names and exhibited in many manners. They are designed and dressed
and manipulated in innumerable ways. In a twelfth-century manuscript
discovered in the Strasbourg library there is an illustration of very
primitive little _figurini_. They represent a pair of warriors caused
to fight by means of two cords; the action is horizontal. Somewhat
the same principle is employed to operate simple little dolls dancing
on a board, generally a couple of them together, the string tied to
the knee of the puppeteer. He makes the figures perform by moving
his leg and generally plays on a drum or tambourine to accompany the
motion. As a rule the name burattini is applied to the dolls with
heads and hands fashioned of wood or paper-maché and manipulated by a
hand thrust under the empty dress, a finger and a thumb fitted into
the two sleeves to work the arms, another finger used to turn or bow
the head of the doll. These pupazzi were most frequently played in
pairs by travelling showmen with little portable castelli. Fantoccini
are the puppets fashioned more or less after the human figure. They
are made of cardboard or wood and occasionally in part of metal or
plaster. They are sometimes crudely carved, sometimes modelled with
attention to every detail. They are operated by means of wires or
threads connecting them with the control, which is in the hands of the
marionettist standing concealed above. The number and arrangement of
threads and controls may be simple or intricate. Sometimes the limbs
are wired and all the wires except those of the arms are carried out
of the head through an iron tube. Another device is that of wiring the
dolls and manipulating them from below by pedals. There is no end to
the variety of contrivances invented by the makers of marionettes. The
more elaborate dolls are generally exhibited in large and substantial
castelli or on permanent stages constructed in private homes or in
theatres used entirely for fantocinni, the spectacular effects being
carried out on an amazing scale.[3]
From earliest times the marionettes have been exceedingly popular with
both learned and ignorant. Every village was visited by ambulant shows,
every city had its large castello, frequently many of them, while noble
families had their private puppet theatres and engaged distinguished
writers to compose plays. Lorenzo de Medici is said to have enjoyed
puppet shows and to have given many of them. Cosimo I is reported to
have had the fantoccini in the Palazzo Vecchio, Francesco I in the
Uffizi: Girolamo Cardan, celebrated mathematician and physician wrote
in 1550, “An entire day would not be sufficient in which to describe
these puppets that play, fight, shoot, dance and make music.” Leone
Allaci, librarian of the Vatican under Pope Alexander VII, stopped
nightly to watch the burattini play. Prominent mechanicians and
scientists used their skill to create clever _pupazzi_; artists have
left us charming pictures of groups thronging around the castelli in
the public roads; poets and scholars wrote plays for the marionettes.
[Illustration: FIGURES USED FOR CHRISTMAS CRIB INSIDE THE CHURCH
Seventeenth or eighteenth century
[From the collection of Mr. Sumner Healey, New York]]
In the beginning the repertory of the pupazzi was derived entirely from
the _sacre rappresentazione_, consisting of scenes from the Old and
the New Testaments, stories of miracles and martyrdoms. Soon a comic
element was allowed to creep in, the better to hold the attention of
the audience. Fables were introduced for variety, and episodes from
heroic tales of chivalry, also satires reminiscent of Roman decadence.
The latter were performed by puppets fantastically dressed and
burlesqueing local types, and, naturally, speaking in the native
dialect of those particular characters. The showman improvised the
dialogue to fit the occasion, using only a skeleton plot to direct the
action just as did the actors of the _Commedia dell’Arte_. “Thus,”
claims an authority on Italian puppetry, “on this humble stage were
born types of the ancient Italian theatre, the immortal masks.” It
might be as difficult to prove as to disprove this statement, but at
any rate the pupazzi had a hand in popularizing and perpetuating the
famous _maschere_.
At this point it might be well to digress for a moment and to
consider the commedia dell’arte which is so interwoven with the story
of Italian marionettes. Along with the commedia erudita which was
flourishing at the courts of the great Italian princes there developed
an extemporaneous, popular theatre depending greatly for its spirit
upon the invention and talent of the actors. Perhaps the beginnings
of its gay humor may be traced back to the comic and local elements
introduced into the early _sacre rappresentazione_. Perhaps the
characters were copied from the familiar buffoons of Latin comedy. At
any rate, the well-known masks or _personaggi_ of the cast represented
amusing types from all strata of Italian society, and each was
immediately recognizable by a conventionalized and rather grotesque
costume. _Arlecchino_, who originally came from Bergamo, is the chief
personage of this motley group. He is a unique figure in his strange
suit of multi-colored patches, his black mask, his peculiar weapon,
all reminiscent of the Roman _Histrio_. At first conceived as a happy,
simple fellow, he became in time a character of unbridled gayety and
pointed wit. Then there was _Pulcinella_, descended probably from the
Roman _Maccus_, a Neapolitan rogue and merry-maker whose white costume
serves to accentuate the hump in his back and his other physical
peculiarities. There were _Scaramuccia_, also of Naples, false bravo
and coward, _Stentorella_, from Florence, a mean miserly wretch,
_Cassandrino_, the charming fop and braggart, a Roman invention.
