noblemen, the men-at-arms and the footmen and horsemen who took part
in a tournament, Diana and her nymphs suddenly make their appearance
to play a little scene which concludes in the pretended abduction of a
nymph by some soldiers. Diana claims her from the soldiers; enclosed in
a cardboard citadel, these refuse; thereupon Diana and her nymphs go to
demand the assistance and vengeance of the knights. The assault is given,
and the spectacle commences.
“Diana bore upon her head a silver crescent; her golden hair
hung about her shoulders and some of it dressed round her
head with a laurel garland ‘introphiated’ with roses, violets
and other flowers. She was dressed in crimson damask, richly
embroidered, with a fine Cyprian fabric of beaten gold,
curiously pleated like the rochet of a cardinal, descending
to the middle of her leg, and over this a rare and precious
leopard skin attached by golden buttons to her left shoulder.
Her golden boots were cut _à la nymphale_ and tied with silver
cord. Her ivory horn hung upon her left arm. Her quiver,
preciously adorned with pearls, was suspended from her right
shoulder by a thick cord in strands of white and scarlet silk.
In her right hand she carried a silver javelin. The other
nymphs differed but little from her in accoutrements save that
they had no silver crescent on their brows. Each one carried
a very beautiful Turkish bow in her hands, and a quiver like
Diana’s. Some wore upon their shoulders African skins of lynx
and marten, others led greyhounds in leash or blew their horns.
It was a lovely sight.”
In the troupe of the _Intronati_ (1530 to 1560), the leading ladies,
whose real names we ignore, appeared under the names of Lelia, Beatrice
and Isabella. In 1570, the beautiful Armiani, born at Vicenza, a poetess,
a musician and a comedienne of talent, was becoming celebrated throughout
Italy. The _Confidenti_ troupe, which went to France in 1572, had for
leading lady an actress of beauty and endowed with great literary
talents. This was Celia, whose real name was Maria Malloni. The Cavaliere
Marino surnames her in _L’Adone_ “a fourth Grace,” and Pietro Pinelli
composed in remembrance of her an entire volume of poems: _Corona di lodi
alla Signora Maria Malloni, detta Celia, comica_. She played equally well
in the Commedia dell’ Arte and in _commedia sostenuta_, in tragedy and in
pastoral. She was chiefly remarkable, according to Count Ridolfo, in the
rôle of Silvia in _L’Aminta_.
At about the same time, the _Gelosi_ troupe possessed for leading
lady “the beautiful and too tender Lidia di Bagnacavallo,” says M.
Charles Magnin. “Her jealous and but little disguised passion for her
fellow-actor Adriano Valerini caused some little scandal, a rare thing at
this time when actresses prided themselves upon nothing so much as their
virtue.”
ii
In 1578, Flaminio Scala engaged in the troupe of the _Gelosi_, then
in Florence, a young girl born in Padua in 1562, named ISABELLA, then
barely sixteen years of age, beautiful, full of talent and very virtuous.
Francesco Andreini, who was playing Captains in the same company, fell
in love with her and married her. In the following year (1579), Isabella
gave birth to a son, Giovanni-Battista Andreini (_Lelio_).
It was first under the name of Accesa that Isabella was admired and
applauded when she made her début and was elected a member of the academy
of the _Intenti_ of Pavia. She was the most celebrated actress of her
time, and honoured by the most illustrious approbation, such as that
of Tasso, Ciabrera, and Marino, not to mention cardinals, princes and
sovereigns. A crowned portrait of Isabella was placed between those of
Petrarch and Tasso in a fête given in her honour in Rome by one of her
greatest admirers, the Cardinal Aldobrandini.
Isabella was the soul, the honour, the pillar of the _Gelosi_ company.
She went to France with the troupe in 1584, and there, as in Italy,
Isabella, then in her twenty-second year, achieved the same degree of
distinction by her modest and reserved conduct as by the versatility of
her talents, and the same was again the case when she revisited France,
summoned thither by Henri IV. in 1600.
Thomas Garzon says in his _Place Universelle_:
“The graceful Isabella Andreini, the most brilliant ornament
of the stage and the theatre, as praiseworthy for her virtue
as for her beauty, has rendered so illustrious her profession
that as long as the world shall last, and down to the end of
time, the name of the famous Isabella Andreini will be held in
veneration.”
