal note, referring of course to the Duke, ‘ch’era di giudicio singolare, cos{ in queste come in tutte le altre cose’.1 Since the Duke would have almost certainly attended the opening performances of Giraldi’s plays, these remarks must surely imply direct ducal orders for the separate prologue, Ercole II was still in power in 1554 when the Discorro was published, and so such an explicit allusion to ‘orders from above’ would have been inadmissible had there been no basis for them, We know that the Este took a close interest in the theatre from the time of Ercole I onwards and that they attached great importance to it as an aid to maintaining a well-ordered state, and to enhancing their own public image, and we also know that it was largely at thei expense that plays were produced. (Girald?’s plays were almost all staged in his own house while he was living in Ferrara, but production costs were frequently paid out of the ducal treasury.)! Tt would hardly haye been surprising, therefore, if detailed discussions had taken place between Ercole and Giraldi, as his leading court dramatist during the 1340s (and from 1547 as ducal secretary), concerning the general pattern his plays were to follow. In theit consultations they might well have arrived at the idea of the advantages a separate prologue offered as a means of predisposing the audience in favour of a new dramatic form and of pre- paring their minds for the moral lesson to be imparted. We know that the Duke'commissioned Giraldi to write his tragedies on the subjects of Dido and Cleopatra and that Giraldi received detailed ducal instructions for revising his Antivalomeni prior toa new staging it was to have in 1549, for Egidio Scoglio quotes Gisaldi’s reply to the Duke, in which he assuses him that these mattets have been attended to: ‘mi sono anco sforzato di ridurla [his tragedy) a quel miglio termine ch’ho potuto, perché pits lo soddisfacera, che sia possible, che non penso né bramo altro’. This ‘working partner- ship’, if one can presume to call it so, scems to have been a success. It obviously provided a useful shield for Giraldi against adverse criticism of his innovations, while the Duke’s ‘giudicio singolare’ seems to have accorded admirably with Gizaldi’s own views, It seems highly probable that the idea of a /iero fine (which I shall presently discuss) was worked out in collaboration with the Duke, since there are no fewer than three clear allusions to ducal orders in the prologue to Alfile, the first of such trage- dies, in connexion with the various important innovations which the play 17 Divrrg,p, 203. 1 Bor Ginakdes marginal manuscript notes to the Disorso, see the notes to Seritit erit ** See P. R, Horne, The Tragedies of Giambattista Cinthia Girala? (London, 1962), pp. © # Quoted by Egidio Seoglio in Uf sai alla carte etene (Lodi, £965), pp. 425-39.GIRALDI’S TRAGEDIES 55 incorporates, of which the happy ending is the most striking. Unless some consultation with the Duke /ad taken place, Gitaldi could hardly have claimed that one of the justifications for all the new featutes in his tragedies was to ‘sodisfare A chi sodisfar deve’! In the Prologue to Selewe, again, Giraldi states specifically that the play is being staged at the Duke’s command and that by his express orders it is to be ‘Favola tutta a buon costumi ordita, | Di fin felice, ¢ di soggetto nova’, Giraldi may not have come under attack for his separate prologues but he certainly did for another of his innovations, the five-act division on which all his tragedies are based, and it is rather surprising that he makes no specific references in his prologues to the fact that his plays are going to follow the Senecan rather than the Greek pattern in this respect, How- ever, he defends hitnself in ‘La Tragedia a chi legge’ by drawing an analogy between a play and the human body, Che com’ua’huom sia strano mostro al mondo, Che non habbia distinte in sé le membra, Cosi anch’io istimo, che spiacevol fora ‘Vedermi in un tutta confusa,* In Giraldi’s view the undivided form of Greek tragedy was inferior to that of the Romans with theie five-act structure, After reading his Didoze aloud before the Duke and his court, Gitaldi was ordered by Ercole to reply to various charges levelled by humanist critics against his