_Messer Pantalone_ is a good-natured Venetian merchant deceived by all,
_Scapino_ is the mischief maker apt to lead youth astray, _Constantine_
of Verona is “said youth.” Then come _Brighella_, _Capitaine_,
_Pierrot_, world renowned, _Columbine_, _Isabella_, and a host of
other Italian conceptions, to say nothing of _Pasquino_, _Peppinno_,
_Ornofrio_ and _Rosina_ who are the masks of Sicily.
[Illustration: PULCINELLA IN ITALY
[From original color lithograph]]
It was customary to have the plot and the principal situations
sketchily outlined for the actors. They then went into the play
supplying dialogue and improvising action and appropriate jests as the
mood of the moment dictated. The humor of the theatre was merry and
spontaneous, though frequently extremely broad and of questionable
taste. But despite this license of manners, the morals and purposes
of the plays were good, levelling shafts of satire against the frauds
and abuses of the age, poking fun and scorn at rogueries, hypocrisies,
weaknesses. The commedia dell’arte flourished brilliantly for a
century or more. Flaminio Scala was the first director who attempted
to systematize it. In 1611 he published a number of scenarii and
detailed directions for the action. However, in time the unbridled wit
degenerated into mere vulgarity, the grace and spontaneity of gesture
into absurd acrobatic tricks and grimacing, the bubbling jests and
startling situations became stale. It was then that Goldoni came to
reform the Italian drama. In his plays, it is true, one may still find
traces of the popular masks, but they are relegated to minor rôles,
subdued and properly clad. They will never wholly die out.
Through various stages of the Italian drama the marionettes have
trailed gayly along, ever adopting the new without discarding the old.
Their repertoire is all inclusive. They have enacted sacred dramas and
legends of saints, _Sansone e Dalila_, _Sante Tecla_, _Guida Iscaretta_
and innumerable others. They have made use of the scenarios of old
Latin plays such as _Amor non virtoso_ and _Il Basilico di Berganasso._
When the bombastic, elaborate plays were discarded by the actors they
came into possession of the puppet showmen. Thereafter the burattini
became grandiloquent, and stalked about as princes and heroes of
tragedy, while their trappings and settings often grew correspondingly
elaborate. To fables of heroes and pastoral scenes, to the romances
of Paladins and Saracens and spectacular tales of brigands, assassins
and tyrants were added the pathetic and romantic melodramas of
foreign lands. _Il Flauto magico_, _La donna Serpente_, _Genovieffa
di Brabante_, _Elizabetta Potowsky_, everything was to be seen in the
castelli of the fantoccini, even the military plays of Iffland and
Kotzebue. Moreover Arlecchino and his band were always allowed to enter
at any time, into any situation. Indeed, when the commedia dell’arte
became at last discredited on the larger stage it sought shelter with
the puppets. Thus in the puppet booths the popular old personaggi were
kept alive among the people, where they had, indeed, been ever very
much at home.
These old masks continue to be found to-day in the puppet shows of
Italy, as are also the melodramatic tragedies popular with the masses
and the clever, satirical comedies given in more intellectual circles.
Stendhal (Marie Henri Beyle), in his _Voyage en Italie_, reports
that in Rome he witnessed a wonderful performance of Machiavelli’s
_Mandragore_ performed for a select and highly cultured circle by
marvellous little marionettes on a stage scarcely five feet wide but
perfect in every detail. Rome has always abounded in puppet theatres.
Ernest Peixotto writes in 1903 that noblemen were in the habit of
giving plays acted by fantoccini in their palaces, plays reeking with
escapades and political satire that dared not show its face on the
public boards. Stendhal wrote also that he found Cassandrino at the
_Teatro Fiano_ very much the vogue, presented as a fashionable man of
the world falling in love with every petticoat. Teoli, who had made
the part famous, was an engraver by profession as well as an expert
marionettist. His delightful little Cassandrino was sometimes allowed
to appear in a three-cornered hat and scarlet coat suggesting the
cardinal, sometimes as a foppish Roman citizen, clever and experienced
but still with a weakness for the ladies. He was a charming instrument
for voicing popular criticism against the ecclesiastics and the
government. What wonder that Teoli’s theatre was sometimes closed and
he himself imprisoned? But Gregory XVI reopened the theatre and long
after Teoli’s death it remained in the hands of his family.