Notwithstanding the most flattering attempts to detain her, Isabella
left Paris. Compelled by an accident to interrupt her journey at Lyons,
she died there in childbirth on the 10th July 1604. The greatest honours
were paid her. Pierre Mathieu relates the event in his _Histoire
de France sous le Regne de Henri III._ (Paris, 1609); and Niccolo
Barbieri (Beltrame), who was a member of the company, tells us that the
municipality of the city of Lyons honoured the funeral of the comedienne
with marks of distinction. “The aldermen,” says M. Charles Magnin, “sent
the banners of the city and the mace-bearers to the obsequies of this
great actress, and the guild of merchants followed the procession with
torches. Francesco Andreini, the husband of this famous woman, caused an
epitaph to be engraved upon her tomb which is to be read in Mazuchelli,
and which may yet exist in Lyons, where it was still to be seen at the
end of the eighteenth century. This epitaph concludes in the following
terms:—‘_Religiosa, pia, musis amica et artis scenicæ caput, hic
resurrectionem exspectat...._’”
A beautiful medal was struck, bearing the effigy of Isabella Andreini,
her name being followed by the letters C.G., which stand for _Comica
Gelosa_ (comedienne of the _Gelosi_ troupe), and bearing on the obverse
the figure of Fame with the words “_Æterna Fama_.” She had deserved
all these distinctions not only by the wealth of imagination which she
displayed in the Commedia dell’ Arte, but by various publications from
her pen, some in verse and some in prose. During her various sojourns
in Paris, the last of which was in 1603, she conquered the admiration of
both court and city, and enjoyed a very particular favour with Marie de’
Médicis and Henri IV.
She has left us some sonnets, madrigals and songs, _La Pastorale de
Myrtille_, printed at Verona in 1588, and a _Canzonniere_ printed in
Milan in 1601. With her died the _Gelosi_ troupe.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the leading ladies of the
various Italian troupes were Renemia, Lucia, Pandolfina, Lucrezia and
Virginia.
Lavinia, whose real name was Diana Ponti, _comica desiosa_, an actress
and poetess (1580), discovered, according to Riccoboni, among the
effects inherited from her father—a comedian like herself—a large number
of scenarii bearing the precious autograph signature of Saint Charles
Borromeo. The explanation of this curious fact is as follows:—Adriano
Valerini had been called to Milan. Notwithstanding the tolerance shown
to comedians by the Italian clergy, the governor of the city, having
fallen a prey to some scruple of conscience, ordered the suspension of
the performances by the troupe under Valerini’s management. Valerini
protested. The governor submitted the matter to the decision of the
archbishop, who was Charles Borromeo. The good prelate summoned the
comedian into his presence, questioned him, heard him and permitted
him to reopen his theatre on condition that he would submit to him his
scenarii. Those which he approved he signed with his own hand. One of the
greatest saints of the church reading and approving the scenarii of the
Commedia dell’Arte is a fact as significant as it is striking. Niccolo
Barbieri (Beltrame) says in his _Discorso_ that Braga, the Pantaloon of
the company of Valerini, as well as the Pedrolino, still possessed in
his day (1634) manuscripts approved and signed by Saint Charles Borromeo.
In 1601, Virginia Ramponi filled the rôles of leading lady in the
_Gelosi_ troupe. G. B. Andreini fell in love with her and married her in
1601. He wrote for her his first piece under the title of _Florinda_ in
consequence of the name which she bore in the theatre. She died somewhere
about 1634.
In the French company at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, an Italian actress was
playing in 1617, under the Gallicised name of Florentine, the rôles of
leading lady, and the daughters of Gros-Guillaume.
In the _Fedeli_ troupe, in 1624, Margarita Luciani, the wife of Girolamo
Gavarini (Captain Rhinoceros), died a few days after her husband, and as
devoutly as he.
In 1635, Lidia, an actress of great merit, was the second wife of G. B.
Andreini, the director of the company.
In 1652, Eularia Coris, a young and charming comedienne, was one of
the last actresses to sustain by her talent the weakening vogue of the
_Fedeli_ troupe. She contributed, with Lidia, to the success of a devout
dramatic piece entitled _La Maddalena Lasciva e Penitente_, performed for
the first time in 1607.
“The list of characters is curious,” says M. Charles Magnin;
“beside Magdalen, Martha and Lazarus, the principal parts
are those of the Archangel Michael, several angels, Divine
Grace, three lovers of Magdalen, her page, her waiting-woman,
her seneschal, her cook, two dwarfs and three old women of
ill repute. In the first three acts there is no question of
anything but gallantry and merry-making. Magdalen, abandoned
absolutely to her senses, closes her ears to the wise counsels
of Martha her sister. In the third act, penitent and contrite,
she renounces pleasure, assumes a hair-shirt, is favoured by
ecstatic visions, and finally ascends to heaven, borne in
the arms of five cherubims, whilst the Archangel Michael and
Divine Grace exhort the audience to follow the example of this
reconciled sinner.”