dramatic innova- tions, including that of the five-act division, as being out of keeping with Greek practice. (Such a command would again suggest that the Duke had a vested interest in the success of Giraldi’s new ventures.) Giraldi replied in a letter addressed to the Duke and dated 15432 by attacking the Greek ptactice of keeping the chorus permanently on the stage. This, he says, is unnecessary, and it tites the audience, who need changes and breaks during the pesformance, He goes on to remind the Duke, to whom he addresses his Apology, that Cardinal Salviati had recently asked for Orbecche to be restaged in the Greek manner, without a single break, ‘il quale venne loro tanto & noia, che non si potrebbe dire quanto il biasima- tono"® and that the following Sunday the Cardinal and his retinue had requested a performance ‘secondo Pusanza prima’, which had been a success, This nicely illustrates how Giraldi, as we have already seca in his prologues, based his dramatic theory and practice on the requirements of his audience, and put these before classical precepts, No doubt had it been shown that the Greek mode of staging was preferred by the spectatots, 4 Orbwecbe, p, 131, 28 AU Ulustrise, of Becellentise, Signore, Signore mio osservandisrimo. 11S. D, Hercole Il Da Este, Dua Quarta di Ferrara; see Le tragedie, pp. 125-57. Ls agen pe t4656 REGGY OSBORN this inveterate modernist would have altered his plays accordingly! As he sensibly remarks on this subject in his Discorso: Videro molto meglio i Romani che i Greci, Perché davano riposo agli spettatori e apparecchiavano maggiore attenzione a quello che timaneva a dire; pero che lo spettatore vedutosi condotto sino al fine dell’atto, poi che ha pigliato tiposo, ed & stato sicteato dalla interposizione della musica, divien vago di esser condotto al fine; e al nuovo apparice delPistrione, il vede non altrimenti che sc fosse una Auova persona che veniste in iscena; ¢ attende quello che debba dire, con molto desidezio.%* Despite the fact that in the Poefies preference is given to the choice of a historical rather than an invented theme for tragedy, seven out of Giraldi’s nine tragedies are based on plots of his own invention (five of which are to be found in novella form in his Hecatommithi), and the other two with historical plots, Didone and Cleopatra, were prescribed for him by the Duke. ‘This was remarkable at a period when usually only comedy-writers found their own plots and even then borrowed heavily for them from Plautus and Terence. In many of his prologues we find Giraldi referring to the ‘nova favola’ about to be staged. In that of Aftile he speaks of the need to adapt his form to the ‘materia, non pitt tocca innanzi |-O da Poeta antico, 6 da moderno’, Similarly, in the Apology for Orbercke he males his Tsagedy beg its readers not to esteem it the less because its theme is a new one, and not taken from ancient history, ‘Che da nova materia, e novi nomi | Nasca nova Tragedia’ of the type suited to the needs of a present-day audience. He rathet charmingly goes on to make his play excuse its deviations from ancient tragedy on the grounds thet it is the newly-born offspring of a young father, E s'io non sono in tutto Simile a quelle antiche, & ch’io son nata Test? da padre giovane, ¢ non posso Compatir se non giovane,”* In the Discorso Giraldi says that although the genetally accepted view is that the plot of comedy should be invented by the poet while that of tragedy should be taken from history, he personally believes that a tragic plot can be just as well invented as a comic plot, and that Aristotle does permit an invented tragic plot.’ What matters is zor that it should be based on history, but that it should be ‘verisimile’, that is, ‘conforme agli abiti naturali ¢ non lontana da quello che puote e suole avvenite’.*7 A new plot will hold the spectator’s attention more closely than a well-known one and ¥ Dircorso, p. 207. ® Orbeece, p. 130. 8 Potts, TX. " Discarso, ps 477.GIRALDY’s TRAGEDIES 7 as soon as he begins to get interested in it ‘alza Ia mente e cerca di non perdemne parole’ Gicaldi at this stage allows his enthusiasm for invented tragic plots to carry him away and goes so far as to claim that Aristotle had said ‘che tra quelle che si pigliano dall storia, le meno conosciute sono pit grate e pit efficaci”® — which Aristotle had not of course said.