At the present time in what was formerly this very Fiano theatre,
in the Piazza S. Apollinare, there still exists a prominent show of
fantoccini. Here the small auditorium is perfectly fitted out for the
accommodation of the very respectable middle-class audience with a
sprinkling of the aristocracy. The stage is well lighted, there is an
orchestra, the dolls are beautifully, nay, elegantly dressed. Here we
find Pulcinella entering into the plays, a well-mannered, dexterous
Pulcinella. The ballet is amazingly graceful, often ending with a
tableau or even fireworks.
The most popular puppet theatre in Rome to-day, however, seems to be
that in the Piazza Montanara. Here the rather primitive fantoccini
present, most frequently, the ancient tales of chivalry from Ariosto
but their repertory also includes such diverse dramatic material
as _Aeneas, King of Tunis_ and _The Discovery of the Indies by
Christopher Columbus_. The audience sitting in the pit is composed
chiefly of rough, bronzed working men with thick, unkempt hair, a noisy
crowd all eating cakes or cracking pumpkin seeds between their teeth.
A spectator thus describes a performance: “To-day they are to perform
the lovely tale of _Angellica and Medoro_, or _Orlando Furioso and the
Paladins_. The curtain rises and the marionettes appear. The valiant
Roland and Pulcinella, his squire, come forth with a bound and neither
of them touches the ground. Roland is covered with iron from head to
foot and holds in his hand the Durlindana, [his sword]. Pulcinella has
white stockings, a white costume, with wide sleeves, and a white cap
with a tassel. The marionettes are two feet high, their limbs perfectly
supple, and lend themselves to any movement, etc. etc.”
The same account tells us that the play of _Christopher Columbus_
had been given here fourteen evenings in succession, three times an
evening. In it the Indians excited special curiosity, decked out with
splendid plumes.
[Illustration: ITALIAN PUPPET BALLET
[From a drawing in Hermann S. Rehm’s _Das Buch der Marionetten_]]
In 1912 Mr. W. Story visited a similar theatre of fantoccini in Genoa
where elaborate productions (usually of the wars of the Paladins) were
presented to an ever-receptive audience. “What is that great noise of
drums inside?” inquired Mr. Story of the ticket seller. “Battaglio,”
was the reproving reply, “E sempre battaglie!” (Always battle!)
Although this perpetual fray was rather crude, it was followed by an
excellent ballet which danced the most intricate steps with masterly
ease and grace.
There is an account by Charles Dickens of the show which he witnessed
in Genoa. It is too entertaining to be omitted.
“The Theatre of Puppets, or _Marionetti_, a famous company from Milano,
is, without any exception, the drollest exhibition I ever beheld in my
life, etc.
“The comic man in the comedy I saw one summer night, is a waiter at a
hotel. There never was such a locomotive actor since the world began.
Great pains are taken with him. He has extra joints in his legs, and
a practical eye, with which he winks at the pit, in a manner that
is absolutely insupportable to a stranger, but which the initiated
audience, mainly composed of the common people, receive (as they do
everything else) quite as a matter of course, and as if he were a man.
His spirits are prodigious. He continually shakes his legs, and winks
his eye.
“There is a heavy father with grey hair, who sits down on the regular
conventional stage-bank, and blesses his daughter in the regular
conventional way, who is tremendous. No one would suppose it possible
that anything short of a real man could be so tedious. It is the
triumph of art.
“In the ballet, an Enchanter runs away with the Bride, in the very hour
of her nuptials. He brings her to his cave, and tries to soothe her.
They sit down on a sofa (the regular sofa! in the regular place, O. P.
Second Entrance!) and a procession of musicians enter; one creature
playing a drum, and knocking himself off his legs at every blow. These
failing to delight her, dancers appear. Four first; then two; the
two; the flesh-coloured two. The way in which they dance; the height
to which they spring; the impossible and inhuman extent to which they
pirouette; the revelation of their preposterous legs; the coming down
with a pause, on the very tips of their toes, when the music requires
it; the gentleman’s retiring up, when it is the lady’s turn; and the
lady’s retiring up when it is the gentleman’s turn; the final passion
of a pas-de-deux; and going off with a bound! I shall never see a real
ballet, with a composed countenance, again.
“I went, another night, to see these Puppets act a play called ‘St.
Helena, or the Death of Napoleon.’ It began by the disclosure of
Napoleon, with an immense head, seated on a sofa in his chamber at St.