Agata Calderoni, known under the name of Flaminia in Italy, was the
grandmother of Virginia Baletti, the wife of Riccoboni (Lelio), and she
took the theatre name of Flaminia, which had become hereditary in the
family.
iii
“Is it you, AURELIA—beautiful Aurelia?—you, whose riches are your least
attraction, and heaven alone knows how rich you are! You, whose beauty
and goodness match your wealth and generosity, deign to answer me, O my
hope, my future! Deign to accept my services! Permit me to follow you
that I may read in your eyes your least desire! Command of me all that it
is humanly possible to do! I deliver myself up to you, body and soul; I
am your slave.”
Aurelia replies: “Are you Horace? No! You are not the man I love, who
will be my slave only in becoming my master. Withdraw, I must not listen
to you! If you are come to demand of me nothing but my love, I answer you
that you may claim of me any other alms but not that of my heart.”
Whilst in Italy the rôles of leading lady were being interpreted by
Orsola Bianchi, born in Venice, they were being filled in France by her
sister, Brigida Bianchi, known by the name of Aurelia. She went to Paris
in 1640 with Tiberio Fiurelli, left it in the following year, to return
again in 1645, with her father, Giuseppe Bianchi, the director of the
troupe, her sisters Luigia and Orsola and her husband, Marco Romagnesi.
In 1659 Aurelia wrote a piece, _L’Inganno Fortunato_, which she dedicated
to the queen-mother. The queen-mother found the piece to her taste and
conveyed her thanks to Aurelia in the shape of a present consisting of a
pair of diamond earrings of exquisite workmanship, said by Loret to be
worth three hundred pistoles.
Aurelia left Paris at the end of June of 1659, but was absent only a
year. Upon learning of the death of Romagnesi, her husband, she returned
there in 1660, re-entered the theatre and did not retire until 1683. She
remained in Paris after going into retirement; she resided in the Rue
Saint-Denis, near the convent of the great Saint-Chaumont, where she
passed away at the age of ninety, in 1703.
She was a very beautiful woman, with great taste in dress, and
passionately addicted to her toilet. Mademoiselle Belmont, the wife of
Romagnesi de Belmont (Léandre), her grandson, says that she found her
upon her deathbed beautifully dressed in the very latest mode.
Aurelia had been very much beloved by Anne of Austria; like Scaramouche
she was admitted to the intimacy of the queen.
Orsola Corteze, known in the theatre under the name of Eularia, made her
début in Paris in 1660 at the age of twenty-three. Her mother, Barbara
Corteze, known under the name of Florinda, claimed for her husband
descent from Hernando Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico. Orsolo Corteze
married Giuseppe-Domenico Biancolelli (Harlequin), at Saint-Germain
l’Auxerrois, and bore him twelve children.
“She was tall and well made without being beautiful; and of an extremely
amiable disposition.” She undertook the parts of leading lady after
the retirement of Aurelia, and remained in the theatre until 1680. In
1704 she withdrew to Montargis, to the convent of the Sisters of the
Visitation of Mary, and died there in 1718 at the age of eighty-six.
iv
Françoise-Marie-Apolline Biancolelli, the daughter of the famous
Harlequin Domenico Biancolelli and of Orsola Corteze, was born in Paris
in 1664, and made her first appearance there in 1683 in the rôles of
leading lady, under the _nom de guerre_ of ISABELLE. At the same time
her younger sister undertook the parts of soubrette under the name of
Columbine.
“Never” (says Devizé) “was the Comédie-Italienne so applauded
as it is now. If Harlequin is inimitable in the various rôles
in which he is to be seen performing, his two daughters are
no less so; the various characters which they play are so
admirably rendered that they have earned the applause of all
Paris, which never wearies of admiring them. Never has one
beheld so much intelligence for comedy combined with so much
youth. There is no part undertaken by them of which they do not
acquit themselves with such a grace that when they appear upon
the stage it almost seems that they must have been born solely
for the character which they represent.”