®°Heis on safer groundwhen he goes on to cite from his own experience thata fictitious plot can arouse pity and horror just as effectively as the historical type, as che ‘singhiozzi’ and ‘piant? that accompanied every performance of Orbecche have proved, In the Prologue to Alte Giraldi had another important task to fulfil, samely to prepare his audience for what was probably to be his most important contribution to drama — the tragedy with the happy ending, of which Adile was the first example, to be followed by five mote, Having carefully made the point here that the Roman playwrights, after borrowing what they needed from the Greeks, did not slavishly continue in theiz footprints but ‘si diero A comporle, come l’uso | De i fattilor, de i lor tempi chiedeva’ and that the same applies to his own day and age, he leads neatly into the question of his happy ending by pretending that he can see dismay on the faces of his spectators at the mention of tragedy, ‘come non haveste ad udire altro che pianto’, and so hastens to reassure them: ‘Ma state lieti, c’haverd fin lieto, Quel c’hoggi qui averra, che cos} tristo Augutio aon ha seco la Tragedia, Chiesser non possa anche felice il fine. There are classical precedents too, he points out, for such an ending: Tal é Ion d’Buripide, ¢ Oreste, Helena, ¢ Alceste, con PIphigenia, Et aloune altres and if they prefer, they may call it ‘Tragicomedia’ as Plautus called his Anphitruo, ‘Dal fin ch’ella ha conforme 4 la Comedia | Dopo i teavagli, @allegrezza pieno’, Giraldi himself, however, does not appear to have favoured the tetm ttagicomedy, preferring the label of ‘tragedia di fin lieto? or ‘di lieto fine’.a % Disorso, p. 177. 8 Discorse bo A78. 8" "Nevertheless even in some tragedies only one of two of the mames ate well known and the test are fictitious; and indeed there are some in which nothing is familiar... and the play is nevertheless well liked for that’: Aristotle, On tbe Art of Potiry, ps 44. 81 As P, R, Horne indicates, thece is in fact a basic difference between the two, for in a tragi- sqmedy such as Meare for Meatne, for example, the audiences kept aware of te posible of @ happy solution throughout, so that ‘a kind of balance is maintained beoween the tragic and the comic potentialities of the plot’ (p, 1r4). In Glraldi’ tragedies with happy endings, on the other hand, disaster threatens right up to the very last moment, and but for the denouement there is no difference in atmosphere between this type of play and an ordinary ttagedy.58 PEGGY OsnORN Giraldi believes that dramatic suspense is of pacamount importance in such plays, and that the action must be handled ‘in guisa che gli spettatosi tra Porrore ¢ la compassione stiano sospesi insino al fine, il qual poscia tiuscendo aliegto gli lasci tutti consolat?’.®® Such suspense must arise out of the terrible and the pitiful, without which ‘non si pud fate tragedia che buona sia’. Despite the fact that, as Giraldi says in his Discorso, Aristotle preferred a tragedy to end in unhappiness and that Giraldi’s much-admired Seneca wrote no tragedies with happy endings, Giraldi himself believed that such plays were more suited to his own day and age than those that ended in disaster, and that the audience preferzed them, (The reason may have been that the audience were accustomed to seeing comedy staged and had not yet learnt to appreciate a full-blown tragedy.) Gitaldi once again boldy claims that the requirements of his audience must come first. He has written his happy-ending tragedies not for theotetical reasons, but ‘solo per servire agli spettatori, e farle riuscire pit grate in iscena, ¢ conformarmi piti con Puso dei nostri tempi’ For even though Aristotle stated that one should not pander to the ignorance of one’s audience, Giraldi disagrees: *ho tenuto meglio soddisfare a chi ha ad ascoltare, con qualche minore eccellenza, . . . che con un poco pit di grandezza dispiacere a coloto per piacere dei quali la favola si conduce in iscena’®5 — what would be the point of writing a theoretically impeccable play that turned out to be a failure when staged? And, interestingly, despite the huge success of Orbeecke, he goes on to say that tragedies with unhappy eridings