Helena; to whom his valet entered, with this obscure announcement:
“‘Sir Yew ud se on Low!’ (The ow, as in cow).
“Sir Hudson (that you could have seen his regimentals!) was a perfect
mammoth of a man, to Napoleon; hideously ugly; with a monstrously
disproportionate face, and a great clump for the lower-jaw, to express
his tyrannical and obdurate nature.
“He began his system of persecution by calling his prisoner ‘General
Buonaparte’; to which the latter replied, with the deepest tragedy,
‘Sir Yew ud se on Low, call me not thus. Repeat that phrase and leave
me! I am Napoleon, Emperor of France!’ Sir Yew ud se on, nothing
daunted, proceeded to entertain him with an ordinance of the British
Government, regulating the state he should preserve, and the furniture
of his rooms; and limiting his attendants to four or five persons.
‘Four or five for me!’ said Napoleon. ‘Me! One hundred thousand men
were lately at my sole command; and this English officer talks of four
or five for me!’
“Throughout the piece, Napoleon (who talked very like the real
Napoleon, and was forever having small soliloquies by himself) was very
bitter on ‘these English soldiers’ to the great satisfaction of the
audience, who were perfectly delighted to have Low bullied; and who,
whenever Low said ‘General Buonaparte’ (which he always did; always
receiving the same correction) quite execrated him. It would be hard to
say why; for Italians have little cause to sympathize with Napoleon,
Heaven knows.
“There was no plot at all, except that a French officer, disguised as
an Englishman, came to propound a plan of escape, and being discovered
(but not before Napoleon had magnanimously refused to steal his
freedom), was immediately ordered off by Low to be hanged, in two very
long speeches, which Low made memorable, by winding up with ‘Yas!’ to
show that he was English, which brought down thunders of applause.
Napoleon was so affected by this catastrophe, that he fainted away on
the spot, and was carried out by two other puppets.
“Judging from what followed, it would appear that he never recovered
from the shock; for the next act showed him, in a clean shirt, in his
bed (curtains crimson and white), where a lady, prematurely dressed in
mourning, brought two little children, who kneeled down by the bedside,
while he made a decent end; the last word on his lips being ‘Vatterlo.’
“Dr. Antommarchi was represented by a puppet with long lank hair,
like Mawworm’s, who, in consequence of some derangement of his wires,
hovered about the couch like a vulture, and gave medical opinions in
the air. He was almost as good as Low, though the latter was great
at all times, a decided brute and villain, beyond all possibility of
mistake. Low was especially fine at the last, when, hearing the doctor
and the valet say, ‘The Emperor is dead!’ he pulled out his watch, and
wound up the piece (not the watch) by exclaiming, with characteristic
brutality, ‘Ha! ha! Eleven minutes to six! The General dead! and the
spy hanged!’
“This brought the curtain down, triumphantly.”
Goethe was greatly interested by the shows in Naples where every event
of local interest was introduced upon the puppet stage. The humor of
the Neapolitan Pulcinella was often vulgar; ladies were not supposed
to visit the shows, although they were frequently given in fine
society. On the street where they were most popular, however, they drew
about them picturesque audiences reminiscent of Hogarth’s sketches.
Pulcinella was made to speak with a squeaky voice by means of the
pivetta, a little metal contrivance placed in the mouth of the actor.
It is formed of two curved pieces of tin or brass, bound together and
hollow inside. The voice, passing through this, acquired a shrill and
ridiculous sound.
Until the eighteenth century the puppets enjoyed celebrity and prestige
in Venice. Vittorio Malmani tells us that from the sixteenth century
when they became the vogue among Italian nobility, Venetian patricians
were accustomed to build elaborate little puppet theatres in their
palaces. One example of this was that of Antonio Labia, who exactly
reproduced in miniature the huge theatre, S. Giovanni Grisostomo,
famous throughout Europe, stage, boxes, decorations, machinery,
lighting facilities, costumes--everything precisely imitated the larger
theatre. The actors were figurines of wax and wood. The first drama
produced here was _Lo Starnuto d’Ercole_ (The Sneeze of Hercules) which
we may find described in Goldini’s memoirs.
In the Piazza of San Marco and in the Piazzetta until the fall of the
Republic, so Malamani tells us, the castelli of the burattini were
numerous during carnival time. In the eighteenth century the _casotti_
of Paglialunga and Bordogna were great rival attractions until the
former showman died and his little actors went to swell the company
of Bordogna, whose descendants continued the theatre throughout the
eighteenth century. The casotto of Bordogna has been painted by the
brush of Longhi, standing near the great dove of the Ducal Palace.