The following monologue from Gherardi presents a resumé of the dominant
character of the Isabella type:
“Sirs, in the deplorable state into which gallantry has fallen,
it is not surprising that a woman should be compelled to uphold
the cause of all her sisters. Our sex might wait long and in
vain for the other to undertake the task of avenging it. Since
taverns and tobacco-shops have become so fashionable women have
ceased to please; and love, powerful though he be, is unable in
the minds of young men to offer adequate compensation for the
fatuous and brutal pleasure of a debauch at _l’Alliance_ or _la
Galère_.
“Where are the days when the fair sex beheld the flower of
youth assiduously at its feet?—those days which might rightly
be called the golden age of tenderness, when hearts came in
squadrons to reconnoitre our power! In those happy days none
was sure of conquering us, and banishment followed quickly upon
the least wrong that should be done us. But the face of things
is changed. We no longer behold at this time of day a thousand
indefatigable adventurers ready to sustain our cause against
all the world; and love, which in other times was a source of
riches to our sex, is to-day no more than a source of ruin.
“It is not in our century that you must seek those magnificent
heroines who came forward to repair, at the price of their
jewels, the most cruel desolations of war, and thus to place
themselves side by side with the most famous conquerors.
Gallantry to-day is no longer recognisable, or else it haggles
even in the matter of little favours; and far from stripping
oneself of everything in the service of love, one’s heart
is given only with reservations. But that which has most
contributed to decry gallantry is the unworthy profanation
of our attractions by uniting us daily to imbecile old men,
members of a nation which in all times has been contemned by
the kingdom of love. These bizarre matches, which avarice
suggests to our parents, open the door to innumerable abuses.
They constitute a nursery for separations, and a clear source
of profit to so many coquettish abbés who are everlastingly
lying in wait for marriages of this description.
“Is it credible that there should be girls so innocent as
to accept without vexation these changes in the matter of
marriage? And is not the sweet idea of matrimony which we
form for ourselves incompatible with the austerities to which
bespectacled husbands would subject us? Are we not aware that
Hymen’s is a sort of warfare from which old men and children
are disqualified? What sort of a figure can an old dodderer
be expected to cut under the banner of Hymen, or rather what
sort of a figure can a young girl be expected to cut beside a
husband who catechises her at every hour, who counts the steps
she takes, who does not open his lips save to contradict her or
to beguile her with tales of his bygone prowess? a sour-faced
fellow who accounts the addition of a ribbon to his wife’s
head-dress as a crime, and who sets questions to his servants
on the score of the most innocent movements of his better half?
I do not even touch upon that legion of infirmities of which
old age is the prey, nor the unbearable cough which is the
music to which an old man invariably treats his young wife.
You are not to suppose that I do not see something heroic in
the sad fidelity of which a woman has the courage to pride
herself towards husbands of this kind, but it is necessary
that I should frankly confess my own weakness. In a similar
extremity I could answer only for a stony inflexibility never
to depart from the hatred which at the outset I must conceive
for any old man who should dare to attempt my liberty.”
When she is in love she recoils before nothing to disembarrass herself of
the fetters imposed upon her by the paternal will:
ISABELLE (_dressed as a man, before the mirror adjusting her
cravat_). Give me that hat, Pierrot. Do you find in me a
cavalier to your taste?
PIERROT. Pardi, mademoiselle, you are charming. You might be
mistaken for me. Yet there is a little difference. Are you
going to raise a company of infantry?
ISABELLE. Do not think to mock me. I should not tremble more
than another under fire.
PIERROT. If all captains were of your kind they might save
enlisting expenses and produce their own soldiers.
ISABELLE. I do not assume this costume without reason. You know
that my father wants me to marry M. Bassinet.
PIERROT. Your father? Good! He is a drivelling old fool, as I
have told him.
ISABELLE. I am making use of this disguise to avoid that
marriage. M. Bassinet has never seen me. He is coming to pay me
a visit, and I shall await him in this apparel. I am going to
give him news of Isabelle, and—by heaven!—I shall quench his
desire to marry her.
PIERROT. Mordi, now, there’s a daring girl! I have always told
your father that I never believed he was your mother’s husband
when you were born. You have too much spirit. Don’t you think
so?
ISABELLE. Oh, as for me, Pierrot, that does not trouble me. I
am concerned only to put an end, if I can, to this impertinent
marriage by which I am threatened. But here comes, I think, M.
Bassinet. Leave me with him; I shall play my part.
PIERROT (_going off_). Pardi, it is the man himself. He looks
like an old boar.
ISABELLE (_seats herself nonchalantly in an arm-chair. The
Doctor enters_). Your servant, sir; your servant.