should be reserved for reading, and only those with happy endings should be staged. In the Prologne to Arrenopia, as in that to Aitife, Gitaldi consoles his audience with the promise of a happy outcome to his tragic theme, siace Je Reali favole non sono St dannate a le lagrime, a gli affanni, Che le afflittioni, ¢ le miserie gravi Haver non possan fin lieto, e Felice, Volgendos il dolore in allegrezza. Such comments make it clear that Giraldi believed the happy ending does not in any way conflict with the spirit of tragedy. But there may well have been a more profound reason for his innovatory tragedies than simply that the audience preferred them. Doubtless they showed a reaction against the blood-curdling horrors of Orbecche which Giraldi did not wish to repeat, but more importantly, as P, R. Horne 38 Discorse, p. 184. 8 Discorsa, p. 383. 1 Discorse, p. 184. 38 Disearsa, p. 184.GIRALDI’s TRAGEDIES 59 suggests,* it may well have been Giraldi’s strong sense of Christian morality that caused him to turn away from writing plays where the guilty and innocent alike were punished, and to adopt a form that more effectively demonstrated the workings of an all-wise Providence in human affairs. The lesson which Giraldi wished to inculcate via his plays is summed up in the Prologue to Altile: Vedrete adunque in questa nostra Altile... Quanta inconstanza & ne Phumane cose, E che per mal’ oprar mai non gioisce Un animo malvagio, e che conviene ... Ch’avenga quel, ch’t statuito in Cielo Dal supremo Motor, che il tutto regge, Con quella sua inefabil providenza, If he wished to demonstrate through his plays that Fortune’s fickleness must eventually yield to divine justice, and that sooner of later the evil-doer will reap his own reward, the message which is underlined again and again in his pologues and chotal odes,*? then the Heto fine was a logical necessity, for if good characters and evil alike ended in disastes, where would be the encouragement to the audience to pursue virtue? ‘That his primary aim in writing plays was a moral one cannot be disputed, for he states explicitly in his Disrorso intorno al comporre dei romangz¥ that the poet’s task is to describe things not as they are but as they should be, ‘per giovare e dilettare insieme soddisfacendo agli uomini di quell’etA nella quale sctivono’ and he must praise virtuous actions and blame vice, making it hateful ‘col terrible ¢ col miserevole’ to his readers. Giraldi is here of course voicing the generally- held view of both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance that in any literary work the objective of moral instruction must take precedence over that of pleasure, and it is interesting that Giraldi brackets the two together in his Distorso intorno al comporre dei romangi, implying that the one cannot exist without the other, He adds in a manuscript marginal note that these cannot be achieved unless there is the ‘condimento del piacere’ which Hotace has 38 See Hose, pp. 57-39. For example, atthe ond of Act sv of Arreopia too chorus says Et si veded in e Che mal grado di ria Fon tigpo ty cho ea uel che al gran Glove place, and at the end of Act wv in Selene: : Quanto mi maraviglio Dialoun che saggio pare B pur cerca levare Da la divina forza Le cose, e porle in Forva ‘Als Fortuna cieca! ¥ See Soriti rite, p. 78.60 PEGGY OSBORN said is s0 necessary in conveying the moral lesson of the poem, ‘perché se solamente egli attendesse al grave, al miserabile, al terribile, farebbe la composizione odiosa e dal diritto comporte si torrebbe chi solo a dilettar si desse’.® Perhaps it was partly this preoccupation with i/ piacere which led Giraldi to give a happy ending to two-thirds of his tragedies and also to invent his own plots, since we find him putting forward the view in the Discorso intorno al comsporre delle comedie delle tragedie toat.a new plot will help to bring home the play’s moral lesson to the spectator by reason of the fact that, as we have already seen, ‘si apparecchia ella maggiore attenzione’ #9 In his Apology for Orbeecbe Giraldi claims that the Ancients gave pre- eminence to tragedy over all other types of poem, Come color, che ben vedean, che nulla, Bra nel mondo, onde potesse havere Lo stuolo human modo miglior [di] vita,41 and in the Prologue to Se/ene