A. Calthrop tells of his recent visit to a rough little place,
_Teatro Minerva_, where three-foot burattini, looking life size, were
manipulated crudely to the intense satisfaction of the audience. He
mentions a well-managed maschere, Guillette and her lover, a clownish
dwarf, both speaking in the Venetian dialect, and after the play, the
marionette ballet. Another account tells of a pretty little puppet
theatre with boxes, galleries and parquet where dolls thirty-five
inches high play classic tragedy of four or five acts and comedy
and pantomime, including always a marvellous ballet. Here the most
admired puppet receives encores, even bouquets and very properly bows
in response. The stages of such little theatres are as complete as
the most luxurious real stages. The figures can sit on chairs, open
bureau drawers, carry objects, and they are carefully and beautifully
costumed. The dialogue and subjects are far removed from the triviality
of the crude castelli, where the pupazzi are manipulated on the fingers
of the showman. It is not unusual to witness _Nebuccodnoser_ performed
by fantoccini or Rossini’s operas.
In recent issues of _The Marionette_ one will find an enthusiastic
eulogy of a remarkable puppet theatre in Torino, the proprietors of
which were the Lupi brothers. They had inherited their profession from
their grandfather, a wandering showman of Ferrara, and from their
father, a man of lively talent who had established the present theatre.
The two brothers were named Luigi I and Luigi II, respectively;
only one is still living. Their show has been taken far and wide.
It travelled from Buenos Aires to London, from Chicago to Venice,
and has gained as great applause as did the puppets of the famous
Prandi brothers of Brescia in their day. The repertory embraces the
universe in time and space, extends from the flood to the siege of
Makalle; comprises mythology, natural history and city news; stretches
from China to California, from Cafrena to Greenland, from spaces in
the air to abysses of ocean, from the circles of Paradise to the
caverns of Hell. It includes the old commedia dell’arte, dramas from
all literatures, the ballets of Pratesi and Manzotti, the operas of
Meyerbeer and Verdi, all the military glories of the nation from
the battle of Goito to the occupation of Rome, all the congresses,
earthquakes, epidemics, floods, coronations, exhibitions, etc.
In Bologna flourished the show founded by Filippo Cuccoli, whose clever
invention of the character Sandrone became so popular. In the hands of
the son, Angelo Cuccoli, the puppets continued until 1905, delighting
the public with their sprightly gayety.
In Bologna, too, lived the marionettist whom Gordon Craig designates
simply but reverently as _Maestro_. His trade was that of a watchmaker,
but he was a master showman of burattini, and the shows in his
unpretentious castello are the true evidences of his devotion and deep
understanding of the art of the marionette.
There are, it is claimed, over four hundred edifizi for marionettes,
large and small, in Italy, to say nothing of the wandering booths
of which there are two or three times as many. The large mechanical
theatres compete with regular players.
The most modern maschere on the puppet stage has changed a little in
appearance, if not in spirit from the ancient masks. We are told of a
miniature Tartaglia, who twists his lips into a grimace; of a puppet,
Rogantino, who grinds his teeth; of Stenterello, who can put his finger
to his nose and scratch it; and of the newer mask, Carciofo, who has
a hollow metallic case for a body which enables him to eat macaroni,
drink and smoke. He can also undress himself! In North Italy, Gian Duja
is a puppet hero whose exploits delight the public almost as much as
those of the Paladins. He is of Piedmontese origin. He slays whomever
he encounters, modern politics being mixed up with his various and
mighty adventures.
* * * * *
The marionettes are an absorbing interest for the people of Sicily.
There is something appealing about the audiences of the usual modest
theatrino. It is composed entirely of men and boys; many of them may
have eaten dry bread without cheese or onions to save the small sum
required for admission. The people of the country are very poor,
but this is their favorite diversion. So they sit crowded into a
dark little hall, spellbound for hours, transported into a world
of romance which their spirits crave. It may be filled with crude,
primitive puppets, but it is glorified by the vivid intensity of their
imaginations.
The Sicilian shows are not very unlike the Italian. One finds farces
with local maschere, grotesque comedy, passion-plays, tragedies and
occasional ballets. But of all plays those forever and most intensely
adored are the ones founded upon the episodes of Ariosto’s _Orlando
Furioso_. Night after night the successions of thrilling adventures
proceed. Year after year the same dramas are presented, regardless of
historic veracity or of the artistic unities; their spell remains the
same. Time cannot wither nor custom stale their infinite invariability.
The spectators recognize (nay, they anticipate) each puppet hero or
villain as he enters. They know every detail of every character’s
costume. They have the order of events by heart.