THE DOCTOR (_perceiving ISABELLE, and mistaking her for a
man_). Sir, I beg your pardon. I was told that Mademoiselle
Isabelle was in her chamber. (_Aside._) What the devil’s this
coxcomb doing here?
ISABELLE. Sir, she is not here, and I am awaiting her. But
you, sir, what do you seek? Is mademoiselle ill? From your
countenance I take you to be a doctor, and you have all the
appearances of a member of the faculty.
THE DOCTOR. You are not mistaken, sir. I am a nursling of
Hippocrates. But I am not here to feel the pulse of Isabelle.
My pretensions are quite otherwise.
ISABELLE. Indeed. And of what nature, pray, are the pretensions
of a doctor towards a young girl?
THE DOCTOR. I seek to marry her.
ISABELLE (_laughing_). Ah! ah! ah!
THE DOCTOR. You find it droll?
ISABELLE. Not at all; but it is that ... ah! ah! ah! I laugh
like that sometimes, ah! ah! ah!
THE DOCTOR (_considering himself in a mirror_). Is my face
dirty?
ISABELLE. No, I am just laughing. Ah! ah! ah!... Tell me, sir,
in determining to take so perilous a leap, I hope that you have
properly sounded yourself? You have not, perchance, discovered
any little headache, eh? You understand me?
THE DOCTOR. Not at all, sir. I am very well. I am not subject
to headaches.
ISABELLE (_placing her hand upon his brow_). My faith! You
will be able to wear them very well, and I would as soon that
you should marry that girl as another.
THE DOCTOR. And so would I.
ISABELLE. But when she is your wife do not spoil her by your
ridiculous manners. We have had a good deal of trouble to
bring her to her present state. I shall be accounted among
your friends, and I intend when you are married to come to you
without ceremony to eat your capon.
THE DOCTOR. Sir, you do me too much honour, but I never eat
poultry. From what I hear, you are perfectly acquainted with
the lady in question?
ISABELLE. Our acquaintance does not date from yesterday, and if
you are discreet I can tell you something concerning her which
I am sure you do not know.
THE DOCTOR. Oh, you can tell me everything and depend upon my
discretion. You know that doctors——
ISABELLE. I spend ... but I must take care that no one
overhears us.... I spend every night in her chamber.
THE DOCTOR (_stupefied_). In her chamber?
ISABELLE. In her chamber, and I could even tell you—— But you
are sure to talk?
THE DOCTOR. No, no, I swear it!
ISABELLE. Last night my head reposed upon the same pillow. Draw
your own conclusions from that.
THE DOCTOR. On the same pillow?
ISABELLE. And it will be the same again to-morrow. Still, what
I have told you should not hinder you from carrying through the
affair. A real lover is not to be put off by trifles.
THE DOCTOR. Trifles! Fine trifles! After all, nothing presses
yet in the matter of this marriage. Farewell, sir. Heaven has
befriended me. Here is a young man who loves me. (_Exit._)
ISABELLE. I think that his vapours of love for Isabelle are
over now. In the quarter of an hour during which I have played
the man, I have been a fairly complete rascal.
The rôles of Isabelle are usually purely comedy ones. It is no part
of her business to affect her audience or even to engross it. She is
concerned to enliven the stage with her satires, her fantasies and her
wit. She speaks like a man, and she has the knowledge, the audacity and
the self-assertion of one.
ISABELLE. Do you not know, Columbine, that prose is the very
offal of wit, and that a single madrigal can infuse more
tenderness into a heart than thirty of the best-balanced
periods? It is only the very base who do not love poets to
the point of folly. Ah, Columbine! how charming is a man when
he offers us his vows after having passed them through the
sieve of the Muses. How is one to resist the declaration when
it strikes the ear in rhythm, and when its imagery forces
sensibility into the wildest and most rebellious soul? What
joy, Columbine, to rejoice the heart with these ingenious
novelties that enclose a deal of passion in very little space.
Oh, the happy talent to be able to restrict your movements and
thoughts to the feet and measures prescribed by poetry!
COLUMBINE. Do you realise, mademoiselle, that such feet might
lead you straight to the Petites-Maisons! Wit is all very well,
but something else is needed in marriage. Waiting-woman though
I be, I would not take a poet either to lover or to husband.
What profit is there in being the wife of a rhymer? Is a room
to be furnished with epigrams? Is a butcher to be paid with
sonnets? My faith! if I were in your place I should throw
myself at some good financier, who would cause my merit to roll
in a coach, and who——
ISABELLE. A financier! Horror!