he explains, rather as he does in the Discorso . intorno al comporre dei romanzé, that the playwrights took over from the philosophers and sages the duty of teaching men how to discern good from evil, since the theatre can do this more effectively and can convey the message to 2 greater number of people in a shorter space of time than can the writings of philosophers, Perché vepgendo indi gli spettatori Varie sembianze d’huomini, e di donne, Di varil uffici, ¢ qualita diverse, E di varii costumi, ¢ varie legei » Sortie diversi fini, e varie sorti; Fattl acuti, sapesser da sé in tanta Variet’ di genti, ¢ di costumi, Seguir la loda, et ischivare il biasmo. In a marginal manuscript addition to his Distorso intorno al comporre dei romanzi, Gitaldi stresses that if he remembers Horace’s advice to combine what is useful with what is enjoyable in his plays, the poet will be fulfilling an important social function, Perché ancora [che] questi fie. the philosopher] con piti gravith maneggi le materie gravi ed eccellenti tratta nondimeno il poeta le medesime con piacere, per Vartificio ch’egli usa, giova ¢ diletta ¢ porge utile non pure a coloro che son capaci di conoscere i sentimenti ascosi sotto le fizioni, ma anco agli altti che non sono atti alla profonda intelligenza, perché quella fizione fa diletto a chi legge gli desta nell’animo insieme con quel piacere, qualche spicito di virtd che il fa desto alla loda.ed a fuggire i vizi.!® 29 Serittt erie, p. 275. © Dhrori, ps typ. 48 Orbeceit, D. 129. © Scrittécrlii, p. 275GIRALDI’s TRAGEDIES 6r Inthe Prologue to Selene Gisaldi associates the Este court with Rome and Athens in the importance it ascribes to the theatre in its civil Life both as a means of delighting and of instructing the public, and reminds the audience that they are indebted to the Duke for the performance they ate about to witness, The Prologue to Didore gives an example of the kind of moral lesson to be learnt from his tragedies, for Giraldi reveals that Aeneas will revert to the rule of reason during the course of the play, but that Dido, on the other hand, will allow herself to be overcome by ‘van disio’ and will give way to despair. Such a spectacle, directed as itis “ad utile comun’, will help the audience to choose the former cousse of action and adhete only to ‘honesto amote’, Similarly the Prologue to Copatra demonstrates the dire results for a state when the ruler allows pleasure to prevail over virtue, E che puote regaar sol lungamente Chi, preso il Inme di sagion per guida, SA comandare 4 sé, repger sé stesso; and the Prologue closes, as frequently happens, with the wish that the audience may learn from the play to take reason as Heir guide ‘in tal guisa, che la vita | Sempre habbiate felice, ¢ il fin lieto’. The theme of the folly of allowing oneself to fall prey to passion recurs in the Prologues to Epitia and to Arrenopia, as it does again and again in the choral odes of Giraldi’s tragedies,5 In Giraldi’s view, catharsis was one method of achieving the desired moral effect in tragedy, and in the Discorso he states that, while comedy instils ‘buoni costumi’ via pleasure and laughter, ‘la tragedia o sia di fin lieto o Winfelice col miserabile, ¢ col tertibile purga gli animi da vizi, e gl'induce a buoni costumi’.# He goes on to explain that such emotions can only be aroused by ‘le persone ... Palto grado (le quali sono mezze tra i buoni e gli scelleratiy, not by those who are wholly good or wholly evil, 48 Such choral odes often combine the theme of the plight of the protegonists blinded by passion with an apostrophe to Divine Love, expressed in neo-Platonte terms; see for example the choral ode at the end of Act 1x of Aisile: Che se pet le belt caduea Palina Arde di divin fuoco, Bonché sla chlusa ia’ questa fragil salma, Spinta da puro zelo, Aspita solo a Palma Belta, senza temer caldo, né gelo . . Er nto oltee sen vi co" bel disio, Di grado, in gredo & volo, Che si trova condotta inanzi & Dio, ide la mente, Lontana da ogai rio Pensiero, e van deske felicemente Et gode di Dio solo Sprezzando cid, ch"ha Puno, e Paltro polo, 4 Discorso, ps 176.62 PEGGY OSBORN since the spectators must be made to feel that they were worthy of some punishment, ‘ma non gid di cosi grave. E questa giustizia, mescolata colla gravexza del supplizio, induce quell’orroze ¢ quella compassione, I quale € necessaria alla tragedia’.6 The Prologue to Clpaira contains a clear and ptecise summary of this same view of catharsis: the Ancients (Gitaldi continues) found nothing more productive of pleasure and profit than drama, and tragedy holds pride of place here, ‘siasi ella di fin mesto o di fin lieto’ Che ella imita le reali attioni Con quella graviti, con quel decoro Onde compassion ne nasce, ¢ horrore, Purga da vitii gli animi morali, E lor face bramar sol la virtute, Veggendo che fin facciano coloro, ; ‘Che in tutto buon non sono, 4 in tutto tei. Similarly the Prologue to Didoe stresses that just as the greatest poets of old sought in their choice of poetic subjects ‘Di porci innanzi una ben vera imago | De la vita miglior, co’ lor Poem’, so it was from the great epics of Homer and Virgil that writers of tragedy Jater borrowed many of theit themes, E Fesposero in scena, & gli occhi alesui, Per purgar Phumane alme col tetrore, E, con compassion de gli altri casi, Da la vana ridurle & miglior vita. As these quotations show, Giraldi opted for the most straightforward interpretation possible of Atistotle’s complex statement concerning, catharsis, namely that the spectator, seeing a chatacter suffering terrible afflictions for some error or misdeed he has committed, is overwhelmed with compassion for him and with horror at the magnitude of his punish- ment, and departs purged of similar ‘perturbazioni’, that is, determined not to commit the same fault himself and to shun vice and pursue virtue in fature.? Gitaldi had obviously given considerable thought to the question of catharsis, and at the end of the Discorso offers an interesting psychological explanation of tragic pleasure: ‘mi son risoluto che la tragedia ha anco i suo diletto, e in quel pianto si scuopre um nascoso piacere che il fa dilettevole a chi Pascolta e tragge gli animi alla attenzione e gli empie di maraviglia’,*® as a result of which pathos the spectator will be more responsive to the moral lesson of the play. The reaction of ‘maraviglia’ on #8 Ditcorso, p. x82, 48 This refetence toa tragedy ending happily reminds us that Giraldi was alscady writing Alle, his firet tragedia di lieto fine, at the same time 2s Chopatra and Didone; see Horne, pp. 17-18. 47 Sec P, R, Home’s summing up of Girald?s interpretation of Aristotle in his study, p, 31. 48 Discorso, p.a23,GrRAzDI’s TRAGEDIES 6 his part is seen by Giraldias the frst step towards purgation, preceding the pity and horror, and this ingredient of a good tragedy is mentioned in the Prologue to Epitie, whete Giraldi promises to represent such extreme variations of fortune in his play ‘Che ne rimarra ognun maraviglioso’. Such vicissitudes will help to underline the play’s motal lesson, which is ‘che ascivo | Desiderio conduce a miser fine’. Giraldi, then, devotes a considerable amount of space in his prologues (doubtless with sttong ducal approval) to discussing the dramatic innova- tions and the moral aims of his tragic theatre that he also elaborates in his ctitical writings, but he also uses his prologues fot less weighty matters, such a3 informing the audience of the play’s location, just as comedy writers had done since Roman times.! He usually waits to include such information near the end of his prologues, after he has completed his more general remarks and is ready to transport his audience into the imaginary world of his play, In the Prologue to Orbeeche one gets the impression that the cuttain was being slowly lowered to reveal the set® as the reciter neared the end of his speech, for he tells the spectators that, although they think they are still in Ferrara, Fuor del creder vostro, tutti insieme (Per opra occulta del Poeta nostro) Vi trovatete in uno instante, in Susa, Citta nobil di Persia, and goes on to tell them that they are swiftly travelling, albeit unawares, and are nearing the end of their journey, ‘Then (perhaps as the full set was revealed to their eyes) he exclaims: ‘Ecco quest’é, Pampia cittt reale | Questo &’1 real palazzo’, and adds, in order to whet theit appetites for what lay in store, Anzi ’l ticetto Di morti, ¢ di nefandi, e sozxi effetti E @ogai sceleraggine. In none of the other prologues is the setting introduced in such a dramatic manner as in Orbeccle, but that of Altile describes to the spectator how the poet has transported them to Damascus by means of his magic arts ‘per gran mari, e erti monti’ and proceeds to indicate the city to them, ex- claiming © This was necessary information, since the set represented on a Retiissance stage ws often 4 standard one requiring to be reidentified at the start of each play. Compare the Prologue to ‘Mandragelain which Machiavelli tells the audience ‘Vedete Pappatato, | quale or vi si dimostea; | ‘questa & Firenze vostra; | un’altea volta sari Roma 0 Pisa; | cosa da smascellarsi per le ris’, 89 Giraldi emphasizes the importance of the set in the Disrorso: ‘Dec . .. procurare il poeta di fare che si scopta, all’abbassar della coltrina, scena degna della zappresentazione della favola, sia ella comica o thaglea’ (Disrorso, p. 219).64 PEGGY OSBORN. Eccola, Spettatori, ecco le stanze Reali, ¢ i palagi alti, e superbi Di que’ Signozi, c‘hoggi comparize Vedrete qui, per darvi alto diletto. In the Prologue to Selene he tells them that, although the play is to take place in far-away Egypt, Il Poeta, per men vostro disagio, Insensibilemente, con nova arte, ‘Vi ha tutti insieme a lei fatti condurre, If they do not believe him, they have only to raise theis eyes to the beautiful land which he is pointing out to them, ‘E vi vedrete, senza muover piede, | Giuati tutti in un punto in Alessandria’, Cleopatra, too, is of course set in Alexandria, and the speaker of the Prologue indicates the city on one side of the stage and, on the other, Egypt ‘che si fertile fan l’onde'del Nilo’, After establishing the play’s setting, Gizaldi frequently uses the final section of the prologue to lead directly into the action by announcing the artival of the first character ot characters to appear on the stage; for instance, in the Prologue to Ciropatra he says ‘Ma veggo Cleopatra, | Che vuole uscite, e mio debito @ datle | Luoco’, In several other prologues he tells his spectators that he must depart as the plot is about to be expounded, and in Orbecche he concludes the Prologue very dramatically, by telling them that Nemesis is on the point of entering, ‘Horrida in vista, e tutta accesa d'ite’, accompanied by the Furies, and that he is too scared to linger another moment on stage. In keeping with the Renaissance custom of paying homage to one’s patron before embarking on a literary work, Giraldi occasionally pays Duke Ercole an elegant compliment in his prologues. These are never fulsome, but are kept dignified and fairly brief, and are introduced very naturally. For instance the play’s setting sometimes offered him a good opportunity of including a reference to the happy and just rule under which the audience themselves live, in contrast with the plight of the city where the play’s action is about to take place. In Orbernbe, for instance, he tells them forse pensatete In Ferrara trovaryi, cittt piena D’ogni virta, citta felice, quanto Ogn’altra che ’I Sol scaldi, 4 che *! mar bagni, Metcé della giustitia, ¢ del valore, Del consiglio matur, della prudenza Del suo signor, In the Prologue to A/tile he tells them he has brought Damascus to them, to save them the trouble of having to leave their own city for a less fortunate land, since theirs isGrratpr’s TRAGEDIES 65 Citta felice, al par di qualunque altza, Che da prudente, valoroso, e saggio Signor sia zeta; and Arrenopia has been written (again a suggestion of ducal participation) pet servire Al suo Signor, ch’ei riverente inchina, Sotto il cui lieto, e ben felice Impero La Citth nostra in pace si riposa, The comic prologue was not infrequently used by Terence and his modern imitators to reply to some criticism or accusation that had been levelled against them or to launch a counter-attack on their detractors, but only once do we find Gitaldi putting his prologue to such a use, namely in the Prologue to Euphimia, a play which, he tells us, isto deal with the theme of ingratitude: ‘Vitio, che fit gia sta Romani in odio, | Che ne la lingua lor non gli dier nome’, and showing Che beneficio riceputo mai, Per grande ch’egli sia, non fa gentile, Un cor villan, sf che grato si mostri ‘Al suo benefattore, anzi gli pare, Che graye ingiutia debba esser mercede Aun sommo beneficio, He adds with bitterness that in addition to the example about to be enacted, he, the poet, ‘potrebbe . . . porvene chiaro un nuovo essempio inant’ from his own life and experience, of the ‘strana mercede’ he has received in return for his kindness to a former friend, hoping that the play may help the spectators to learn to avoid similar ingratitude, Giraldi is almost certainly alluding here to bis young ex-student, Giambattista Pigna, who had so treacherously accused him of plagiarism when Gitaldi published the Discorso intorno al comporre dei romangi (1554) and who, after 1558, sup- planted Giraldi in the favour of the new young Duke, To liken Pigna to the blackguard Acharisto of his play was vengeance indeed! But Giraldi’s biographer, Ieronimo Giovannini da Capugnano,* tells us that Gitaldi was a generous and sincere man to whom ingratitude was anathema, and certainly Pigna does seem to have behaved in a thoroughly unscrupulous manner, ‘As was usually the practice in classical comedy, Giraldi’s prologues all appear to be delivered by an actor spealking in the guise of the ‘Pzologo’ on behalf of the author, but whereas the character ‘Prologus’ is frequently to be found included in the dramatis personae of Plautus and Terence, there is no mention of ‘Prologo’ in the cast lists of Giraldi’s characters, 8 See La site del’ extort p. 2, included in the 1593 edition of the Hecatommit potea a nfun modo gPingrat,e li malign’, 566 PEGGY OSBORN Giraldi’s prologues tend to conform very loosely to the following pattern: they open by making some general statement, for example on the mutability of human affairs, or the moral function of tragedy, or both, which the poet then links to the dramatic theme in question, going on to make a few references to the events about to be witnessed and the lessons to be drawn from them, In the case of his /ieto fine plays, he promises his audience that all will end well to their general satisfaction, and he concludes by indicating the play’s location, by craving the attention of his audience, and wishing them well as he makes his exit. Giraldi has thus succeeded in adapting the comic prologue to his own use with considerable skill and ingenuity, making of it an important and highly versatile addition to Senecan tragic form, as well as a self-contained small work of art in itself, He enlarged its scope to include a far wider range of subjects than the prologues of Roman comedy had covered, and used it to voice his critical views on such complex matters as catharsis, in a simple but lively and appealing form that could be easily assimilated by a noisy and restless audience unused to seeing tragedies performed, He also used it to arouse their interest and curiosity and to help create the atmo- sphere proper to the play which was to follow. One cannot fail to be impressed, when examining Giraldi’s prologues in conjunction with his other critical writings, by the confidence and indepen- dence with which he upholds his own views concerning the theory and practice of tragedy in the face of the general unquestioning respect of his age for the theories of the Ancients, Cleatly he was at heart more of an innovator than a traditionalist and, though well versed in the Poetics of Aristotle and Horace, he was also highly sensitive to the tastes and reactions of his audience and to the theatrical requirements of the Duke, and pre- pared, when his practice ran counter to ‘quell’uso antico’, staunchly to defend what he knew from practical experience to be the ingredients of a successful tragedy at the Court of Ferrara. The spirit that pervades all these writings of Giraldi on dramatic theory is one of innovation and of excite- ment ata bold new venture for which the first criterion was the appro- bation of his audience, and his strongest authority the support of his patron the Duke. It is typical of Giraldi that it is in a letter to his Duke written at his explicit instructions, and in conjunction with a reference to a recent successful production of one of his plays in Parma, that he makes his claim to lasting fame in these words: ‘doppo tanti secoli, hd tinovato Puso dello spettacolo, delle Tragedie, il quale era poco meno, che andato in obblivione’. Bristol Pscex Osnorn * See the Letter in defence of Didone, appended to this play, p. 147.